The Indian identity- a synthesis of Modern and traditional

India is a country steeped in paradoxes, whether conflict arises between the young and the old or in the age old battle of traditional and modern, so it should hardly be surprising that the country’s frontmen vastly differed in their ideologies for post colonial India. Nehruvian idealogy for new India looked for a break from the past and from traditional values and strove to build a modern India with progressive values. Gandhi on the other hand was a traditionalist with complete faith in Indian villages and vernacular forms, quite literally basing our freedom movement in the rejection of everything that was of foreign influence. The question is, where do these two vastly different ideologies meet?

While Chandigarh is the supposed status symbol of the modern India , the real Indian modern movement was shaped by architects like Correa and Raj Rewal in their attempt to bridge the gap between the two ideologies and tried to incorporate the vernacular with the modern. While modernism as an international movement was supposed to be unfettered from the past and culture, they and created the Indian identity of modernity as an amalgamation of the international and the vernacular.

GANDHI ASHRAM - CHARLES CORREA

In this building Correa used brick piers and concrete beams but employed a humble scale and the use of courtyards keeping in mind Gandhi's moral restraint and evoking the vernacular of India.

ASIAD VILLAGE -RAJ REWAL

Another example is that of Raj Rewal's Asian Games village which he built similar to Jaisalmer and Udaipur. He used traditional narrow streets as seen in village to facilitate intimate movement and gateways to provide a sense of enclosure and community.

Several educational complexes like IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Bangalore were designed by visionaries like Doshi and Kahn that derived their planning from ancient traditions of India.

Indian modern architecture used local materials and formed various shading devices other than the bries soliel. It drew inspiration from the traditional courts, villages , gateways and streets, recognising their positives and incorporated them.

While the modern movement became an international style that talks of doing away with the past and somewhat eradicates the sense of place, the Indian modern movement became a more evolved model of the same, taking modern principles and blending it with traditionalist values to create our best architecture. Instead of following the west blindly and partaking in international consumerism Indian architects' searched for our roots which went on to result into buildings that form the Indian identity as it is today.

REFERENCES-

https://www.architectural-review.com/places/asia-pacific/india/modernism-and-the-search-for-indian-identity/10005739.article

https://issuu.com/15.12anshu.aa/docs/research_-_traditional_and_modern_a