Auroville mourns the passing of B.V. Doshi, a widely revered urban planner, architect, and educator who was well acquainted with Auroville’s ideals and the vision for its collaborative development. Doshi passed away on January 24th, 2023, leaving behind a legacy of Indian modernist architecture.
Born in Pune in 1927, Doshi worked with architecture legends such as Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn. During his life, he received many prestigious awards and in 2018, he became the first Indian to win the Pritzker Prize, considered architecture’s highest honor. Doshi played leading roles in education at the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT), and designed some of India’s most iconic buildings such as the Amdavad Ni Gufa and the Institute of Indology (all in Ahmedabad). He also designed several outstanding urban planning projects, such as Aranya Low Cost Housing (Indore), and some in Auroville too.
A prominent project that he carried out in the universal township was the creation of a regional plan for Auroville, that incorporated the township into the surrounding bio-region. In an online video forum called ‘Auroville City Conversations’ (2020)*, Doshi interacted with Auroville residents and expressed his philosophy of placing the ‘celebration of life’ as the first step in decision-making for development.
We take this opportunity to thank Doshi for his wisdom, and look forward to our next post about other contributions that he made in Auroville.
*To see videos of ‘Auroville City Conversations’, tap the link below:
https://youtu.be/c_be6ViaclQ