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Journalism of Courage
Citing safety as “paramount” for the institute, the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) Thursday announced that it would stop restoration work of buildings on the old campus and go ahead with reconstruction, thus suggesting that most of the dorms, faculty blocks and classrooms would be brought down. It also launched a redesigned website with a fresh logo.
Sharing details on the decisions taken by the IIMA Board of Governors and citing the latest structural report by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkie, IIMA director Prof Errol D’Souza said, “Structural engineering reports are telling us that the life of these buildings is over and they are not safe. It is almost impossible to continue restoring the buildings… that we have been trying for the past 30-40 years.”
Pointing out that the Board did not want to compromise on safety, D’Souza said that, however, the iconic Louis Kahn Plaza will be retained.
In a communication shared with its alum by D’souza, the BoG wrote that the “deterioration of the structures was raised first at a Building Committee meeting in July 1982”. IIMA was constructed between 1962 and 1974 and was among the most towering masterpieces that Kahn designed, unique for its exposed brickwork, concrete slabs, concrete lintels and concrete beams. The academic blocks, faculty offices, and 33 fully furnished dormitories and the plaza are its key features.
“We want to maintain a legacy but don’t want to do that if it is going to hurt or kill people… we had cases in which there had been detachment of fragments of the building… we had situations where parts of the building had actually fallen off…,” he said.
Reaching out to IIT Roorkie, which the director referred to as the “top construction team in the country”, he said, “We asked them to do tests on the buildings… The tests clearly show that there is hardly any residual life left with the building and they are not seismically safe in a state that is known for having earthquakes…”
On the decision to retain the Louis Kahn Plaza, the director said, “We will retain the buildings that you see in the Louis Kahn Plaza. We will reconstruct them with the same facades… will internally do some minor changes to make them more user-friendly and will maintain those buildings as well as Dorms 16-18 on the periphery of the campus.” The other dorms will be remodelled keeping in mind Kahn’s legacy, he said.
IIMA faced strong protests from all quarters, including architects, designers, historians, alumni and children of legendary American architect Louis Kahn in December 2020, when it floated an Expression of Interest inviting bids for the reconstruction of dormitories. Within days, after opposition, the premier management institute withdrew the EoI.
