Architect shows off work spanning 47 yrs

NEW DELHI, MARCH 12: Braving indifferent health and a freshly sustained nose injury, the 87-year-old post-Independence equivalent of Edwi...

NEW DELHI, MARCH 12: Braving indifferent health and a freshly sustained nose injury, the 87-year-old post-Independence equivalent of Edwin Lutyens showed off slides of some of his landmarks at the School of Planning amp; Architecture SPA today. Joseph Allen Stein8217;s eyes lit up, even as his hands trembled when he held the microphone, and he proceeded to speak in a voice as steady as some of his most well-known creations.

The occasion was the inaugural programme of the Retrospective Exhibition on 50 Years of Indian Architecture amp; Planning organised by the SPA. Admirers and students of architecture turned up to see in person the man who first came to India from MIT in 1952 to head the Department of Architecture at Bengal Engineering College at Shivpur, Howrah, stayed back and became famous as the designer of the India International Centre and the India Habitat Centre, among other modern wonders.

8220;Triveni Kala Sangam is my favourite,8221; declared Stein about the project that allowed him considerable freedom to experiment, before he set forth on the India International Centre, which remains his characteristic design with jaalis and exquisite attention to detail. He also showcased the equally meticulously designed Australian High Commission, the Ford Foundation and, finally, the India Habitat Centre. 8220;The India Habitat Centre was built 30 years after the India International Centre and this is reflected in the difference in the land-use patterns,8221; said Stein, as he held out a remedy for the ills of the future.

8220;The population of the country has tripled since the Second World War, but even with the influx from agriculture to industry, only two dozen cities have been built. No wonder we have unmanageable cities. We have two options: we can either have elevated highways or we can go in for organic town-planning as was done before the First World War.8221; This, he explained, was the philosophy behind the highly functional design of the India Habitat Centre with two-levels of parking that are nowhere in view.

While Delhi remains his home he has lived here for more than four decades, Stein has imprinted his stamp of genius in Durgapur, Independent India8217;s first steel city, and the International Conference Centre in Srinagar, which he described in detail.

But it is the Capital where he has been immortalised. As Professor Asesh Kumar Maitra, Director, SPA said: 8220;Professor Stein has become so much a part of our landscape that I call the area around the India International Centre, Steinabad.8221; The 15-day exhibition at the specially-designed enclosure at SPA was inaugurated by P.R. Dasgupta, Secretary, Department of Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development.