Indian Architects & Modernism: The Dilemma of Thoughts

Journey of Indian architecture in search for its identity started in the middle of 20th Century. It emerged from the conflict of two parallel thought processes namely, rationalism and revivalism with the former being propagated by the followers of modernism and later by the followers of the old school of thoughts. The hegemony of rationalists’ idea prevailed over the passage of time with the arrival in India of foreign architects like Le-Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Dame Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry and the then Prime Minister Nehru had thrown his weight behind rationalism over revivalism to project independent India’s image to the world as a progressive nation. The architecture of these foreign masters had a profound influence on Indian architects’ works, some of whom being the team members of these foreign architects’ Indian commissions. This paper is an attempt to investigate whether the influence of these foreign masters’ architecture in India is limited to only a specific group of architects who worked with them during their Indian commissions or this influence was all over irrespective of the Indian architects’ association with foreign Masters.