In mid-December 2020, the Director and Board of Governors of Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad (IIMA) suddenly announced that they intended to knock down all 18 dormitories on the campus designed by Louis I. Kahn in the early 1960s. The international outrage was immediate, propelled by articles, petitions, and letters from architects, historians, institutions and all those who care about preserving the highest calibre of modern architecture. By the beginning of the New Year 2021, IIMA backed down. But on November 3, 2022, the board came back again, this time declaring the intention of destroying Kahn’s entire campus, including the restored library (which merited a UNESCO award for quality work), the classroom blocks, the dormitories, as well as the fine dining halls designed later by Anant Raje. In short, the Governing Board ignored global opinion, recommendations, and reports from experts–some already financed and previously supported by IIMA itself.
In making this appalling declaration, the IIMA administration dusted off the same old arguments, claiming that the buildings were not structurally sound and no longer adequate for contemporary use and expectations of comfort. Reference was made to an engineer’s report by the Indian Institute of Technology at Roorkee, but this was not published, and other engineers had come to opposite conclusions. Supposedly, “American architects” were also consulted but their study, conclusions and identity were kept secret. Transparency is not IIMA’s strong suit.
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