raj rewal

“When tradition meets

Innovation”

AR. RAJ REWAL

Submitted by:SiddhantTanvi PuriRachit Gupta

LIFE and CAREER Born on 24, November 1934 in village Hoshiarpur, Punjab. He lived in Shimla and Delhi in 1939-1951. He attended Harcourt Butler Higher Secondary School In 1951-1954,he attended Delhi School of Architecture, New

Delhi In 1955-1961, he moved to London and attended the

Architectural Association School for one year. He completed his formal professional training at the Brixton

School of Building, London He worked as an assistant stage manager for many avante

grade theatre productions in London. He became an associate of Royal Institute of British Architects,

London. He opened a second office in Tehran, Iran in 1974. In 1986, curator of the exhibition “Traditional Architecture

of India” for the festival of India in Paris

PROFESSIONAL PROFILE & ACHIEVEMENT

He completed his professional education in Europe. He met with 3 encounters which shaped his architectural ideology. He developed his ideology and followed it for the rest of his life. First encounter, he relates to his interest in structures during which

he developed during the review of his diploma projects. Second one accounts on his working experience that he gained while

he was working as an assistant manager for several Avante Grade theatre productions in London. As a set designer for the drama shows, he learnt that each dramatic work had a particular character which he interpreted as the rasa of the building.

Third encounter, he worked with Michel Ecohard in Paris, before beginning his own architectural practice. In this office, he learned the principles of Urban design and Planning.

AWARDS: Gold Medal from Indian Institute of Architects Robert Mathew Award from the Commonwealth Associations of

Architects.

Influences of Raj RewalThe two major influence that he encountered is the time when he returned to India. He admits that those influences have helped him in his development as an architect.

• When he became a Professor at the School of Planning and Architecture in New Delhi.

• After studying the Projects of Le Corbusier.

• Influenced by the typologies of traditional buildings and cities like Jaisalmer.

Corbusier made contemporary designs. After the success achieved by him in the planning of Chandigarh City, it became evident to Raj Rewal that Modern means can be applied to build in India.He developed a sense of Contemporary style as well as learned to retain the traditionalism of India.

City of Jaisalmer

Humanyun’s Tomb a document for Hall of Nations

“Breathing life and feelings into buildings, rasa of architecture

comes alive most resoundingly in eminent architect Raj Rewal’s

works”

Rewal’s designs have some things in common with those of his contemporaries Charles Correa, Balkrishna V Doshiand Achyut Kanvinde— such as broken-up forms, open courtyards and sociable living or working environments. But Rewal’s work has its own range and grammar. Unlike the other architects, and like Joseph Allen Stein also in New Delhi, Rewal has built largely in one place and climate — Delhi, and hot, dry north India.

PHILOSOPHY

Structural innovation

• Rewal’s oeuvre encompasses megastructures and microspaces. He is interested in structural innovation in big buildings, as well as in small, nurturing spaces for everyday living.

• One comes from his 1950s training in, mainly, London and Paris, and the other from his memories of life in older settlements.

• Rewal’s commitment to structural innovation was unusual for the 1970s in India. Engineering was believed to serve the vision of the architect.

• To a large extent it is so even today. But buildings like the State Trading Corporation tower (1976) in the heart of New Delhi turned that process around. Here Rewal used a structural concept as the basis of the architectural form.

At the STC building, Rewal has turned the external wall of alternate floors into a special beam with holes in its sides, called a Vierendeel girder. Windows are placed in the little holes that this beam allows.

Liveable spaces

Important as his structural innovations are, Rewal’s housing and institutional complexes have had a greater impact on Indian modernism. The Asian Games Village, and before that the housing in New Delhi, have given architects a useful way of designing low-rise housing.

At the Asian Games Village, Rewal stacked apartments so that the upper floor footprint was shifted by a module or two with respect to the lower floor. This has given the upper floors their own terraces. It has also created ‘gateways’ over the pedestrian spaces around which the buildings are gathered. Car parking is kept to the periphery, creating a safe and attractive outdoor space for residents. This model has been replicated in Vasant Kunj by the Delhi Development Authority from the mid-1980s onward.

Sheikh Sarai housing

Grammar of form

• Rewal has helped transform a modernism learnt from the West, quietly, into its very opposite. The continuities with Modernism in his best work balance some relatively radical departures from Modernist dogma. Rewal has developed a distinctive grammar of his own.

• This grammar reflects two apparently opposed value systems: the traditional one of the hot and dry parts of India, with its taste for pattern and ornament, and the Western Modernist one of abstract expression. Rewal has been able to combine the possibilities that each one offers with the least discord.

Delhi Metro Corporation Head Quarter, New Delhi

This reflects a concern for climatic sensitivity and energy efficiency.

He is pained to see developers investing in glass. “Glass is for colder climates. Its transparency is nullified in hot weather as you have to cover it with heavy curtains. As you shut the door to nature, the cost of air conditioning goes up substantially.”

World Bank Regional Mission, New Delhi

Rewal’s grammar uses some of the principles of traditional architecture in Rajasthan — upper floors project outwards to shade lower walls, jalis cut glare or improve a façade. He uses the same material — sandstone — often, but as cladding for RCC (reinforced cement concrete) and masonry structures rather than structural work. In effect, Rewal reinterprets traditional stone architecture in modern brick and RCC.

British High Commission Housing-New Delhi Engineers Indian House, New Delhi

Reconciling opposites

Much of the time, Rewal’s way of resolving these contradictions is what decides the success of his work. At CIET, for example, Rewal manages to sustain a delicate balance between the slenderness of the circular RCC columns and the visual weight of the red sandstone-clad walls. Massiveness and delicacy are held in fine counterpoint.

At the STC building, however, the horizontal red sandstone bands interrupt the verticality of the columns. This curtails the building’s visual power. Thus the traditional affinity for breaking up large surfaces with pattern weakens the power of Modernist concept and scale

Central Institute for Educational Technology

State Trading Corporation tower

HIS WORKS 1. HALL OF NATIONS 2. ASIAD GAMES VILLAGE 3. PARLIAMENT LIBRARY 4. GUJRAL HOUSE5. ISMAILI CENTRE

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HALL OF NATIONSPragati Maidan, New Delhi

AIM :• Exhibition space

• To reflect symbolically & technologically India’s important

place in the modern, industrializing community of nations.BUILDING TYPE: EXHIBITION

YEAR: 1972LAND: 130 AcresThe main pavilion has a clear span of 78 metres and a height varying from three metres to 21 metres, thereby providing a vast capacity for items to be exhibited, from books to bulldozers

PLAN

SITE PLAN

The depth of the structural system was utilized as a Sun breaker and conceived of in terms of he traditional 'jali', a geometrical pattern of perforation that serves to obstruct directs rays of the harsh Sun while permitting air circulation.

The Hall of Nations being built at Pragati Maidan fairground in

Delhi in 1972. Built of reinforced concrete,

this was the first construction of its

kind in India.

Each of the halls was initially conceived as a full pyramid the truncated form was adopted in order to avoid unnecessary constructions.

Octahedral measuring 5 mts from joint to joint were employed as 3 dimensional unit of the space frame, which rests on 8 pts around the essentially square planned and allows 11 mts wide opening between the supports

• The main pavilion of the hall of nations has a clear span of 78 m and a height vary from 3 m to 21m , thereby providing a vast capacity for items to be exhibited from books to bulldozers with an area of approximately 6,700 sq.m in a 82m x 82m x 27m high truncated pyramid supported on eight points.

• The hall of industries on the other hand is a combination of 4 smaller pavilions by ramps enclosing a central area for open air exhibits, utilities, toilets, and other services are located under the ramps. Each of the four 'Halls of Industries' is similar in design and is 44m x 44 m x 16m high

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A special 9 member joint was evolved for precast construction but the builder preferred in-situ construction. The joint was modified to suit the adopted technique.

The 'Halls of Nations' is supported on pile foundations tied together with post tensioned plinth beams stressed in stages. The 'Hall of Industries' rest on spread footings tied together with high tensile steel bars. The entire complex was analysed, designed and built in a period of fifteen months

ASIAN GAMES VILLAGE, NEW DELHI, 1980

Concept is based on sequence of open spaces linked by narrow, shaded pedestrian streets and containing both residential and commercial activities

An obvious source of inspiration for such narrow streets linking the housing units is the traditional street scale pattern found in many indian cities , where narrow paths become spaces for encounters between people, the open squares offer a sense of neighbourhood

the combination of various dwelling types into an urban pattern of unusual diversity (particularly in comparison to other DDA housing estates) makes asiad village quite remarkable.

PROJECT DETAILS

The house was designed for corner plot in south delhi.

It explores fluid spaces, which connects the entrance hall, living areas and dining room to display paintings of this eminent Artist.

A studio for the artist is located at the upper most level above the bedrooms.

The basement was designed to exhibit the ceramics work of KIRAN GUJRAL and adjoining garden was sunk to provide ample light for it

DETAILED PLAN

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GUJRAL HOUSE Designed for an artist, the Gujral house provided approximately

800sqm of living space also intended for the display of paintings and works of art.

A central staircase connects various levels of the dwelling which have the difference in height of one and a half meters.

Certain interior spaces have direct access to outdoor gardens at differing levels; the basement, for example, is one and a half meters from ground level and contains a workshop for ceramics joined to sunken open court.

Similarly the main living space at plus one and a half meters can be continued outwards on to the raised garden.

The Gujral house was constructed with exposed bricks, without surface treatment internally or externally.

Moreover the concrete floor slabs and beams were left exposed; the marks of the wooden planks used for shuttering are still visible.

Large pivoting doors of teak and glass separate the living areas and the garden

EXTERIOR

MAIN ENTRANCE

INTERIOR

PEDESTRIAN ACESSS