Steel like straw: Louis I. Kahn and the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad
About this ebook
Initially involved only as a consultant, this project challenged him with new and unparalleled questions concerning the management of a “remote” construction site in a country where he was not familiar with tradition and methods such as India in the aftermath of its independence (1947). The reconstruction in detail of the multifaceted events of the design of the architectural complex, made it possible to highlight the significance that the IIM assumed within the broader cultural policy initiated by the Indian government and the different roles played by the protagonists involved. In particular, it retraced the working method developed by Kahn, underlining his obsessive attention to the construction details which define the overall shape of the buildings that were left with no cladding. The IIM’s focus on the various phases has also become a matter of urgency in recent years, since only a few years after the completion of the construction site the walls have begun to show the first signs of degradation which remain unsolved still today.
About the author
Alessandra Rampazzo, b. 1986. Architect and PhD in History of Architecture. She graduated at Iuav University in Venice in 2010 and completed her PhD in History of Architecture in 2017. She is a founding partner, together with Marcello Galiotto, of AMAA Collaborative Architecture Office
For Research And Development she has been based in Venice since 2012 and in Arzignano (VI) since 2018. Her professional practice is continuously combined with academic research between Italy and India as well as her role as TA at the University for both areas of the practice, which are the practical design and the historical and theoretical practice of architecture.
