Even I, someone so used to fusing odd things in the blog, would not have thought that someday I will mention the great architect Louis Kahn and a Hindi movie song ‘Locha-e-ulfat’ (Complication of love) in one breath. But here I am doing precisely that.
The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, is a great campus and something I am intimately familiar with. It is a great campus because apart from being a famed management school it was designed by Kahn (March 5, 1901-March 17, 1974). The exposed brick and concrete buildings with Kahn’s trademark airy and open spaces work well with Ahmedabad’s terrible summers and mild winters. The buildings with its arches and minimalist clean lines create among its occupants a sense of freedom even while giving them a specific context.
The campus has Kahn’s remarkable sense of geometry that filters Ahmedabad’s harsh and often dust-infused yellow light in such a way that it makes it look terribly inviting.
So it is with some joy that I discovered Kahn’s campus to be the location for an upcoming Hindi film called ‘2 States.’ The architecture of the campus gives this song a distinct personality. The film’s director Abhishek Varman and cinematographer Binod Pradhan would have instantly realized the buildings’ cinematic potential.
Kahn, who designed the 60-acre campus in the late 1960s but died before it was completed in 1974, would have perhaps been pleasantly amused to watch this rather peppy song composed by Shankar Ehsan Loy. I have taken a few frozen frames from the song’s video to illustrate the point about Kahn’s open and clean architecture.
(I could not embed the song here but its URL is linked to the first picture on top)
South Asia Daily 