Situating Indian Architectural Discourse: Transnational Networks of Late Modernism

Post-independence India’s architectural development was fostered through transnational professional collaborations and international aid. MARG, established in 1946 (Modern Architectural Research Group) inspired by the contemporary MARS (1933-1957) group, published an eponymous magazine which engaged in dialogues with CIAM and later TEAM 10 through the contributions of Minnette di Silva, Otto Koenigsberger, B.V Doshi in the 1950s. Parallelly, internationally educated Indian architects such as Achyut Kanvinde, Habib Rehman and Charles Correa held positions of power in the government as well as on the editorial boards of other publications formulating a modern vocabulary for public infrastructure. While the existing literature on Indian architecture highlights the contributions of notable architects, it overlooks the deliberations that occurred in the architectural community. Publications such as Journal of Indian Institute of Architects (JIIA) and Marg were instrumental in advancing architectural discourse, highlighting the relationship between indigenous techniques and the adaptation of ‘modernism’ to India. Publications such as Design and The Indian Architect were established later to address the technical aspects of the construction industry while relating international design debates to the Indian context. The watershed moment for Indian architectural discourse was the 1959 Seminar of Architecture, Delhi because it questioned the validity of the modern movement in India. This changing architectural vocabulary was driven by the discourse revived by the publications to mark the shift of Indian modernism while challenging the notion of critical regionalism. This paper delves into the discourse regarding ‘modernization’ in India through the lens of specialized press, highlighting the institutional and professional collaborations which shaped it post CIAM i.e. 1957-1969. This research connects discourses across publications to present the transnational exchanges that influenced the development of identity in post-colonial India. The paper also examines the Indian publications as a critical space for discourse building upon Beatriz Colomina’s Little Magazines: Small Utopia.