B.V. Doshi’s Architectural Art to be exhibited in China

From July 28, 2017, renowned architect BV Doshi’s retrospective exhibition titled ‘Celebrating Habitat: The Real, the Virtual and the Imaginary’ will be displayed at Power Station of Art Museum in Shanghai, China for three months. PadmaShri honoured Balkrishna Doshi, who is turning 90 this month has done a lot of path breaking work in his glorious career spanning 6 decades. He is among the epitome in the South Asian architecture fraternity. A few of his noted public works include the IIM Bangalore, NIFT Delhi and CEPT Ahmedabad.

The exhibition has been curated by the senior architect’s granddaughter Khushnu Hoof, who took up the task to give the viewer a glimpse of 60 years of Doshi’s work. This is achieved through 28 projects, 40 large sized, and scaled to actual wooden models, more than 60 hand drawings, around 200 snaps, sketches, hardware, furniture, paintings with multiple mediums, miniature artworks, 5 life-sized installations in sync with melodies of composer Kabeer Kathpalia and a handpicked film on Habitat.

The art pieces will reflect skyline of Ahmedabad, humongous settlements, educational institutes, individual infrastructures and showcase the transmogrification of areas in the cities of Bengaluru, Pune and Mumbai. The exhibiton is curated to be experiential in nature. It’s non-linear arrangement and the kinetics of ambient sound relevant to each installation brings the viewer closer to the space that has been displayed.

The director of the art gallery Yan Gong had experienced Doshi’s exhibition for the first time at National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi, and he believes this show will bridge the gap between Chinese architecture and Indian aesthetics and help the Indian culture to flourish in the world. The gallery has hosted architectural aficionados like Yona Friedman, Sou Fujimoto, Bernard Tschumi and Renzo Piano previously and expects influential beings from across the world to visit this time too.