Photo: Mahendra Raj in his Dehli office, 2015. © Ariel Huber
Lecture
October 6, 2016
Engineering and Designing Modern India
India’s eminent structural engineer Mahendra Raj in conversation with Aurelio Muttoni, Eric Lapierre and Ariel Huber
Introduction by Vandini Mehta and Rohit Raj Mehndiratta
This lecture-debate on the creative collaboration between engineers and architects is a contribution to the ENAC programme ‘Projeter Ensemble’ aiming to train the future generation of engineers and architects to work together on the development of our built environment.
Mahendra Raj translated highly progressive and experimental structural systems into the Indian reality – in absence of the modern techniques and machinery available in the West at the time. His impressive oeuvre were calculated for a good part without the help of computers, and realised with simplest technical means and impressive manual skills.
In collaboration with some of the finest architects active in India at the time – Charles Correa, Balkrishna Doshi, Raj Rewal, Joseph Allen Stein and Louis Kahn to name a few – Mahendra Raj was able to realise an impressive oeuvre of spectacular structures, which helped define the architectural language of Nehru’s Modern India.
Lecture organised in coopération with Archives de la construction moderne (Acm) and ENAC Projeter Ensemble.
On the occasion of the publication of the recent book: “THE STRUCTURE Works of Mahendra Raj” by Park Books.
Book available for sale during the lecture.
 Chennai Market. @ Ariel Huber, Lausanne |