Balkrishna Doshi has been awarded the 2018 Pritzker Prize, the highest honor in the field of architecture. Doshi is the founding partner of Vastu Shilpa Consultants, the firm that designed IIM Udaipur’s new 300 acre campus that is currently completing construction in Balicha, Udaipur.
Doshi’s distinguished career has spanned more than seven decades and encompasses a vast panoply of over 100 projects. He worked with international master Le Corbusier in the 1950s helping to create the plan for Chandigarh and in the 1960s worked as an associate of Louis Kahn on the design of IIM Ahmedabad.
Among his notable works are the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, the Aranya Low Cost Housing Project, the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT) as well as many major public projects, mixed-use complexes, galleries and private residences across India. Education has been a constant presence in BV Doshi’s life and career. He was the founder Director of the School of Architecture and Planning, Ahmedabad, and the founder Dean of the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology. He has taught and lectured widely in India and around the world.
The Pritzker Prize was established in 1979. It is awarded each year to honor a living architect for his or her “talent, vision and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment”. Past winners include I.M. Pei, Richard Meier, Frank Gehry, Tadao Ando, Renzo Piano, Rem Koolhaas, Norman Foster, and Herzog/de Meuron. The award will be conferred in May 2018 at the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, Canada, which is part of the impressive complex that includes the Ismaili Centre designed by renowned Indian architect Charles Correa.
