“It’s a question of what affects you and what triggers in you a sense of being alive.” Balkrishna Doshi

“I would take students into the city and ask them in their mother tongue to explain what they were thinking. For example, I had a class that would say: ‘This is a veranda, this is a terrace, this is a balcony’. And I would say, now tell me that in your mother tongue. Then they said: ‘This is the place where we sat, we chatted, we exchanged ideas’. And when they talked about windows, they said: ‘This is where we look from outside in and inside out’. So a window became something of curiosity. By contrast, most architecture schools are “looking at the body of a skeleton, and not what is below the flesh”. Certain issues are timeless, like how do you articulate space? Or how do you get the sunlight inside and work the shadows? It’s a question of what affects you and what triggers in you a sense of being alive. I think that’s very important. “ Balkrishna Doshi