Gandhinagar : building national identity in postcolonial India (Record no. 60889)
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| 000 -LEADER | |
|---|---|
| fixed length control field | 02595nam a2200181 4500 |
| 020 ## - INTERNATIONAL STANDARD BOOK NUMBER | |
| ISBN | 9781570035449 |
| 082 00 - DEWEY DECIMAL CLASSIFICATION NUMBER | |
| Classification number | 307.1216095475 |
| Item number | RAV/G |
| 100 1# - MAIN ENTRY--AUTHOR NAME | |
| Personal name | Ravi Kalia |
| 245 10 - TITLE STATEMENT | |
| Title | Gandhinagar : building national identity in postcolonial India |
| 260 ## - PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, ETC. (IMPRINT) | |
| Place of publication | Columbia, SC : |
| Name of publisher | University of South Carolina Press, |
| Year of publication | c2004. |
| 300 ## - PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION | |
| Number of Pages | xiv, 165 p. : |
| Other physical details | ill. ; |
| 520 ## - SUMMARY, ETC. | |
| Summary, etc | The culmination of Ravi Kalia's trilogy on the formation of capital cities in postcolonial India, Gandhinagar joins the historian's other two volumes, on Chandigarh and Bhubaneswar, in tracing India's efforts to establish its twentieth–century architectural identity. In following the development of these cities, Kalia recounts India's progression through precolonial, British, modern, and postmodern theory and practice, particularly the architectural ideology propagated by Western architects Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn.<br/><br/>Kalia explains that Gandhinagar, the capital of Gujarat in western India, became a battleground for the competing ideals that had surfaced during the building of Chandigarh and Bhubaneswar. The mill owners of the neighboring city of Ahmedabad, backed by Indian architect and planner Balkrishna Doshi, wanted the American Louis Kahn to build Gandhinagar as a worthy rival to Le Corbusier's Chandigarh. There was, however, tremendous political pressure to make Gandhinagar a purely Indian enterprise, partly because the state of Gujarat was the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi. Kalia illumines Kahn's early influence in the city and his replacement by Doshi and then by American-trained H. K. Mewada, who had apprenticed with Le Corbusier in Chandigarh. Kalia shows that, unlike the other two cities, Gandhinagar would become emblematic of Gandhian ideals of swadeshi (indigenous) goods and swaraj (self-rule).<br/><br/>Exploring the impact of modernist architecture on India as a whole, Kalia suggests that the style gained acceptance because its parsimonious designs and unadorned spaces never represented a threat to a religiously pluralist country anxious to create a secular identity. He explains how two competing versions of Indian history and ideology―Ganhdi's and Jawaharlal Nehru's―employed modernism's ideals for their own separate ends. Serving two masters, as Kalia illustrates, created constrictions and tensions evident in the building of Gandhinagar and in the careers of many Indian architects, including Doshi, Charles Correa, and Achyut Kanvinde. |
| 650 #0 - SUBJECT ADDED ENTRY--TOPICAL TERM | |
| Topical Term | City planning |
| 650 #0 - SUBJECT ADDED ENTRY--TOPICAL TERM | |
| Topical Term | Urban policy |
| 650 #0 - SUBJECT ADDED ENTRY--TOPICAL TERM | |
| Topical Term | India--Gāndhīnagar |
| 650 #0 - SUBJECT ADDED ENTRY--TOPICAL TERM | |
| Topical Term | city planning |
| 942 ## - ADDED ENTRY ELEMENTS (KOHA) | |
| Koha item type | BK |
| 952 ## - LOCATION AND ITEM INFORMATION (KOHA) | |
| Withdrawn status | |
| Lost status | |
| Damaged status | Home library | Shelving location | Date acquired | Full call number | Accession Number | Koha item type |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kannur University Central Library | Stack | 19/03/2021 | 307.1216095475 RAV/G | 52520 | BK |