Featured: Laurie Baker

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Lawrence Wilfred ‘Laurie‘ Baker was a British-born architect who practiced in India. He pioneered traditional building methods and championed vernacular architecture. There is so much one can learn from his life and work.

A few noteworthy things that stood when I read Laurie Baker: Life, Works & Writings by Gautam Bhatia -

1. Integrity
   It is the quality of being honest or the state of being whole. Staying true to something is a value you practice and no amount of preaching can beat that. At a time when everyone around was following a system of building introduced by the British, Mr. Baker turned to local practices and methodologies. For this reason, he is known as the “conscience keeper” or “Gandhi” of Indian architecture.

2. The larger picture
   That we design for people, is often forgotten somewhere along the way. People aspire to a better life, and this is the key to good design. Our work needs to be a direct and sincere response to these aspirations, the changing needs and perceptions of the inhabitants.

3. Turning Inwards
   Trends and global solutions are fleeting fancies. It doesn’t accommodate the ways of lives of a multiplicity of people. Design becomes phony and superficial when you fail to understand this.

4. Wisdom of the Past
   We needn’t look at the knowledge of our ancestors as rigid autocratic rules; they are more of a ‘collective experience of many generations’ that worked beautifully well.

“Baker’s work is an effective demonstration of his own strength, his own interpretation of tradition, technology and lifestyle.”

- Gautam Bhatia