NATIONAL SCIENCE CENTRE,DELHI

Architect
A P Kanvinde

By,
Pramati Kulkarni
 EDUCATION

Kanvinde graduated in architecture from Sir J.J.

School of Arts, Mumbai in 1942.
He was then sent by the Government of India to
study at Harvard where he worked under Walter
Gropius and was influenced by his thinking and
teaching . The European masters of the Bauhaus –
Albert Bayer, Moholy Nagy, Marcel Breuer, and the
Swiss-American architectural historian Siegfried
Giedion also had a great impact.
 PHILOSOPHY of architect

Achyut Purushottam Kanvinde was an Indian

architect who worked in functionalist approaches
with elements of Brutalist architecture.
Kanvinde played with space and forms.
He realized that no meaningful architecture
could ever be built without understanding the
climate & geography of the region as well as
the pattern of society.
He championed the cause of vernacular
architecture. He believed that values and historical
influences contributed towards good architecture.
His designs are slender , balanced , proportionate
, neat and well crafted.
He gave great importance to natural light.
The form of the building is such that the problem
of ventilation as well as excessive heat is beautifully
solved.
He believed in vernacular architecture.
According to him architecture is not a
museum of materials.
He used bricks, stones, concrete &
aggregate plaster with equal finess and
was always on the look out for different
materials where demanded by the climatic
context.
He carried out consistently good buildings
on small scale budgets all around the
country.
 HIS DESIGN CONCEPTS

He believed that a grid of columns forming

a matrix giving structural and spatial aspect
would turn a design more sophisticated
and faceted.
He believed in the science of
Vaastushastra.
An art can be to nourish the senses. Art is
purely an aesthetic exercise.
National science centre
,Delhi
This project is located in the heart of
the Delhi city.
The building is standing on a piece of
land measuring about 7000sq.m with
a total built up area 14000 sq.m.
A set of vertical volumes rise
gradually.This building is visually
appealing, and unimposing. It has a
large grand flight of steps on its
entrance.
The entry plaza to the Centre welcomes
its visitors with a huge exhibit spanning
four floors, one of the largest exhibits in
the world.
 The building consisted of
 A. Auditorium
 B. Seminar hall
 C. Lecture hall
 D. Cafeteria
 In addition to it laboratories,depositories
work,etc.
 The shape of the site is in the form of trapezium.
 The building is multilevelled one,need for indoor
and outdoor exhibits created a systemmatic
terraces and vertical shafts for services.
PLAN
 The visitors first enter the main atrium at the second
storey level through landscaping.
 Then escalator takes them to fourth storey atrium.
 The exhibits are exhibited here ; the observer now
slowly descends to lower storey.
 The ground level consists of lecture hall , conference
hall, and common facilities like cafeteria.
 This is the last stage from there the visitors can
depart.
 Site location and view was kept in mind during the
designing of project.
 The site is surrounded by historical surroundings.
 The purana kila is in the vicinity of the building.
 Terraces have been introduced at different levels.
 It has done in order to get relief from movement
within closed places and see outdoor exhibits.
 Since the site has an association with historical
surroundings of the city,an element form of
heritage plaza at the point of entry has been
proposed depicting certain outstanding elements
associated with past,from where people could
enter the building inorder to help them orient to
the past with present.
Terrace garden also became a part of design
philosophy and form.
They tend to present cascading green planters
supported by vertical tower shaft system in the
form,expression and design.
His other works…

IIT KANPUR
DUDHSAGAR DAIRY
NEHRU SCIENCE CENTRE,MUMBAI
ISCKON TEMPLE,DELHI
THANK YOU…