Laurie Baker

by Atul Deulgaonkar

English
196 (Throughout Color and B/W Illustrations)

Genres: Architecture

196 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2019

Reviews

[Appu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Laurie Baker buildings are easily recognizable. Exposed bricks, use of jallies in the place of glass windows, a rejection of geometric building designs; these are seen as the hallmarks of Baker's building designs. But Baker was more than these. Over a long career, he developed a philosophy of cost effective and eco-sensitive architecture. Rather than using the latest technology blindly, Baker advocated appropriate technology. He suggested that indigenous building traditions had a lot to teach us still.
Baker Graduated in architecture in the 1930s from Birmingham. He went to China as a Quaker missionary during the Sino-Japanese war. On becoming ill, he came to India to board a ship from Bombay. But attracted to the philosophy of Gandhi, Baker ended up spending the rest of his life in India. He initially worked as a missionary-architect in the Garhwal Himalayas. Later, following his marriage to Dr.Elizabeth Chandy, a malayalee doctor missionary, Baker came to Vagamon in Kerala's Western Ghats. He eventually made his home in Trivandrum where he completed some of his most significant works.
This book gives an overview of Baker's life, describes his major buildings and discusses various theories of architecture with which Baker engaged with. It has photograph's aplenty and illustrations by Baker himself. It is a useful book if not an altogether elegant one.

[Prabhat Gusain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laurie Baker was an "architect's architect" and he has left his footprints on the sands of time in relation to architecture with a human face. He can be regarded as the father of green architecture in India.
- Prof M.S. Swaminathan

[Vijaya]

Amazing book

[Atul · Rating 5 out of 5]

An ultimate guide to anyone who wants to take up vernacular architecture.

[Prahallad Badami · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author makes an attempt at exposing the adversities faced by an ideologically upright and austere architect in discharging his duties towards the profession, but, in the attempt, delivers a bungled series of events. There are one too many digressions which take away the chronology of the narrative, some even bordering on banal rants. After the haphazard narrative, the book finishes off with the text of a housing Act, an interview, a letter and some drawings. One may mistake this book for an assimilation that has to be ordered and the language tweaked before it can be be published. Apart from giving a not-so-detailed insight into Baker's life, this book will leave you wanting for more details from his life, from his architecture and thoughts that accompanied them.

[Megha · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a quest to achieve the starchitect tag, architecture professionals and students forget the basis for the existence of this subject or field in a society: to build structures and dwellings for the common masses. Why this book stands out is because it questions the ethics that are talked about when a person starts their architectural education and how over some time one shapes themselves and their work on the basis of the path they decide to pursue (the two paths here refer to either working for the society in a holistic way without exploiting the customer while the other is about how certain architects make the profession about minting as money money as possible).
The book also offers insightful data into the early lives, personal interest and how Ar Laurie Baker grew in character and personality and what led to the way he worked in the architectural design profession. It also gives quite a lot of useful technical data on how to work with vernacular resources and technical details on how to cut down the pricing of structures if one uses materials and the space effectively. A treat for the readers is the plans, sketches and architectural drawings used alongside pictorial references to give a graphic image to the reader to help understand better.