Face-to-Face When I asked Prof Charanjit, philosophy of his firm, he affirmed that "Architecture is sometimes quixotic, so much so that it inspires, exhilarates and captures the large audience that it has, we, being a part of the audience as well as the performers, aim to satisfy both the compulsions. We are driven by the intensity of architecture that we can hile walking past produce, an almost indescribable many laurels, quality- touching one's a w a r d s , a n d i m a g i n a t i o n a n d c h a r t e r i n g W p i c t u r e s t h a t connection to a place". radiated energy of creativity- I was sure I was going to be So how does the process mesmerized for the next few inquired Prof Charanjit and his now hours. I was fortunate that I almost famous son Gurpreet, could meet and talk to the potency of the practice to which he very fa m o u s a r c h i t e c t P ro f wittingly said, “I know this sounds trite, Charanjit Shah, who is the but it's not about what's true now,” says founder of Creative Group, founder principal Prof. who, for five decades, aimed Shah. “It's about asking, 'what if'?'' to be a change agent to What if an architect transform India's image to be experimental as a chef? What if the showcased as a hub of building became a character? A living postmodern avant-garde organism? What if your environment designs. could transform with every step?
CREATIVE GROUP'S VISION AND PHILOSOPHY I asked Gurpreet about the vision of the group to which he replied, “Today's architecture has the power to grasp the viewers' mind in such a way that either it can be termed as a blockbuster or as a disaster,” explains Ar. Gurpreet Shah. “We, as architects, have the responsibility of making this art a force for mobilizing cities and rejuvenating cultures.” "We also focus on the performance of architecture responding firstly and primarily to its ecology and available resources; this criterion will change how the design performs throughout its lifecycle. If we as architects intend to use technology to become true 21st-century “master builders” we must understand that the term entails a very different set of parameters than it did 500 years ago. The responsibility for the generation of waste has returned to the architect. We propose that this responsibility translates into a design methodology". T November 2021 the I know the profile of Prof Shah, who has been the founder of The Creative Group which started its journey through v a r i o u s s t e p s o f p r o fe s s i o n a l achievements and landmarks by w i n n i n g t h e N a t i o n a l D e s i g n Competition for Jawaharlal Nehru National Cooperation Complex, New Delhi (1973), Flatted factory complex for DSIIDC, New Delhi (1971) and Institute sense of of Development Studies, Jaipur (1980); a the initial achievements of Prof. Shah, that endowed him with eminent recognition and established Creative start, I Group's place as a leading architecture firm in the design community. the Following the footsteps of his indomitably passionate and extremely hardworking father, Ar. Gurpreet Shah Charanjit S decided to join hands with Creative Group, taking the firm up a notch by could be as adding a corporate lateral to the firm's vision, which led to the firm making a niche globally by winning many National and International Design Competitions. Prof. Charanjit S Shah , the Founder Principal, Architect, educationist & academician established Creative Getting candid with... Group with a sincere approach towards Green Architecture in India. Prof. Shah is a multi-faceted Prof. Charanjit S Shah personality with vast experience as t h e c h i e f d e s i g n e r f o r infrastructure, institutional, industrial and recreational projects besides corporate interiors, etc. Besides conceptualizing and executing many highly acclaimed architectural projects, he is widely travelled with international exposure and many awards to his credit. His passion for sustainable, simple and bold architecture reflects in his design ideology. Prof. Shah has also been honoured with C B R G l o b a l Tra n s p o r ta t i o n Engineering Lifetime Achievement Award 2014 in Mumbai. Ar. Sangeet Sharma: I am with journey started. My childhood, my kindergarten stage and then we shifted to Prof. Charanjit Singh Shah. Who Bhagat Singh Market in 1956. I am just narrating this because we were then just doesn't know him? He is an barefooted. It's like the journey of any refugee leaving their house and coming inspiration, legend and institution here. in himself. Friends, through this Ar. Sangeet Sharma: You left everything in Pakistan, right? I associate myself medium of talking, I am going to with this closely, as my father too came to India during the partition leaving tell you some fantastic stories everything behind. about this man, and some great architectural aspirations. Tell me, Prof Shah: Yes Yes, then we came here and my initial schooling was done somewhere else and shifted to hardcourt butler in MandirMarg and I did my sir, what is unknown to us is your higher secondary from there. Somebody advised me to do some degree and I childhood, your growth, the development from a boy to a man said ok. I had a choice, after 11th I took admission to Jodhpur Engineering and then slowly coming to College and SPA Delhi. Mind it, I had no inclination and I did not know how to architecture. Tell us about your spell architecture at that time. personal journey . I did not know about the architecture flavour and how to put this thing together but I joined SPA because I could not afford to go to Jodhpur and live in a hostel. I Prof Shah: You know as this part of would say that was my destiny. When I joined there we had the greatest of the the nation we are called refugees we came unfortunately from faculty, from AP Kanvinde to Joseph Allen Stein to JasbirSachdev to JasbirSahni Pakistan when the partition took to Raj Rewal to Jabwala. You know all these people made me a man. I used to tell place . We belong to West Punjab. them that they were the inspiring force who really put inspiration into my mind to be an architect! My parents and I took various routes and reached Delhi. My "Tabhi to kehtehain agar achijhaag lag jayetabhi to dahiachajamtahai". parents shifted to the Refugee So that made me through a premium institution like SPA and premium camp in PuranaKilla. I was born in a professionals they groomed me from the tiny of the tiniest creature (a Refugee camp there. It's like a very miniature) to such a magnificent professional as I am today. I would rather put it big journey, God has been very as, "Never die before death". kind. From there in 1949 my T November 2021 Ar. Sangeet Sharma: Who doesn't need a person like Charanjit Shah as an advisor? Which institution, which college, which organization will not require him? He is a man who not only framed the dogmas, the fundamentals of the profession but he is impartial to every institution in India and abroad, they want to grab a part of his mind, his heart and his experience. I am going to talk to him about his involvement in various institutions.
Sir, you are now involved in teaching in various institutions, various colleges particularly in Jamia MilliaIslamia, MMU. So what is your primary role so how are you contributing? Sir, you are so busy, how can you take out time for this noble cause?
T November 2021 Prof Shah: Actually what happens that once you are in the profession, I started in 1975 I was hardcore into practice and one of my teachers, Prof PremChaudhary took me to SPA and told me, "Charanjit you start teaching". I said "Mai to yahan se padhkegayahu, main yahakyapadhasaktahun?" It's like my Mandir, it's like my Gurudwara. He was the one who inspired me to contribute back to society to the school and I'll tell you when I taught in SPA and got my first cheque I kissed it. Ar. Sangeet Sharma: I am sure, sir, what a feeling! Prof Shah: That was the feeling I got and that was the start and I taught in SPA for 10 years. Then I became the Director of Vastu Kala Academy. That was the passion, I was giving more time to teaching than the practice. My friend Prof SM Akhtar became the dean in Jamia. We have a common synergy with each other. He has nominated me as a professor in Jamia without me even knowing. He gave me the appointment letter and I taught in Jamia. Because teaching takes lots of time and it is difficult for a practising architect, I told them I will become the visiting faculty. I travelled to various colleges and was on their board of academics and board of syllabus and other things, as an advisor at APJ School, MMU, IP University, SRM Chennai in Gujrat and CEPT. All the various institutions I visited regularly and it became a passion. It's like a learning platform for me. I go to the students to teach but I take it as if I am going to them to learn. You practically regenerate yourself, rediscovering your own self. And once I went to the same SPA where I was a student and now I am teaching. That is like rediscovering yourself and that process makes you enlightened and richer to understand that, that is what is true architecture. Ar. Sangeet Sharma: Sir, after seeing your works and the experience of architecture we are here now at a very divine place, a Gurdwara and I am always very surprised that with your vast practice you are also devoting time and energies to the spiritual fields. You transformed this into a very beautiful place. You have written a book which is fantastic work you are doing. I want to know one thing sir after all those fantastic projects, how you get the time for this and I am seeing your persona and personality. It is spiritually charged. Prof Shah: Sangeet, I would rather take it as the grace of Waheguru, the almighty and it's a life journey and wherever you get an opportunity and you have given an assignment, it's like you do by your heart and it is an attitude of mine which may create the aptitude and how I look it to it. When I was assigned this duty to perform in Saket Gurudwara, we just wanted to look at and let this be looked beyond a religious activity of Gurudwara only. Activities of the Gurudwara normally happen in the morning and evening, rest there is no activity all day so let's see the Gurunanak philosophies are also adhered to make it as a pathshala where we come learn and serve the community. Besides the community langar, you need to see the other facilities, health, and education. These are matters in which we can always help the needy and unprivileged people of society. After doing all that in amenities and basic facilities which a Gurudwara needs, let's see how we contribute to society. So we started making polyclinics, where we will have all the facilities; physiotherapy, skin, eye, ultrasound, digital X-ray machines, dental health, all these facilities we were trying with the help of the community. We give these things to charity which are free of cost. Medicines and operations can be done free of cost so that the needy can have all these facilities. Ar. Sangeet Sharma: Yes sir, I have seen it's like a mini- hospital. Prof Shah: Another thing I would like to express. I am actually thinking as an architect how the optimum use of a space can be done. So it was always like what to do, what to do, then it came to my mind that today is the age of computers and education is one of the tools by which there is an opportunity for the unprivileged to educate and get the job and get their livelihood. So we started looking at that. First, we thought, it is a rich man's colony. We may not get those people here but eventually what happens is the surroundings and peripheral areas are from where we can line up the needy students where they can do the various courses like Microsoft, AutoCAD, Photoshop even tally, excel are taught here. Approx. 600 students are being taught here and the basic examination of Microsoft and Adobe is also being conducted we pay the fee for the students. They get certificates also. So these are the fundamental things now we also teaching mobile repair, hardware. English is very important today. We educate them on the basics of language also. Ar. Sangeet Sharma: This was amazing. Thank you for the time and for inspiring us, sir. T November 2021 In conversation with the legend in making: Ar. Gurpreet Singh Shah Ar. Sangeet Sharma: I am speaking to Ar. Gurpreet Singh Shah, son of legendary Prof Charanjit Singh Shah. He is the man who has taken over the reins of the office and is doing very well and he carved a niche for himself. I am going to ask him a question before going to his practice. Gurpreet, you are carrying forward a legacy. How difficult it is and how easy it is? How do you feel, share your experience. Ar. Gurpreet Shah: Thank you, sir. I think of legacy as a double-edged sword. Its benefit is that you inherit so much knowledge, and being present with Prof Shah from childhood and seeing him, how he used to work. Our office was in the basement and we used to live on the ground floor. We used to go down and see my father working and in those days they made drawings with hands and seeing those beautiful two dimensional 3Ds of houses and every day you see those beautiful hand sketches and next day when you go their things used to change. Ar. Sangeet Sharma: Butter papers are thrown here and there... Ar. Gurpreet Shah: But things were very dynamic in those days as well and you used to visualise the things with mind and work of art used to come on paper and seldom you used to change it because you thought first and then used to make it. We learnt what architectural practice is. We used to see that everything was done by Prof Shah only, handling the client, designing in the studio, doing the site visits, he used to be with the peon of the firm, getting the tea and the coffee but we used to see the passion inside T November 2021 Ar. Gurpreet Singh Shah , Principal Architect, M.S in Urban Design and recipient of William Kinne Fellowship award, Columbia University, New York, gained his early experience while a s s o c i a t e d w i t h I n t e r n a t i o n a l Architects of repute in the USA, r e v o l u t i o n i ze d t h e s c a l e a n d methodology and expanded the boundaries of practice globally. He has more than a decade of local and international architecture and urban design experience. With his vision to d e l i v e r a n e w g e n e ra t i o n o f Infrastructure, Airports and Mass transit facilities that are sustainable and also give a world-class travel experience, Ar. Gurpreet Shah has pioneered sustainable infrastructure designs in India. the architect. There was something really exciting about the profession and I used to think "hum bhiyahikarenge". and that is how my journey started and I went to Sushant school of art and architecture. There as I started to get the education I learnt from one of the professors that "sirf architect nahi banana hai you know you have to take it further..and there I decided not to go to my own office and joined as an intern in another office with Ajoy Chaoudhary and then I did my masters in Urban Planning. So when I got this global exposure in Columbia with other international students then I realized that architecture is a little bit more than what we used to think, so with the experience of people coming from different continents with great graphic ideas, people think beyond architecture they have a different vocabulary of expression. One of those is just by virtue of beautiful diagrams, simple diagrams you can portray things which are so simple, even a naive person can tell what you are trying to make people understand. Urban design was a big teacher for me that I learned that we will have to work as a team. This is something that I was never taught in India that a team is much more important than the individual. There we learnt every individual has a different skill set. Somebody can be a very good spokesman, somebody can get the whole team together and some people can be very good designers... So when all skill sets come together and when you present together as a team then you are much more than an individual. Then I worked in three international firms in the USA and there I got exposure to do master planning of Universities like Indiana Universities, Bloomington and I worked on the master planning.
Ar. Sangeet Sharma: Gurpreet, you talked about architecture. I also discovered that you have some issues which talk about our professional efficiency, deficiency. I would like to ask you the question, how can the profession grow? What are the loopholes and how does the practice, so old as an organisation, contribute much to Indian Architecture? What are the things limiting us to grow further? What is our ails our industry?
Ar. Gurpreet Shah: This is a very beautiful question and you were rightly worded that what is the ill factor that is kind of disturbing the young and old professionals in the country. If you ask and see any of the great architecture in the country, you see most of our architects in the country are good thinkers and they create something beautiful because architecture is a very passionate profession by nature whatever knowledge one has one has to give the best that terms that Indian architects are no less passionate from other architects around the Globe. But many changes we are facing. Our fees are dropping. That is a big challenge, without fees how one can survive. So that is a burning question that we all are facing today.
Ar. Sangeet Sharma: But we have our fee structure in the Council of Architecture and IIA but why are we not able to abide by that Gurpreet?
Ar. Gurpreet Shah: This is again a very beautiful question and we are one of the fortunate architects that our first design competition was based on the Council of Architecture. Ar. Sangeet Sharma: Wow, that is very fortunate... Ar. Gurpreet Shah: We have done Chennai, we have done Raipur, we have done Goa, Vadodara. All these airports we have done as per Council, we have been paid as per Council of architecture.
Ar. Sangeet Sharma: That's really fortunate! Ar. Gurpreet Shah: But somehow after that the engineering lobby has thought that why architects are being paid 5%? What is this they need to be paid for?
Example of Chennai when we were doing the project of Rs 2000 Cr. We prepared the DPR and when DPR went to the inter-ministerial group. They saw 5% and said 'My God, you are paying the architect 5%?' The Chairman of this group was so pissed off, he got up from his chair and said, 'You are paying 5% to the architect for making the building?' They don't understand the importance of architecture. Ar. Sangeet Sharma: and the responsibilities which he has to deliver... Ar. Gurpreet Shah: Absolutely, so I think that shift happened and the shift happened towards 80-20 and where they wanted the best of both the worlds so it is to work at that time also that the 80% technical and 20% financial. But now it's a very recent change that we see as the L1 bid. So it's like if I have less work, I will probably bid 0 then one day. Ar. Sangeet Sharma: We are mere contractors now. Ar. Gurpreet Shah: Yes, yes! we are in a very bad situation where we are fighting into ourselves and trying to survive somehow but we also need to understand that the evolutionary process is something that we all need to understand and we need to evolve so it's important that architects need to redefine themselves. We need to think beyond architecture. We need to think about how architecture can be collected and we can be a multidisciplinary institute and we can try to control the project from start to the end. If we do that then I think we demand the right amount of fees that are required to function our offices and at the same time deliver the project. T November 2021