Building On A Dream

The spirit of Mahatma Gandhi dwells in the houses that Baker builds. "Gandhi had great charisma," he says, recalling his chance meeting with the Mahatma during a stopover in Mumbai on the way back to England from a wartime assignment in China with medical unit. "Nobody who met him could remain unimpressed.

So, the young English architect, trained at the Birmingham School of Architecture, let Gandhi become his beacon. Says Baker: "He told me, 'Don't judge India by what you see in Bombay. India's soul lives in the villages. That is where you can do your kind of work.'

" His kind of work, of course, hasn't come a day too soon. As Baker's biographer and architect Gautam Bhatia writes: "(His) contribution to architecture has a singular timeliness today. It has come at a time when questing conscience has provoked the developing world—concerned with growth that is appropriate—to lookinwards.

Nothing that is not absolutely essential finds room in Baker's uncluttered plans. Brickwork is left unplastered, with mortar used to fill in sunken brick edges. "Plastering constitutes 10 per cent of total construction cost," he points out. Moreover, Baker has adapted a 16th century building method from England—rat trap bond walls—to contemporary Indian needs. Instead of laying bricks flat, one above the other, he lays them sideways up, leaving a gap between them. The number of bricks required to build rat trap bond walls is 25 per cent less than in conventional methods. "It's now called the Laurie Baker rat trap bond. But I wasn't alive during the reign of Elizabeth I," Baker says with impish, self-effacinghumour.

Imitation may be the best form of flattery, but Baker, whose austere building style is prompted as much by his commitment to sustainable architecture as by his English Quaker upbringing in a Methodist family of "accountants and lawyers", is not too happy with the shape his concepts have often taken in the hands of lesser architects. "The media," he says, "made a lot of fuss about my style, overdid the publicity." The result: The Baker style has become a statement. "Give me a Laurie Baker house, never mind what it costs" is what many Gulf returnees demand. Baker has no time for such clients. Sadly, not every architect is Baker.

Once you are there, the ambience takes over. A narrow, winding road goes uphill, then juts off to the left before stopping at the gates of the house that Baker built on a half-acre plot of land for himself and his family, which comprises his wife, Elizabeth, a Syrian Christian physician he met in an Uttar Pradesh leprosy hospital in 1946, and three children. The house, a magical mixture of spirals and arches, of aesthetic refinement and clinical functionality, embodies all that his style represents. It's beautiful yet spartan, delicate yet sturdy. The style has clearly found takers. Says the architect: "The interest in alternative methods of building is growing. There is greater awareness about the need to avoid the use of energy-intensive materials like steel and iron." For Baker, alternative building methods are no longer a matter of choice, they are an imperative need. "There are 100 million people in India without homes. You can't use reinforced concrete if you are serious about giving them homes," says Baker.

Baker's buildings are not imposing structures because of a simple thumb rule: no house is ever taller than the nearest coconut tree. Is that the reason for their growing popularity? Says Padmakumar: "By adopting sustainable architecture, you not only save money, you play your a role as a responsible citizen." Adds Baker: "These houses are friendly, fit in well with the environment and are a relief from the harsh structures that dominate urban skylines." Though he works mainly for the weaker sections, Baker has often built for big names. But never without a good reason. "I take on celebrities only if I am convinced that they believe in the concept," says Baker. "Twenty years ago, I built the Indian Space Research Organisation chief's house. To this day, people from the organisation—not just scientists, other employees, too—come to me," says the architect. Hence he has built for economist K.N. Raj of the CDS. For I.S. Gulati, vice-chairman of the Kerala State Planning Board. For columnist-cartoonist Abu Abraham. For Adoor Gopalakrishnan when the filmmaker required studio buildings for his now-defunct cooperative. For Protima Gauri Bedi and her Nrityagram in Bangalore. Currently, Baker is busy with a Chennai crafts centre, which he is constructing for Debra Thyagarajan, an American woman married to an Indian banker.

Over the years, Baker's work has fulfilled varied needs. Without costing the earth.