Why Doshi, why now?

Doshi’s last building at Vitra shows how design can help a polarised world

24 Oct 2025

Architecture is a sign of its time. In 1989, Frank Gehry designed the first structure of the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein, Germany. By virtue of its formal semantics, the Vitra Design Museum interrogates the stability of meaning, the validity of authority and the contradictions inherent in culture. The planes warp and fold upon themselves, carrying Derrida’s philosophy of Deconstructivism, forged in the intensity of 1960s France. Fast forward to 2025, the Doshi Retreat stands in dialogue with it. Conceived by Dr B.V. Doshi alongside with Khushnu Panthaki and Sonke Hoof, it is entirely distinct from its predecessors. It is neither a factory, a museum, nor a fire station. Instead, it is a space of contemplation.

Each architectural form on the campus functions both as a barometer of the zeitgeist and as a projection toward the future. Rolf Fehlbaum, furniture designer and former chairperson of Vitra, underscores the relevance of such a typology, “The world has shifted. Confrontation, polarisation, war and authoritarianism have become increasingly prevalent.” For him, a space reflecting Doshi’s values is more crucial than ever, “He built bridges between East and West, between science and spirituality, tradition and modernity, and his world was one of humility, generosity, humour and reconciliation. Values that are very, very much needed today.”

“It has been a journey of questioning definitions, of celebrating the joy, of making and engaging in challenging discussions with each other”

Khushu Panthaki and Sonke Hoof

A LEXICON OF NEW MATERIALITY

Amidst the vastness of the landscape, flanked by architectural time capsules, serpentine walls rise from the earth. Their material expression is uncommon: XCarb® steel, generously donated by ArcelorMittal. A low-carbon-emissions material crafted from scrap steel and produced with renewable energy, it acquires a warm sienna patina through controlled corrosion. “With time, it becomes more intense,” Khushnu and Sonke, who now lead Studio SANGATH, explain, “Depending on the rain, how it is weathered, or how the sun interacts with it, the material truly becomes alive.”

Within the context of Doshi’s life, the material acquires new resonance. In 1951, Doshi attended the CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne) Congress in Hoddesdon, England, reportedly as the only Indian participant. Corbusier, one of CIAM’s founding members, had by then popularised the Brutalist movement. Doshi subsequently joined his studio in Paris, forging a lifelong engagement with material honesty. While béton brut recurs throughout his oeuvre, he consistently adapted his material palette to the Indian context. The Doshi Retreat, as his final project, may be read as a culmination of a lifetime of learning: a remarkable ode to the openness of his ideas and his continual evolution.

WITH THE PASSAGE OF TIME

Grass slowly envelops the coiled silhoutte, inspired, according to the architects, by the philosophy of Kundalini. A repository of energy at the base of the spine that holds the potential for spiritual ascension. In this sense, the Doshi Retreat embodies a resolution of thought, a crystallisation of clarity. The idea came to Doshi in a dream: two interlocking cobras. Khushnu and Sonke recount that their initial sketches were a complex nucleus of ideas, producing confusion before coherence emerged. While Doshi never explicitly dictated solutions, his subtle guidance led the structure to its present state.

“It has been a journey of questioning definitions,” they reflect, “of celebrating the joy of making and engaging in challenging discussions with each other.” Doshi’s work has charted a transition in Indian design, forging a new architectural language that transcends post-colonial or even Modernist labels. Above all, his architecture has been profoundly human. From articulating a national identity for a newly independent country to designing low-cost housing for its citizens, his last project inadvertently embodies the simultaneity of time. Situated among the greats: Zaha Hadid, who wrangled the limits of form; Gehry, who questioned meaning itself; and Buckminster Fuller, who explored atomic geometry, the Doshi Retreat instead looks inwards. Its soundscape, from a simple gong to an enveloping silence, resonates with the uncertain intangibility of the spirit.