Memory in a Frame

A film on the designs of Delhi-based architect Raj Rewal draws attention to the architecture that honours the vernacular yet is technologically sound

IN ALL his projects, architect Raj Rewal revisits India’s architectural past as he shapes modern buildings. Indian Modernity – The Architecture of Raj Rewal is a film that documents his life since his early childhood in Punjab. Written, directed and produced by Manu Rewal, the 96-minute film is a linear narrative of Rewal’s career, with significant emphasis on buildings such as the Hall of Nations, Parliament Library Building, and National Institute of Immunology in Delhi; Visual Arts Institutional Campus, Rohtak; and Lisbon Ismaili Centre, Portugal, among others. Shown at a private screening at the Alliance Francaise de Delhi last week, for the first time, the film pairs scenes at these buildings with graphics of space construction, allowing viewers to map the way Rewal structures his programmes. Manu worked on the animation with technicians from the Centre Pompidou Paris, who have co-produced the film.

The film threads through Rewal’s design of the Hall of Nations, which in the early ’70s, was a symbol of technological advancement and scientific enquiry, and ends with the most-recent Rohtak Campus, which straddles imagery of Jaipur’s sundials and European universities. If the Hall of Nations brought in renewed vitality by its monumental triumph, the Campus wakes up to environment-conscious ideas of living. The film thematically divides Rewal’s work into sections such as rasa and structure; stone and courtyard; context and singularity;