LAURIE BAKER

Remembering the "Gandhi of Architecture"

I had heard about Lawrence Wilfred Baker(2 March 1917 – 1 April 2007), popularly known as “Laurie Baker”, when I was young and already working. Baker,by then, had acquired much fame, due to his innovativetechniques in architecture.

It was some time in the 1980’s that I could see him in person, when, I, along with my husband, had called on him at his home in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.I remember him quietly explaining to us the simple techniques he used while constructing buildings, and listened patiently to our request for a simple design for our family home in Patna. The serenity and simplicity of the man and his home impressed us. He, in a few days’ time promptly sent us the design, without taking any fee from us. During our transfer from one place to the other although we had, unfortunately, lost the design, we could nevertheless, construct a simple house more or less fitting into the design concept that he provided us.

Years passed by. I heard that Baker passed away in 2007. Thereafter, the thoughts on him receded into the inner recess of my memory. However, the ecological disaster in Joshimath in Uttarakhand has now brought back his memories.

Baker-initial years

Baker was born into a  Methodist family, the youngest son of Charles Frederick Baker and Millie Baker. He studied architecture at Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, Birmingham, and graduated in 1937, aged 20.

During the Second World War, he was a conscientious objector, but served in the Friends Ambulance Unit in UK.After a short spell, he was sent to China as a trained anaesthetist with a surgical team, mainly to cope with civilian casualties in the war between China and Japan. However, after a year or two, he started attending to leprosy patients in a hospital formerly run by an order of German sisters.

Meeting with Gandhi Baker was ordered to return to England due to ill health, in 1943. But his return home was delayed by about three months. He was forced to wait for a boat in Bombay. During this time, he stayed with a Quaker friend, who was close to the Mahatma. Baker attended many of Gandhi’s talks and prayer-meetings. Gandhiji showed great interest in his leprosy work in China.

Later on, Baker wanted to settle and work in India, but felt discouraged by the people’sattitude against the Raj. But Gandhi reassured him that though the Raj must quit, individuals were always welcome to work in India.

Later lifeHe moved to India in 1945 in part as an architect associated with Leprosy Mission, and continued to live and work in India for over 50 years. Baker began to work on leprosy

centre buildings across India. He was based at Faizabad, Uttar Pradesh. During this time, he met Elizabeth Jacob who worked as a doctor in Hyderabad with the same leprosy organisation, and they finally got married in 1948, despite opposition from both sides.

 

The Bakers lived in Pithoragarh for sixteen years, before moving to Vagamon in Kerala in 1963, and, some years later to Trivandrum. In 1988, Laurie Baker became an Indian citizen. He served as the Director of COSTFORD (Centre of Science and Technology for Rural Development), an organisation to promote low-cost housing.Laurie Baker died in 2007, aged 90, survived by wife Elizabeth.

Influence of Gandhi Working in Pithoragarh he learned the traditional architecture and methods employed by the local people in constructing their homes and buildings. There he encountered stones, lime and cow- dung as building materials for the first time in his life. "It was also from the influence of Mahatma Gandhi I learnt that the real people you should be building for, and who are in need, are the 'ordinary' people — those living in villages and in the congested areas of our cities." Gandhi's idea was that it should be possible to build a home with materials found within a five-mile radius of a site. Gandhi’s Ashrams were all constructed with locally available materials.  This was to have a great influence in his later life.

Techniques Baker worked on designs for buildings allowing maximum space, ventilation and light, that combined aesthetic sensibility. He designed or built homes for lower-middle- or lower-class clients. He became a pioneer of sustainable architecture, integrating such concepts like rain-water harvesting,  energy-efficiency, minimizing damage to the building site and ‘seamlessly merging buildings with the surroundings’ as early as in the 1960’s.

Although Baker adopted local craftsmanship, traditional techniques and materials, he combined it with modern design principles and technology, wherever feasible, keeping the costs low. Use of local labour for both construction and for manufacture of construction materials improved the local economy. Baker built several schools, chapels and hospitals in the hills. ‘Cost-effective houses are not just for the poor; they are for everyone’, observed Baker.

 Baker made many simple suggestions for cost reduction, including the use of Rat trap bond for brick walls, simple , door and window frames, having bends in walls that increased the strength, use of low energy consuming mud walls, using holes in the wall to get light, using overlaid brick over doorways, providing ready-made shelves, incorporating places to sit into the structure, a variety of roofs etc. “Baker Style" homes soon gained much popularity. 

In none of the building or homes designed by Baker the walls were plastered. The bricks on the walls are exposed retaining their natural character and colours. Baker explained why this was so “----Bricks to me are like faces. All of them are made of burnt mud, but they vary slightly in shape and colour. I think these small variations give tremendous character to a wall made of thousands of bricks, so I never dream of covering such a unique and characterful creation with plaster, which is mainly dull and characterless. 

“Due to his social and humanitarian efforts to bring architecture and design to the common man, his (honest) use of materials, his belief in simplicity in design and in life, and his staunch Quaker belief in non-violence, he has been called the "Gandhi of architecture".

 

Key works His notable works include Leprosy homes across India, the Laurie Baker Centre, Chitralekha Film Studio, Thiruvananthapuram, Tourist Centre, Ponmudi, Experimental Houses, New Delhi, the Indian Coffee House, and the Centre for Development Studies in Trivandrum. St John’s Cathedral, Thiruvalla, Fisherman’s village, Poonthura and the Children’s Village, Kulashekaram.

I remember passing by the Centre for Development studies, Trivandrum whenever I had to visit someone in the housing colony behind it. The brick-and-mortar building looked aesthetically so pleasing that I used to stand and stare at it for some time. I used to spend some time with family or friends in the Indian Coffee House in the heart of the city enjoying their famous beet-root cutlets. Its circular brick building always fascinated me, although I am not sure I liked its shape (Baker promoted circular rather than square buildings).

Awards and Honours Baker was conferred with several awards and honours. He was honoured by the Royal University of the Netherlands in 1981; was conferred MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in 1983; Government of India awarded him the Padma Shri in 1990 and he was awarded the Roll of Honour by the United Nations in 1992. In 1988, he was granted Indian citizenship by the Indian Government.

Importance We feel the importance of people like Baker only when we look around and see the mindless constructions all around. Kerala, the state where he lived and worked, today have many huge ostentatious houses, built with expensive materials, which are, unfortunately   unoccupied! Buildings have been constructed right on the banks of rivers, on mountain slopes using concrete steel and glass, without a thought on the land on which the constructions are made (Baker was concerned with the lands, as much as the buildings on which they were constructed) or the fragile ecosystem. Climate change caused by human intervention results in ecological disasters like what we saw during Tsunami, or flood-fury in Kerala and other states, and severe damage to houses and buildings in Joshimath and nearby Himalayan towns due to frequent landslides.

 Need for Urgent Action Today the young generation may not like to have constructions based purely on Baker’s model. The least they could do will be to opt for eco-friendly constructions, making use of eco-friendly materials, solar energy etc.

We need to take forward the idea of simple eco-friendly constructions by regulating construction in fragile areas, allowing only eco-friendly structures in fragile regions, aggressive media campaigns, purposeful training of officials and non-officials, involving the panchayats, promoting careful town-planning, sensitization of teachers and students, providing incentives to the building lobby to pursue eco-friendly constructions and the like. Enthusiastic architects and designers need to improve upon the concepts developed by Baker and others, using new technologies, to be acceptable to people in modern age. The choice is ours---either live in tune with nature or face natural disasters.

                                                                      ---------------------------

Ref: en.wikipedia.org; www.re-thinkingthefuture.com; www.architectural-review.com