Arthshila Ahmedabad and PHOTOINK are pleased to present IIT Delhi: A Modernist Case Study, Designed by Chowdhury & Gulzar Singh a two-person exhibition by Madan Mahatta and Randhir Singh exploring the role of the photographer in relationship to architecture, history, and time. The Exhibition will formally open with a talk by Randhir Singh, followed by a discussion on Sunday, 10 July 2022 at 6.30 pm.

The modernist site of the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi, built between 1961-1968, is viewed through the vantage points of Mahatta’s stark and heroic buildings and Singh’s contemporary perspective six decades later drawing in issues of inhabitation and architectural materiality. Designed by architect J.K Chowdhury and structural engineer Gulzar Singh, the project was critical ground for early experiments in modernist architecture in the capital city.

The exhibition is accompanied by a publication with an essay by architect and writer, Riyaz Tayyibji, reflecting on the photographs and articulating the dialogue between Mahatta and Singh.

About Madan Mahatta:

Madan Mahatta studied photography in England in the early 1950s. He joined the family’s Delhi photo studio upon returning to India in 1954 and introduced negative-positive colour printing for the first time. Mahatta had worked closely with two generations of India’s modern architects including Achyut Kanvinde, Ajoy Choudhury, Charles Correa, Habib Rahman, Jasbir Sawhney, J. K. Chowdhury, Joseph Allen Stein, Kuldip Singh, Raj Rewal, Ram Sharma, Ranjit Sabhiki, Shiv Nath Prasad and designers Mini Boga and Riten Mozumdar. His photographs of their works are an equal part of the legacy of a great period in Indian modernism.

About Randhir Singh:

Randhir Singh received his Bachelor of Architecture and Bachelor of Science degrees from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York in 1999. He spent 15 years working as an architect in New York while studying photography at the International Center of Photography. In 2013, he moved to New Delhi to develop his photographic practice focusing on architecture and urbanism. His work is currently being exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York as a part of ‘The Project of Independence: Architectures of Decolonization in South Asia, 1947-1985’. 

We look forward to your presence! 

Opening: 10 July 2022, Sunday

Time: 6.30pm onwards