• By- Arshdeep 36/15

-Meher 19/15
 ABOUT THE ARCHITECT

Joseph Stein, (April 10, 1912 – October 6,

2001) was an American architect and a major
figure in the establishment of a regional modern
architecture in the San Francisco Bay area in the
1940s and 1950s during the early days of the
environmental design movement. In 1952 he
moved to India. He is noted for designing
several important buildings in India, most
notably in Lodhi Estate in Central Delhi,
nicknamed "Steinabad" after him, and where
today the 'Joseph Stein Lane', is the only road in
Delhi named after an architect. The Government
of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian
award of Padma Shri in 1992.
BIOGRAPHY
Beginnings, 1912
Joseph Allen Stein was born in Omaha, Nebraska, into a Jewish family.
His father was a photographer.
Stein's father purchased his business from a photographer who recorded the massacre of
Native Americans by US troops These images periodically still come to his mind.
Attends the University of Illinois, and wins a scholarship to Fountainebleau, France in
1933-34.
Studies at Cranbrook in 1935-36 with Eliel Saarinen, and Swedish sculptor Carl Milles.
Models for Milles' fountain at St. Louis. "
 Stein In Los Angeles
Moves to Los Angeles in the late 1930's. Works for Richard Neutra, Hamilton Harwell Harris and the Los Angeles
Housing Authority.
Witnesses the environmental degradation and migration out of the Dust Bowl of the central United States to
California.
Completes housing studies for migrant workers with architect Gregory Ain, becoming acutely aware of addressing
issues of social justice in architectural design.
Stein's Low Cost House Prototype for the Southwest is published in Architectural Forum in 1940, an attempt to
bring the cost of housing down to that of the automobile.
He is invited to Taliesin West to meet Frank Lloyd Wright.
San Francisco
Relocates to San Francisco in the mid- 1940's, sharing an office with architect John Funk and
landscape architect Garrett Eckbo .
Stein meets architects Edward Larrabee Barnes, Mary Barnes, Eric Mendelsohn, Hannes Meyer;
Artist Diego Rivera; Photographer Imogen Cunningham; Planners Fran Viollich, Jack Kent, and
others who go onto form Telesis, a group dedicated to "progress intelligently planned".
With Viollich and Barnes, Stein teaches at the California Labour School. founded by labour unions
whose emphasis includes working to prepare students to design and build their own homes and
gardens once the War is over.
Guest lecturers included Neutra, Wright, Meyer, Rivera.
 Mexico, Israel. France, Switzerland. 1950-1952.
Stein and his family visit Mexico and Israel, and stay for a period in France and in
Switzerland with Stanlev White and then Hannes Mever .
J.Stein draws plans for ideal communities of small dwellings in the tropics and in the
mountains, to be built through self-help and cooperation among neighbours.
In France, he meets a young Indian architect named B.V. Doshi who is working for Le
Corbusier.

Calcutta, 1952- 1955

Neutra recommends Stein to lead the Department of Architecture at Bengal Engineering College.
Stein founds a firm that becomes Stein, Chatterjee and Polk, Architects, Engineers Planners.
Stein completes urban and rural demonstration housing projects, visited by Nehru.
Stein's rural design is similar to Gandhi's settlement at Wardha, conceived as a example of attainable
simplicity to support Indian democracy .
Nehru commissions two capital cities and four Industrial townships to establish a new India.
 Delhi, Ahmedabad, 1977- 1993.
The establishment of the firm of Stein, Doshi and Bhalla.
In addition to major works across the country, the firm establishes a research
component in each office.
In Delhi, Stein researches mountain environment, in Ahmedabad, Doshi explores
Indian conditions, and enriches the education of a generation of Indian architects
through undertaking research into Indian traditions.
INFLUENCE
The influence on Stein, was a view, which incorporated organic materials,
brick, stone and wood, with a willingness to decorate through texture and
volume, yet retaining a simplicity and human scale.
He typically designed two-to four- storey buildings that fused with the
surrounding trees, gardens and pools; flowers and vines would spill over
the walls.
His designs were modernistic, but inspired by India’s past.
FROM ORGANIC ARCHITECTURE TO
ECOLOGICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
“ Joe looked at India, its heritage, its climate, its ethos but he was never overpowered by these. That is why he never imitated the
Indian tradition nor did he attempt to look back to the Indian tradition, the way OTHERS WOULD SEE IT. Others might be
concerned with identity of India to prove their own identity but stein kept his identity intact and he tried to
reinterpret issues of this land ultimately PROVING HIS UNIQUENESS”
-B V DOSHI

“his vision derives from forces beyond

the urge to continue any particular
language of architectural form. His
scope emerged from concerns for
human development and the concept of
TOTAL ENVIRONMENT”
 -Steins awareness so the changing global situation of more people and less space , of diminishing biological
TOTAL
diversity and fading resources, crises compoundedCHAPTER 1.
by rising material expectations in many human societies has
lead him to approach design as a need towards balance, and to move personally towards and ideal of voluntary
LANDSCAPE simplicity towards life and form.
California of 1930s: . . . . .
Although not known today, but the whole collaborative concept of environmental design was itself
born in California, from the magnificence of natural setting combined with social and political factors.

Stein’s work in here was typically collaborative , working with architects- Gregory
Ain, in los Angeles and John Funk in san Francisco and with landscape architects,
Eckbo, Robert Royston

“i think we were all going in the same direction- that basically there is only one
garrett eckbo- art, AND THAT IS ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN”

Eckb John Robert

o, Funk Royston
 QUOTES BY JOSEPH STEIN
“I’ve often thought that good architecture is more important than great architecture”
“India has intense and sharply drawn environmental problems. There is probably no
possibility of solutions here, except along what may be called Gandhian lines,
which means essentially seeking simple and ecologically gentle solutions.”
“There was an attempt to create something which depended upon simplicity and
relationships rather than things. So this is not a five-star appearance in marble and
granite. But it is a place where a certain kind of relationship exists—between the
garden and the building and the water and the earth and the sky, and the learning
and activities that take place and the things that happen...”
WORKS' OF JOSEPH ALLEN STEIN
INDIA INTERNATIONAL CENTRE
 The IIC (1959- 62)
was planned to
provide a variety of
artistic and scholarly
activities,
conferences and
symposia organized
by national and
international groups.
 The buildings of the Centre are located in an ideal environment. Situated in the heart of New Delhi, the
Centre is adjacent to the Lodi gardens overlooking a magnificent landscape of gardens and historic
monuments from the sixteenth century.
The Centre’s beautiful and low-profile buildings express, as the architect Joseph Allen Stein himself said,
the ‘informal or romantic approach, where each function seeks out its own expression’.
CENTRALLY LOCATED
The inspiration for IIC was Tokyo’s
International House of Japan. Pt
Jawaharlal Nehru, who at the time
was the Prime Minister of India also
helped in the selection of the
beautiful 4.76 Acres site adjacent to
Lodi Gardens. With the aid of many
other enthusiasts & Joseph Allen
Stein, created this marvelous
structure.
FEATURES
The Centre is composed of Stein’s
characteristically individually
Articulated blocks
• 46 guest rooms, lounge and dinning
room in one
• Programmed blocks of library and
offices
• Domed Auditorium are all grouped
around two great courts
• Connected by porticoes and ground
level and rooftop verandahs.
Three separate wings of the IIC complex are designed to reflect the different functional aspects of
the Centre.
A grand central portico greets the visitor at the entrance driveway, extending across a north-south
axis.
Each courtyard and each wing serves a different purpose.
• Residential rooms in the north wing, the dining areas in the west and the third complex of the
library, auditorium and administrative offices in the south wing, are connected to each other by
walkways with overhanging eaves.
The curving façade of the residential wing corresponds to the curving paths and walkways in the
adjacent Lodi gardens.
The large windows of the dining hall and conference room on the second floor overlook the wide
vistas of tombs and gardens. Overall, there is a sublime fusion of the IIC complex with Lodi
Gardens.
 MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION
Respecting the garden traditions of North India and
the refinement of indigenous techniques, Stein
integrated these elements with the modern use of
exposed concrete and massive piers and exposed roof
patterns.
The use of local materials such as rugged quartzite
stone and blue Kota flooring is softened by screened
jalis in ceramic blue tiles that resonate with the
intricate patterns found in Islamic architecture.
Austerity and simplicity combine with intricate
detailing, to bring a sense of repose at the Centre.
Despite its institutional role, the architect conceived
the IIC complex as an informal approach. The
buildings respond with sensitivity to their specific
location in Delhi.
COURTYARDS

Each courtyard serves a different function.

Flooring: part lawn, part paved with blue- green kota stone.
Detailed coffered ceilings View from the rear gardens to the center court Verandah under the
guestrooms
BUILDING DETAILS
Jaali
Screening guestrooms at entry court- fire clay
tile and steel pipe jaalis facing out
‘Delhi’ blue glazed ceramic jaalis between
guest rooms
Accordion Window Wall:
Steel framed accordion window wall which
when folded away transforms the whole space
and its balcony extension into a deep
verandah.
Vertical Sliding Louvres:
Operable aluminum vertical louvres pivot
laterally to block out the low western sun.
TRIVENI KALA SANGAM
The Triveni Kala Sangam is a cultural
and architectural landmark in the city
of Delhi. Designed by Joseph Allen
Stein in 1957 in the part of Lutyens’
New Delhi dedicated to cultural
activities, it remains as one of the icons
of post-independence architecture in
the city.
Clad reinforced concrete frame structure with several infill
materials: jaali panels along the classroom block corridor and
stairs, concrete block with a plastered finish and rough-cut stone
facing presented to the street.
Triveni Garden Theatre Jaali detail in the courtyard
VIEWS
INDIA HABITAT CENTRE
 The IHC, built in 1988, was designed as a moderately dense
complex of institutional and office workspaces, conference and
library facilities for people involved with the environment and
habitat issues.
STRUCTURE

• The external facade is in a language of exposed red brick, exposed concrete

and glass. 
• Use of horizontal and vertical ribbon windows having slots in them for
plantation purposes.
• Carefully conceived brick patterns in the courtyards and variegated brick
coursing in the building’s vertical piers.
• Connections between different building blocks through aerial walkways.
• Landscaped courtyards created between the different building blocks.
COURTYARDS
• Constant flow of natural
air through the courtyard.
• Sunlight streams into the
space, being broken by
the large space frame
structure on the roof
level with blue reflectors
that can be aligned to
provide shade during
summer and allow the
winter sun to penetrate.
KASHMIR CONFERENCE
CENTRE
• And re-establishment of Kashmir as a centre of Asian culture
• completed in 1984 on a
lakefront site near chasma
shahi, the scheme for a series
of linked pavilion-like buildings
set into a geometric garden
design was conceived to echo
the mughal gardens in their
pattern and terracing down by
the lake
• promise of the valley and
potential of selective careful
development to act as lever
for environmental
 • Since, his work’s in new Delhi during the 1960’s this is perhaps the most
indicative of his approach and principles of form as its design was
conceived as a celebration of nature
• STEIN WROTE OF HIS INTENSION IN THE WORK AS:
• The effort has been to create buildings and gardens that would merge in
to the surroundings, and in the process bring sympathetic attention to
this gravely
threatened place of natural beauty.
• Accordingly the design integrates building garden and lake into an entity
so that the visitor shall be able to experience the special mode of nature
that makes visit to Kashmir so memorable
His biggest concern was to minimise the presence of the
complex within the valley which because of the size of its
facilities would dominate the surroundings if placed on a
more commanding height higher up the valley section
stein articulated an adjacent waterfront site for his project into
a union of water, garden and building
So he paid careful attention to develop the site
both dignified and discrete.
He presented the essence of mughal gardens
through composing larger program of facility in
a series of interlinked pavilions

The physical characteristic of mughal designs is

not carried through in stein’s design instead the
irregularities and the program find their own
individual expression
-holistically may be he was
the only one to understand true essence of
mughal
Only fromintentions about spaces
certain positions does the centre appear from behind its shielding screen of poplars and willows as
1 approach I sover the water or when standing on the surrounding hill sides
-thus represents an expression of stein’s minimal and modestly scaled construction in a well tended
landscape
 OUTDOOR MEETING
SPACES

1 AUDI
2 LOBBY
3 COFFEE SHOP
4 MEETING ROOMS GUEST ROOMS
5 OFFICES
6 PRESS
7 LOUNGE 3
8 GRASSED 5
TERRACES 3 7

AUDI.
 THE DESIGN
• DEVELOPED ALONG 2 AXIS
• one leads the visitors eye from the entrance through high ceiling rooms whose floors step down to
present a sweeping view over the terraced garden to the lake view

• garden’s widening rows of magnolia trees edge a series of walks that terminate in short descending
flight of steps and small fountains
• The lake merges into the site design through a broad geometric extension of the water into garden
• Thus one can enter the conference centre for lake front as well as land

second axis at 90deg to first lead in one direction to the conference facilities and in
opp. Direction to guest room so that all overlook both lake and mountains
Main spaces are formed by symmetrical
arrangement of 8 H-shaped columns
carrying interconnecting beams, which
together provide large column free spaces.

Thinner rectangular columns enclose each

block and are exposed on exterior
Colour, scale and shape are all elements used
to bind the structure with nature by relating
auditorium and guest room profiles, each in
their own way to the form of mountains
BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.com)
• Google images
• “BUILDING IN THE GARDEN” – by Stephen white