Pune loses a legendry architect, Christopher Benninger breathes his last

American-Indian architect and urban planner Christopher Benninger passed away in Pune after a prolonged battle with cancer. He was 81 and is survived by his wife Aneeta Gokhale-Benninger and a son. Ramprasad Akkisetti, Founder Managing Director of Christopher Charles Benninger Architects (CCBA) said he succumbed to a long battle with cancer and died peacefully at 1.30 am on Wednesday.
Gokhale-Benninger, Executive Director and Professor of Sustainability, Center for Development Studies and Activities, described Christopher Benninger as being very honest about his architecture and his work. “He arrived in India in 1968 as a Fulbright Scholar to work in the field of low-cost housing His work reflected his values and integrity in creation of space,” she said. Aneeta talked about how the campus of CDSA which she had co-founded with Christopher is a perfect example of the values that he practiced. “Throughout the year we do not need air conditioning or fans. The building is constructed using exposed stones- we require some pedestal fans in summer for a few days but that’s all,” she said.
American architect Franklin Wright, she was Christopher’s guru. “He was introduced to him at the age of 9 and since then he wanted to become an architect,” she said. In his work, he espoused concepts which the American genius was known for. One of the first works that Christopher had taken up in India was the development of economic housing for municipal employees in Hyderabad. “This project saw the participation of people and designing what is known as growing houses,” she said. During that project, concepts like per capita income of the household, growing houses and site and service were used which helped in the concept of low-income housing.
Christopher had designed the Suzlon green building as well as the Azim Premji University Campus. As Pune and other Indian cities grew, the plethora of building materials like steel, glass started becoming more and more common in Indian cities. “He said such material was not suitable for India due to our hot weather. Christopher had trained many architects like Vimal Patel who designed the new Parliament building in India,” she said.
Benninger was an alumnus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and taught at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design from 1969 to 1972, after which he permanently moved to India. He first moved to Ahmedabad where he worked as Ford Foundation advisor to the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT) and co-founded the Faculty of planning with BV Doshi and Yoginder Alagh. Early this year, Benninger was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy from CEPT University.
Amongst his most appreciated and lauded works are the designing of IIT Hyderabad, Azim Premji University in Bengaluru, Samundra Institute of Maritime Studies in Lonavala and the Mahindra United World College in Pune that also won him the Designer of the Year award in 1999.
In Pune he constantly engaged himself with the challenges of rebuilding Pune and the viability of various infrastructure projects. In an Idea Exchange at the Indian Express office in 2015, while raising concern about the way the city was growing and suggesting solutions for the same, he said,” What I absolutely love about Pune is the spirit of people here. I think it has kept the city going.”
Source: indianexpress.com