JOSEPH ALLEN STE

An American Architect
who made India his home

JOSEPH ALLEN STEIN

Born in 1912 in USA

Studied Architecture at the

University of Illinois.

He worked with the great

architect Richard Neutra.

A major figure in the

JOSEPH ALLEN STEIN

J.A.Stein moved to Calcutta

to be a professor at the
Bengal engineering college
in 1952.

He moved to Delhi later on

where he did his major
works.

His buildings represent the

best of post-independence
construction in Delhi.
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Philosophy

Integrating
Man-made
construction
with Natures
expressivenes
s.
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Philosophy

J.A.Stein took
Mughal art of
garden
monuments to
another level
aptly titled as
Building in
the Garden.

Philosophy
Designs were
modernistic but
inspired by
Indias past.

Building
Characteristics

He typically
designed 3 to 4
storied buildings
that fused with the
surrounding trees,
gardens and
ponds.

J.A.STEIN

Building Characteristics

Flowers cascading down the walls in what

Stein called Vertical Gardens

Most of Steins Buildings had the Indian

traditional jAalis.
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Building Materials
J.A.Stein was good at working with local materials, be it granite or
glazed tiles, both influences of Tughlaq architecture.
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Picture of Kashmir Conference Centre

Mr.

Stein won acclaim for marrying his structures

to the natural landscape. He favored buildings
that merged into the trees, lawns and ponds
surrounding them, and later in life he became
increasingly concerned with protecting the
environment, particularly the Himalayas.

The Building features four different shell

configurations
Barrel

vault lattice shell,

Escorts plant I (1962)

Hyperbolic

parabolic lattice shell,

for Escorts II plant (1964)

Concrete

domes for storage facilities (1965)

Octagonal

steel lattice domes,

For plant at Surajpur (1988)

Contributions
J.A.Steins increasing
concern with protection
of natural landscape
and the development
of an environmental
friendly architectural
style led him to
campaign actively
against deforestation of
Himalayas.

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Contributions
Brought in California
modernism to several
buildings he designed in
Delhi.
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Joseph Stein Lane, the only road in Delhi named after an architect.
This is the heart of Steinabad, the nickname given to Lodhi

Estate in central Delhi. The area has a series of buildings designed

by the late Joseph Allen Stein, who transformed a small part of the
Capital with his vision.

INFLUENCES IN HIS LIFE

Joseph Allen Stein came to India in
the early 50s - at a time when the
full glow of the 'Nehruvian
enlightenment' was influencing
the emergence of an entire new,
modern India. While other famous
architects were coming and
working in the country around the
same time - Le Corbusier, Louis
Kahn, Charles and Ray Eames,
Edward Durrel Stone, Maxwell Fry
and Jane Drew -Stein differed from
them in that he had made India
his home and sought to be
actively involved in the making of
the new society. It was in his New
Delhi buildings - notably the
Triveni Kala Sangam arts complex
(1957-77) and the ICC (1959-62) -

The American Midwest was influenced

by the work and teachings of Frank
Lloyd Wright and Louis Sullivan. The
design approach developed was very
different to the Bauhaus modernism
then taking hold in Europe, which
arrived on the American shores with
the immigration of Walter Gropius,
Mies Van der Rohe and others just
before the Second World War. The
Bauhaus tended to be insensitive to
local culture and materials of
building, and advocated a hard-edged
design philosophy using industrial
elements. The influence on Stein, on
the other hand, 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.

Selected projects

India

Habitat Centre (IHC), Lodhi Road, New Delhi,

in typical Stein architecture

1940:

"One Family Defense House" (with Gregory

Ain), unbuilt

1940:

"Low-Cost House", unbuilt

1947:

Ladera Cooperative (with John Funk;

landscape architect: Garrett Eckbo), Palo Alto, CA

1968:

Indian Express Tower, Nariman Point,

Mumbai

Relandscaping

Garrett Eckbo

of Lodhi Gardens, along with

Selected projects

Several buildings in Lodi Estate, New Delhi,

including the headquarters of the Ford Foundation,
UNICEF and the World Wide Fund for Nature, a
conference center called the IndiaInternational
Centre (195962), and the India Habitat Center for
housing and environmental studies.

Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode campus,

Kerala.

Triveni Kala Sangam arts centre, New Delhi

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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 buildings 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.

GANDHI

LABOUR
INSTITUTE

Architect: B V Doshi &

J.A. Stein
Location: Ahmedabad
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Gandhi Labour Institute

Gandhi Labour Institute was
established by Gujarat
Government in 1984 to
provide education, training,
study and research in labour
and related subjects. The
institution has been designed
by architect B V Doshi and it
reuses many elements from
Sangath, his office
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Gandhi labour Institute

The

concrete vaults
covered in white china
mosaic, the faceted
terraces, earth
mounds, greet plaster
on external walls and
an amphitheatre; all
these elements form a
language which was
also explored in
Sangath

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The building is approached at

the first floor with a forecourt
and wide steps flanked by a
pool. One enters under a
transversal vault which then
feeds laterally into the various
departments as well as the
hostel block. This transversal
vault, to me, is the most
powerful space in the entire
institution and gives this place,
a unique identity.

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TRIVENI KALA
SANGAM
Cultural and arts centre in New Delhi
Contains four art galleries, a chamber theatre,
outdoor theatre and an open air sculpture gallery.

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TRIVENI KALA
SANGAM

Cafeteria
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INDIA
INTERNATIONA
L CENTER
Serves as a meeting place for various cultural and
social gatherings the city has to offer.

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INDIA INTERNATIONAL
CENTER

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INDIA
INTERNATIONAL
CENTRE
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INDIA INTERNATIONAL
CENTER

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INDIAN HABITAT
CENTER
Joseph Allen Stein
decided to radically
change the traditional
image of an office
building as an
architectural project
and transformed it
into an urban design
project

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INDIAN HABITAT
CENTER

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INDIAN HABITAT
CENTER
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INDIAN HABITAT
CENTER
The

space was designed to permit the members of

the Centre to share services both inside and
outside the building with multiple courtyards,
common meeting rooms, shared parking area,
library, restaurants, museum, and hotels, some of
which are open to the general public. Constructed
on nine acres in an urban area, the building
eschewed traditional building materials and
techniques

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Extensive use of jali by stein is his

signature style .

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Front
Facade

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Use of stone across the

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SECTIONS

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KASHMIR
CONFERENCE
CENTRE, SRINAGAR

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GANDHI-KING
PLAZA

An Open air
memorial in
Indian
internationa
l center
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GANDHI-KING
PLAZA
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THE JOSEPH STEIN

LANE
Joseph stein lane is the only road in Delhi named after the
architect.
The Lodhi Estate is nicknamed after Mr.Stein as Steinabad as a
tribute to the great architects contributions to the city of Delhi.

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Joseph

Stein, (April 10, 1912

October 14, 2001) was
an American architect. He is
noted for designing
several important buildings in
India.

WORKS OF JOSEPH ALLEN

STEIN

TRIVENI KALA SANGAM

Founded in 1952 as an academy of dance, music and

painting.

MUSIC ROOMS

RESIDENCES

CAFETERIA

OPEN
LANDSCAPED
COURTYARD

DANCE ROOMS

ART GALLERIES

SEMI-OPEN ART
GALLERY

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

INDIA INTERNATIONAL CENTRE

The IIC (1959- 62) was planned to provide a variety of

artistic and scholarly activities, conferences and symposia
organised by national and international groups.

COURTYARDS

View from the rear gardens to the centre

court

Verandah under the guestrooms

Each courtyard serves a different function.

Flooring: part lawn, part paved with blue- green kota stone.

Detailed coffered ceilings

BUILDING DETAILS

Jaali screening guestrooms at entry courtfire 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.

GANDHI-KING PLAZA

AUSTRALIAN HIGH COMMISSION

Using local materials and with an understanding of the

harsh Delhi climate, this house relates to the lush green
landscape in which it sits.

Open stonejalisor perforated screens, combine with large

expanses of glass in a way that respected both traditional
knowledge and modernist principles.

"Two things have essentially guided my work. One is

what you might call an interest in and search for an
appropriate modern regionalism. I would put equal
emphasis on both words, 'regional' and 'modern',
because regional without modern is reactionary, and
modern without regional is insensitive,
inappropriate. The second one is to seek the
character of the solution in the nature of the
problem, as much as one possibly can."