Art I cles

SL Chitale, a great Indian architect, conservationist, and social worker passed away on May 20, 2019, at the age of 87. Srikrishna Laxman Chitale was also popularly known as Krish. He was Principal Architect at ‘Chitale and Son’. Chitale and Son is a Chennai-based architect firm. He had started his carrier from this firm, this architect firm comes the oldest firm in India. The foundation of the firm was given by SL Chitale's father in 1932, the year in which SL Chitale born and the firm was known as then "L.M. Chitale".

LM Chitale was a distinguished architect and planner in the first half of the 20th Century in India. The Government of India had honored him, in 1957 through the "Padma Shri - fourth highest civilian award". After the death of L.M. Chitale in 1960, the management of the firm went to  SL Chitale,  he renamed the firm as "Chitale and Son". Till now it was being run by SL Chitale and His Son Kapil Chitale.

SL Chitale was born in 1932. He had graduated in the architect from Sir JJ School of Architecture, Bombay(Mumbai). After completed his graduation, he started his career through his father's firm. After the death of his father in 1960, he brought the status of his firm at the highest level.

The demise of SL Chitale created a huge shock in the architecture field in India. Jaisim Krishna Rao, a renowned Indian architect who is a disciple of SL Chitale expresses his shock as,” My mentor and guru in architecture Srikrishna Chitale have taken spiritual abode. He taught me the steps all the way. He was my guide, guru and inspiration, and the spirit behind Jaisim Fountainhead.”

SL Chitale was known for his simplicity and his only mentor wasMarcel Breuer, whose buildings, be it a house or a museum, have always been simple. The motivating factor in Chitale’s work has always been simplicity. His principle was to very simple, take the work if you can do it personally, you should have time to supervise each site, and you can ensure that things are done the way they were conceived to maintain design sensitivity.

His works range from a renovation job for the National Insurance Corporation building constructed in the mid1930s to the buildings like the Madras Port Trust built-in 1987, which is known as the architectural landmarks in Chennai. Apart from these, SL Chitale designed various residences and commercial buildings, including the Kothari building, and the Tarapore Towers in Chennai. Shunning anything that was unnecessary or garish, he always tried to keep his buildings simple with neat finishes and well-lit.

Chitale’s advice was, as a mentor and guide to younger architects “That you should devote time, think your project through carefully, give it your full attention. Person-to-person contact is the most important; I don’t believe in this chequebook charity concept at all. Only when you get fully involved, your project will benefit people. Most important of all, work always as a team. No single man should say…I did it!”

Chitale was of the opinion, “That since successful architecture must respond to the internal forces of a building program as well as external forces of its context. We do not design buildings according to the dictates of a particular style. We believe that every building should have its own identity created by a simple and expressive architecture corresponding to its specific functions and location.”

A tribute to the legendary architect SL Chitale will be incomplete without a discourse on his signature building which changed the course of contemporary architecture in southern India in the early 1970s. This building is Srinivasa Auditorium in the Sri Venkateshwara University, Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh. This saddle-shaped, hyperbolic paraboloid structure was conceived by SL Chitale in perfect harmony with the Tirumala Hills in the background.

This auditorium building was an ambitious and quite unprecedented project at that time in southern India. About this unique structure SL Chitale himself explained, "the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. D Jagannatha Reddy was a very forward-looking man and wanted something really good, not an ordinary structure where you just put a false ceiling and call it an auditorium. So I created this unique concept; that of a saddle-back shell made of concrete which is 160 feet long and can seat 1500 students, and is 4 inches thick, otherwise it will become too heavy as the whole thing is made of concrete."

All images courtesy of Chitale and Son.
reference:-worldarchitecture.org