Though with the absolutist promise of Nehru’s rapid industrialisation, mechanisation, and growth of the new country, the modernist vocabulary was often synonymous, it had to contend with Gandhi’s idealist vision of reliance on traditional technology, rural economy, frugality and moderation. What the State saw as a potent weapon was playing up the social emancipatory rhetoric of the machine age. CSIR became the important vehicle for realising the Prime Minister’s vision of a new India where science and technology played a central role. Kanvinde, in turn, became the architectural interpreter of the vision. The building programme was ambitious; targets were even set for turnovers of industries to be set up based on research carried out in the laboratories.

It was Kanvinde and not as is widely believed Le Corbusier in his work in Chandigarh, who first introduced Modernism and the aesthetics of Function into the dormant Indian Architectural scene. What Kanvinde introduced was the Modern legacy of rational and ‘pure’ structure. The first buildings to come up were ATIRA at Ahmedabad, completed in 1952 (Fig.2), CSIR Headquarters at New Delhi, completed in 1953 (Fig.3), PRL at Ahmedabad, completed in 1953 (Fig.4) and CEERIat Pilani, completed in 1955 (Fig.5).