Documenting a Professional Journey: Kalayojan Book Release

Having always positioned themselves in the arena of competitive national and international practice, Kalayojan Architects have focussed on large scale proposals for educational campuses, public and private organisations. Comfortably straddling the twin components of creativity and ethics has helped them build a substantial portfolio of architectural, master planning, project management, redevelopment and interior design works.

‘Out of the Box’ delineates the firm’s portfolio in three categories which deal with the three decades of work, seen in progression. It starts at the very beginning of Ar. Sanjay Porwal’s career when his association with UDRI has been characterised in a group housing project’s interlinked open spaces. It progresses to the award winning institutional designs of the VTU, Belgaum campus with its interactive spaces; and the circular plan of the SNJB engineering college based on a Jain/Hindu yantra enabling easy internal circulation sees the practice participating in the nationwide quest for architectural grammar and spatial articulation based on an Indian ethos. The book of around 300 projects that include residences, institutes, sports facilities and industries as well finally concludes with contemporary creations, a masterplan for a new Nigerian city with the design of the largest African church to be built within it.

Kalayojan has a reputation of being a rich field of opportunities for young architects to hone their skills, as corroborated at the function by the principal’s confession, in characteristic humility, to being a technologically challenged team player and to the book being a record of his teams’ achievements over the years. Indeed, efforts have been made to list every past and present team member in dedicated pages at the end of the book. 

Ar. Sanjay Porwal’s respected mentor of his earliest professional ventures, Ar. Prem Nath, was there to formally do the honours. The evening saw the simultaneous release of an album of ghazals, ‘Musafir ka safarnama’, penned by the multi-faceted Sanjay Porwal and rendered by various artistes including the mellifluous Shri Suresh Wadkar, who released it formally. At a function graced by friends, family, clients, consultants and colleagues, by their presence as also in terms of song, dance and speech, the architect shared the momentous occasion with all the stakeholders responsible for the firm’s growth. 

TFOD wishes Kalayojan many years of fruitful practice beyond these documented ones, and also wishes to make a strong appeal to more architects to document their works and make them available in the public realm, to contribute to the larger record of the fraternity’s practice and to build a perspective for the future .