They scoffed at me when I told them about my ambition to do architectural work. IM Kadri (IMK): When I came to Bombay, I did not know anyone but my college friends. Sonal Shah (SS): How did you get your first project? Here are some excerpts from an exciting interview with Mr. Sona College of Technology, Salem, 1997 Image: Courtesy of IM Kadri Associates A significant number of his projects have been prestigious public and institutional spaces across the country and abroad, including The Shivsagar Estate, Nehru Centre, Haj House, Ceat Mahal, and Sahyadri Guest House to name a few in Mumbai, several Taj Mahal Palace Hotels including those in Goa, Udaipur, Chennai, New Delhi, along with The Oberoi Hotel, Bengaluru, Owaisi Teaching Hospital, Hyderabad, and National Judicial Academy, Bhopal. His lucky break came in 1960, and he has never looked back since. Kadri relocated to Mumbai and started his firm IMK Architects in 1958. “I remember when the architect, Karl Malte von Heinz visited the college, I followed him around like a puppy, soaking in every word he uttered.” It was then that he realised he wanted to design buildings. At university, he became completely enamoured by the style of the Jamia Millia edifices. Excelling in perspective drawings from a young age, he practiced his talent at every opportunity. Kadri was born in Ahmedabad in 1929, attended the Jamia Millia Islamia University in New Delhi and completed civil engineering at the Pune Engineering College in 1953. Sitting at the edge of his white marbled living room extending into a lush terrace garden, I experienced the soothing luxury of being surrounded by a profusion of greenery in the heart of the city. “You know I trained as an engineer?” were I M Kadri’s first words as we settled down to a tete-a-tete in his home in one of his tiered developments in South Mumbai. Kadri developed a distinct style, an amalgam of the havelis he grew up around in Ahmedabad, Moghul architecture and international contemporary design.
Influenced by the dreams of an emerging nation and steeped in Indian heritage, they strived to create a new language of architectural design, modern yet uniquely Indian. At 92, I M Kadri and his contemporary, BV Doshi are perhaps among the last of that generation of iconic architects alive who began their practice at the dawn of independence.
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