Use traditional architecture ways to solve urban crisis: Rewal

Modern architecture can solve the urban crisis of exploding population and development requirements with the help of traditional know-how of culture and climate, leading architect Raj Rewal has said.
Highlighting the role that traditional knowledge can play in modern building designs, Rewal said that those techniques are still significant to our time.
"Passive energy saving systems learned through traditional methods can go hand in hand with smart buildings based on state-of-the-art technology," said Rewal.
He further added: "The first and foremost lesson from past is that we can fuse architecture, urbanism and landscape in our larger projects for low-cost housing, universities, public and cultural institutions.

"We can achieve all the functional requirements of today without losing sense."
Addressing first Cyrus Jhabvala Memorial Lecture 2016, Rewal said: "I am, of course, aware of the global currents but I feel we have to find our own solutions."

On the role played by Jhabvala in this field, former Director of the School of Planning and Architecture, Rewal said he helped to shape thinking and attitudes of a generation of architects.
"So, I suppose if some of us still carry the passion for architecture and design, the seeds were really sown by Jhabvala at an early stage when we were around 17 and he himself around 30 years of age," he said.

Rewal cited some of his prestigious works where he has integrated the traditional patterns and the projects include Low-cost Housing (Navi Mumbai), National Institute of Immunology (Delhi), State University of Performing & Visual Arts Rohtak and Library for the Indian Parliament.