ABSTRACT
The main showcases of South Asian modern architecture remain the buildings constructed just after mid-century by Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn in Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, and Dhaka, arguably supplemented by those of Edward Durrell Stone, who enjoyed a more contentious relationship with mainstream modernism, realized in New Delhi and Islamabad. Equally important are the works of local professionals, above all Charles Correa, Balkrishna Doshi, and Raj Rewal in India, Geoffrey Bawa in Sri Lanka, and Mazhural Islam in Bangladesh, although as these men began to engage indigenous vernacular tradition, they became associated, especially in the 1980s, with postmodernism. Preliminary to all of this, however, were the art deco-avoured buildings erected before independence.
