Local craftsmanship in modernist eyes
Standing in front of a desk scattered with paper and drawing utensils, Gira Sarabhai, with the American designer Deborah Sussman on the left, and the Indian artist Haku Shah on the right, are engaged in conversation. Both Sussman and Shah have a smile on their faces, visibly excited to meet one of the most important figures in establishing modernity in India during the twentieth century. With a serious, attentive look on her face, yet striking a relaxed pose, Sarabhai, coated in a traditional scarf, is listening.
Traditional fabrics, like the one she is wearing, have accompanied her for her whole life, not just as a matter of fashion, but as a sign of her identity. Her father, Ambalal Sarabhai, owned a big millinery company manufacturing traditional textiles in Ahmedabad. This resulted in all of his eight children being born into a family fortune. [1] With the funds available, and the family’s anthroposophical mindset, Sarabhai, like many of her siblings, made it her duty to bring welfare and prestige to her hometown, Ahmedabad. Sarabhai achieved this by means of architecture, education and labour. Through establishing a design school and a textile museum, and introducing many of her contemporaries and their manufacturers to her hometown, Sarabhai successfully put Ahmedabad on the global map of modernity, and brought new prosperity to the city.
Following the family’s move to New York in her teenage years, Sarabhai, together with her brother, Gautam, received an informal education from Frank Lloyd Wright, starting in 1947. Simultaneously, in 1949, Sarabhai and her brother founded the Calico Museum in Ahmedabad, showcasing their family’s heritage and traditional textiles. It was important to Sarabhai to bring together tradition and modernity. She commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright for the design of the museum. After the design fell through due to building restrictions, Sarabhai herself designed the Calico Dome outside the museum.
The geodesic dome, inspired by Buckminster Fuller’s designs [2], formerly embraced the shop and the display room for the museum it housed underneath – once again displaying the sought-after interconnection of the ‘western’ notion of modernity and local craftsmanship [3]. Twelve years later, in 1961, Sarabhai and her brother founded another institute in Ahmedabad, the NID (National Institute of Design). Assisted by advice from family friends like Ray and Charles Eames, the new school of design, craft and art was established to bring modernity, prestige and multiplicities of design to the city of Ahmedabad. This agency is also shown in several letters Sarabhai wrote to the Japanese designer Nakashimi, which detail her efforts to bring modern design and its production to India [4]. In 1972, Sarabhai resigned from the voluntary work at NID to focus all her work on the Calico Museum and its curation.
As a charismatic and strong individual from a privileged background, Sarabhai became a key figure in bringing modernity to India in the twentieth century. Sarabhai’s economic means, and therefore her social status, helped her not only to establish networks of designers, architects and artists, but also enabled her to keep her autonomy and power throughout the many political changes of the time.
Image Credit: NID Archives.
1. Although Sarabhai, as the youngest daughter born in 1923, was the only child to receive a formal education in the form of home-schooling, many of her siblings went on to receive academic degrees. Some, like her brother, Vikram, founded institutions in a plethora of fields, while others, like her sister, Mirdula, and aunt, Anasuya, engaged intensely in feminist and labour politics. See Spodek, Howard. “Local Meets Global: Establishing New Perspectives in Urban History – Lessons from Ahmedabad”. Journal of Urban History, vol. 39, no. 4, 2012: pp. 749-66; McGowan, Abigail. “Mothers and Godmothers of Crafts: Female Leadership and the Imagination of India as a Crafts Nation, 1947–67.” South Asia: Journal of South Asia Studies, vol. 44, no. 2, April 2021: pp. 282-97.
2. “Calico Dome.” Wikipedia, n.d. (Accessed 27 May 2022) Link.
3. Guth, Christine M. E. “Crafting Community: George Nakashima and Modern Design in India.” Journal of Design History, vol. 29, no. 4, June 2016: pp. 366-84.
