CHRISTOPHER CHARLES BENNINGER

Prof. Christopher Charles Benninger grew up in America where he was influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright's organic architecture as a boy. At the age of twelve he read The Natural House by Wright, which left an indelible mark on him, that can be seen in his work today. He studied Urban Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Architecture at Harvard University where he later was a professor of Architecture at the Graduate School of Design.

He worked under the famous Spanish architect Jose Luis Sert. This experience brought him in contact with the "European School" of thought where abstraction, and a separation between nature and built form, played important roles. His association with Barbara Ward brought him into the Delos Symposium group where he was associated closely with Buckminister Fuller, Margarete Mead and Arnold Toynbe. He came to India on a Fullbright Fellowship in 1968, and later as a Ford Foundation consultant to set up the School of Urban Planning at Ahmedabad (1971) jointly with Padmashree Balkrishna. V. Doshi. Since then he has lived and worked in India and the South Asian region for thirty years. Some labeled this as a "self-imposed exile".

It was towards the end of the Indian Golden Age, Mahatma Gandhi was still "alive" in people's hearts and minds. Benninger often quotes Gandhi's directive, "Live in a village and plan for the world". He often noted that he craved a life of "being in reality," as opposed to studying it from afar. "Being an outsider is elemental to seeing problems in new ways. It leads to more creative insights and angles from which things can be seen and related," Benninger opines that "Architecture involves social, spatial, cultural and technological relationships, and being an outsider allows one to throw off the given truths, to reconsider them, and to re think what the nature of things are. We can never know the truth in architecture, but we can search the 'good' in architecture. We can search pleasure, beauty, balance and comfort."

Professor Benninger has been an advisor to the Planning Commission Government of India (GoI); to the Ministries of Urban Development, Rural Development, Social Welfare and Home Affairs (GoI). He has also been a consultant to the Ford Foundation, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, UN-FAO, UN-ESCAP, UNICEF, UNCHS [Habitat] and many urban development authorities. Under these consultancies he has prepared urban and regional development plans for India, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Malaysia, Indonesia and other countries.

He has been on the Board of the United States Education Foundation of India, the Bureau of Indian Standards and the Board of University Teaching and Research at the University of Pune. He is a Distinguished Professor at CEPT, Ahmedabad and on the Governing Council of the World Society of Ekistics, at Athens.

Professor Benninger advised the Government of Nepal on its programme for decentralized rural planning as an UNO adviser. From 1979 to 1986 he maintained a team of advisors in Bhutan guiding the Royal Government on a range of developmental issues. For UNICEF and the GoI, he prepared social input plans for the Almora area of UP, Goa and other regions.

Professor Benninger founded in 1976 the Center for Development Studies and Activities at Pune. After heading the institute for 20 years, he relinquished the management of CDSA to become fully involved in his design studio.

In a matter of a few years his studio gained international repute. The Mahindra United World College of India is the main product of his studio work in the last five years. For the Design of 'The Mahindra United World College' he has won three national level awards and one international award. He has won the Designer of the Year Award: (1998) presented by Inside-Outside; the American Institute of Architect's Award (sponsored by Business Week and Architectural Record), and commendations by the Journal of the Indian Institute of Architect's and the Architect of the Year Awards programme. He is one of the finalists for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (2001) and for the World Architecture Awards in U.K.(2002).

He has recently been cited as one of India's top ten architects by 'Interiors and Exteriors' magazine. His works are published in "Critical Regionalism" by Liane Le Faivre and Alexander Tzonis, published by Prestel, Germany.

Christopher Benninger's designs appear in numerous national and international journals including Ekistics (Greece), Spazio-e-Societe (Italy), AIArchitect (USA), Cities (UK), Architectural Record (USA), Zoo (UK), Business Week (USA), World Architecture (UK); Mimar (UK), Habitat International (UK) and many others. Benninger's literary works have been published in Femina and Biblio. Business Week named his work as among the ten "Super Structures of the World" in the year 2000. He has written a novel, Samsara, which is set in the Anapurna range of the Himalayas.

He recently finished the Cochin Refineries Limited headquarters building, YMCA Campsite and the planning and designing the Royal Capital of Bhutan. He is presently working on the design of the Centre for Neurological and Mental Disorders in Pune, Tain Square in Pune, Sahara Amby Valley Residential School near Lonavala, Westhills Residential School in Khandala, Quest International School near Alibaug, major urban housing projects and a five star resort in the Sahayadris.

His firm, Christopher Charles Benninger Architects, has a team of thirty professionals with studios in Pune and Thimphu, where he is designing the new Capital Complex. He has associated a group of technical consultants in New Delhi, Mumbai and Pune in the areas of structural, services, landscape and interior design. CCBA offers comprehensive architectural services from design through supervision.