One of my favourite architects has to be Louis Kahn. I call him a ‘Collector of Light’. When I first saw IIM-A, the ethereal quality of light behind the circular openings captured my imagination. As the story goes, someone asked him : How do you lend your buildings this powerful quality ? He replied : I asked a brick what it wanted to be. And it told me it wanted to be an arch.’ 

One of his lines that made me look at the Sun with a fresh pair of eyes is : ‘The Sun was not aware of its wonder until it struck the side of a building.’

I wonder several times what Louis Kahn would have said if he were to see Sharanam today... Would he ask how I built the vault ? The physics behind it ? Would he acknowledge the different ways in which natural light plays games in Sharanam ? Or would he simply just sit under the high lofty arch, silent and smiling. I wonder...