A unique contemplation space designed by the late Indian architect and Pritzker Prize winner Balkrishna Doshi has officially opened at the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein, Germany. The Doshi Retreat, which opened last Saturday, represents both the first project Doshi realized outside of India and his final architectural work before his death in January 2023.

The vision for this meditative sanctuary began during a trip to India in December 2019. Rolf Fehlbaum, the emeritus chairman of Vitra, was captivated by a small shrine on the grounds of the Modhera Sun Temple in Gujarat. He approached his friend Balkrishna Doshi with a photograph and asked if he would be willing to create a place of contemplation on the Vitra Campus.

This request sparked what would become a deeply meditative dialogue between Doshi, his granddaughter Khushnu Panthaki Hoof, and her husband Sönke Hoof, both chief architects of the Ahmedabad-based Studio Sangath. During the COVID-19 pandemic, they spent hours discussing the planned retreat through virtual conversations. Doshi would write words like "arrival," "transformation," "reflection," and "bewilderment" on paper, alongside rough sketches of what his granddaughter describes as "a building that is simultaneously not a building."

The retreat's design takes the form of two intertwining serpents, following Doshi's original vision. Visitors encounter brass-colored steel walls that are barely visible from a distance, gradually emerging behind Frank Gehry's Design Museum. The pathway creates a labyrinth-like experience, beginning above ground and then descending deeper into the earth. Along this winding route, flute sounds accompany visitors, leading them note by note through a tunnel that culminates in a gong chamber.

A team of sound designers from India, the Netherlands, and Austria developed the sophisticated audio system, which is embedded in concave recesses in the ground. "We knew that the retreat could not be a place you simply enter. It had to be a place where you arrive," explains Khushnu Panthaki Hoof, describing the conceptual approach behind the project.

At the end of the path, visitors reach the contemplation chamber, designed to invite both arrival and lingering. Two curved stone benches are positioned within the space, surrounded by a water basin. At the heart of the chamber stands a brass gong that produces a steady, rhythmic sound. Light filters through the floating ceiling, which is adorned with a hand-crafted brass mandala made in India.

The walls of the Doshi Retreat are constructed from weathered steel that was innovatively produced with low CO2 emissions, made largely from scrap materials. Sönke Hoof explains that this weather-resistant steel protects itself through oxidation and requires no further chemical treatment. The color effect changes depending on weather conditions, with rain and sun creating patina as rust forms on the initially black steel. "It is a living material that shapes the urban texture," he notes.

Spirituality and the motif of journey define the architecture of the Doshi Retreat, which resists clear formal categorization. It functions as a place of peace and retreat on the Vitra Campus, which attracts 400,000 visitors annually. "It's hard to put into words what the retreat really is," says Doshi's granddaughter Khushnu Panthaki Hoof. "It exists in the in-between, it is a place of gentle transition, between thinking and feeling, between community and solitude."

These words echo the philosophies of her grandfather, who saw architecture and life as inseparably connected. In the documentary film "Doshi," directed by Premjit Ramachandran, he reflected: "I am not an architect. I am searching—always searching, searching for the unknown that I have never known, and I also don't know in what form it will reveal itself to me. That is actually the essence of my work. It begins somewhere, ends somewhere, and in this process I grow, and the work grows, and we both grow together." The Doshi Retreat stands as a final testament to this philosophy, creating a space that transcends traditional architectural boundaries to offer visitors a transformative journey of contemplation and reflection.