Habib Rahman (architect)

Habib Rahman obtained his Bachelor of Engineering in 1939 in Calcutta. He studied at the MIT and obtained his Masters in Architecture in 1944 (the first Indian to complete this program[1]). From 1944 to 1946, he worked at the architecture firms of Lawrence B. Anderson, William Wurster Walter Gropius, and Ely Jacques Kahn in Boston.[2]

Habib Rahman returned to Calcutta during the 1946 Calcutta riots and became the Senior Architect of the government of West Bengal from 1947 to 1953. Starting in 1953, Habib Rahman becme the Senior Architect of the Central Public Works Department in New Delhi (and became Chief Architect in 1970[1]).[2]

From 1974 to 1977, he was Secretary of the Dehli Urban Arts.[2] In 1977, he contract was discontinued after he opposed several projets including building a second Connaught Place in New Delhi.[1]

Rabindra Bhawan (1961), Delhi.

During the 1950s and 1960s, the Nehru government invited architects, among which Habib Rahman, to develop new public buildings built in the spirit of the independence of India. He designed the Gandhi Ghat in 1949 in Barrackpore, the New Secretariat in Kolkata (completed in 1954), the Dak Bhawan in 1954,[1] the Rabindra Bhavan in 1961 (or 1963[1]),[2] the World Health Organisation in Dehli in 1962 (demolished in July 2019), the Sardar Patel Bhawan in 1973 (opposite to the Dak Bhawan).[1] He also designed the National Zoological Park that opened in 1959 (which included historical ruins, and housed over a thousand animal species).[1]

He also built the memorials of Abul Kalam Azad, Zakir Husain and Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed.[1]

Habib Rahman's architecture mirrored the modernist ethos of the newly Independent India.[1]

• S M Akhtar, Habib Rahman, The Architect of Independent India, 2016 (ISBN 978-9383419340)

• 1955: Padma Shri[2]
• 1974: Padma Bhushan[2]
• 1995: JK Cement Architect of the Year Chairman's Award for Life Achievement[2]

He was married to Indrani Rahman, a classical dancer.[2]