{"id":48298,"date":"2025-11-03T10:58:53","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T10:58:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/doshi-retreat-un-santuario-de-serenidad-en-el-campus-vitra-disenado-por-los-arquitectos-balkrishna-doshi-khushnu-panthaki-y-sonke-hoof\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T17:43:38","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T17:43:38","slug":"doshi-retreat-a-sanctuary-of-serenity-at-the-vitra-campus-designed-by-architects-balkrishna-doshi-khushnu-panthaki-and-sonke-hoof","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exagono.es\/en\/doshi-retreat-a-sanctuary-of-serenity-at-the-vitra-campus-designed-by-architects-balkrishna-doshi-khushnu-panthaki-and-sonke-hoof\/","title":{"rendered":"Doshi Retreat: a sanctuary of serenity at the Vitra Campus, designed by architects Balkrishna Doshi, Khushnu Panthaki and S\u00f6nke Hoof"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the Vitra Campus<\/a> in Weil am Rhein, Germany, stands this space for silent introspection: the Doshi Retreat, a creation by the great Indian master Balkrishna Doshi, in collaboration with his granddaughter, architect Khushnu Panthaki Hoof, and her husband, architect S\u00f6nke Hoof, co-founders of Studio Sangath<\/a>. Conceived as an invitation to contemplation, the pavilion offers a sensorial journey that interlaces sound, matter, and light, inspired by Indian spirituality and by the belief that space can serve as an instrument of the soul.<\/p>\n\n

The genesis of the project goes back to a meeting between Rolf Fehlbaum, chairman emeritus of Vitra<\/a>, and Balkrishna Doshi. After visiting the Sun Temple in Modhera, Fehlbaum showed Doshi a photograph of a small shrine, proposing that he design a place for retreat and meditation at the Vitra Campus. Doshi accepted the challenge and, together with Khushnu and S\u00f6nke, gave form to an architecture born of dialogue, where every curve and every shadow seem to breathe with inner energy.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u00a9 Vitra, photo: Julien Lanoo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u00a9 Vitra, photo: Julien Lanoo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u00a9 Vitra, photo: Julien Lanoo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u00a9 Vitra, photo: Marek Iwicki<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u00a9 Vitra, photo: Marek Iwicki<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u00a9 Vitra, photo: Marek Iwicki<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u00a9 Vitra, photo: Julien Lanoo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u00a9 Vitra, photo: Julien Lanoo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u00a9 Vitra, photo: Julien Lanoo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u00a9 Vitra, photo: Julien Lanoo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u00a9 Vitra, photo: Julien Lanoo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u00a9 Vitra, photo: Julien Lanoo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u00a9 Vitra, photo: Julien Lanoo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

The Doshi Retreat \u2014 Doshi\u2019s final project and the only one built outside India \u2014 unfolds as a meandering path that descends underground, guiding the visitor along metallic walls that vibrate with the soft echoes of gongs and ceramic flutes. Sound, an essential component of the experience, acts as a bridge between body and space: a vibration that dissolves boundaries and allows architecture to be felt from within.<\/p>\n\n\n

At the heart of the journey lies the chamber of contemplation, a circular space crowned by a mandala of hand-hammered brass crafted in India. Its roof, partially open to the sky, allows light, air, and rain to enter. A shallow pool of rainwater traces the perimeter, reflecting the golden glimmers that fall from the mandala and multiplying the sense of stillness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Built with XCarb\u00ae steel \u2014 a low-emission material produced with renewable energy and donated by ArcelorMittal<\/a> \u2014 the pavilion engages in a dialogue with nature through time: its metallic skin, exposed to the air, will develop a warm, living patina that changes with the seasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The form of the Doshi Retreat \u2014 which, according to Khushnu Panthaki, was born from a dream in which Doshi saw two intertwined cobras \u2014 connects to the Kundalini philosophy, the spiral energy that rises along the spine in yogic tradition. Thus, the visitor\u2019s path becomes a journey of inner ascension: from outer silence to inner silence, from metal to soul. \u201cSound, resonating within the visitor\u2019s body, erases the boundary between the self and the structure,\u201d explains Khushnu Panthaki. \u201cThe building reflects the sound back to you, turning both the path and the chamber into resonant instruments.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

The Doshi Retreat is not intended as a temple or a museum. It is, rather, a presence \u2014 a place that invites you to lose yourself, to be enveloped by the gentle confusion of space and the murmur of the wind. A contemporary sanctuary where architecture can be heard.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u00a9 Vitra, photo: Julien Lanoo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u00a9 Vitra, photo: Julien Lanoo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u00a9 Vitra, photo: Julien Lanoo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u00a9 Vitra, photo: Julien Lanoo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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