, Columnist
Poor Need Homes, Not Monuments
Pritzker Winner Balkrishna Doshi's vision should be heeded across the developing world.
An art gallery designed by Doshi.
Photographer: Edmund Sumner/UIG via Getty ImagesHere in the City of London, you can step out of Bank underground station and walk half a mile in any direction to see what Pritzker Prize-winning architects can do when they push themselves. At Bank intersection itself, breaking up the heavy imperial-era neoclassicism of Soane, Baker and Lutyens is James Stirling's Number One Poultry, whose postmodern curves softly echo the other buildings' grandiose lines. Stirling won the Pritzker, "architecture's Nobel Prize," in 1981; Number One Poultry, still controversial, is nevertheless now the youngest building to be officially protected, or "listed," by the British government.