Cept School of Planning founders look back over 40 years

The campus of Centre for Environment Planning and Technology University (Cept) was filled with nostalgic memories on Sunday, as its School of Planning celebrated 40 years of existence.

“In 1972, when we started the School, the idea was to create not just planners, but environment planners. Forty years isn’t a short time, it is more than a generation,” said eminent architect BV Doshi, recalling the initial years.

The founder director of the School was addressing the alumni, faculty and students who had gathered to celebrate its completion of 40 years.
“When I started teaching in USA, I realised that school wasn’t one single place, but had many places for activities, interaction, etc,” Doshi said, adding, “We brought the philosophy here in Cept, where students could freely interact with the faculty and carry out activities.”

Doshi, along with Christopher Charles Benninger from Harvard’s School of Design and renowned economist Prof YK Alagh, chalked out the plan for the School where education would be inclusive and multi-disciplinary.

Speaking to DNA, Benninger said, “In 1974, we were the first to send the students of planning school to rural and urban areas, middle class societies, slums, pols in walled city, etc, for integrated ideas on how inequality and land issues are important for planning.”  The first district planning in India was done by students of Cept in 1974 at Panchmahals, said Benninger, who quit Harvard in 1971 and shifted to Ahmedabad on the invitation
of Doshi.



Doshi and Benninger regaled the audience with their witty remarks.Among those felicitated at the event was Narayanan Edadan, a former faculty member. He told DNA, “As an economist, I studied economic development, but during this course, it was a conflict between town planning and economic development and I started seeing a different dimension.”