Didi Contractor
{{Short description|American architect (1929–2021)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2021}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Didi Contractor
| image = Didi aka Delia Narayan Contractor, H2019030865834 (cropped).jpg
| image_size =
| caption = Contractor in 2019
| birth_name = Delia Kinzinger
| birth_date = {{birth date|1929|10|11}}
| birth_place = Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.
| death_date = {{death date|2021|7|5}} (aged 91)
| death_place = Sidhbari, India
| known_for = Sustainable building in India
| education = University of Colorado Boulder & self-taught Architect and natural builder
| occupation = Natural builder
| spouse = Narayan Contractor
| children = Maya Narayan, Devendra Contractor, late Rahoul Contractor, Kirin Narayan
| parents = Edmund & Alice Fish Kinzinger
}}
Delia Narayan "Didi" Contractor (née Kinzinger; 1929 – July 5, 2021) was an American artist and builder. A self-taught architect, she is known for her work on the vernacular traditions in India,{{r|ad|giaracuni|wa|tbi|ix}} using adobe, bamboo and stone for materials. She was a recipient of the Nari Shakti Puraskar, India's highest civilian award for recognising the achievements and contributions of women.{{r|earthville}}
Life
Born Delia Kinzinger{{r|giaracuni}} in Minneapolis,{{r|bba}} she was the daughter of expressionist painters Edmund Kinzinger and Alice Fish Kinzinger, both associated with the Bauhaus movement.{{r|giaracuni}} Her father was German, from Pforzheim, Grand Duchy of Baden. Her mother was American.{{citation|url=https://www.vintagetexaspaintings.com/artists/411-edmund-daniel-kinzinger-paintings|title=Edmund Daniel Kinzinger Paintings | Vintage Texas Paintings|website=Charles Morin's Vintage Texas Gallery}} Her parents married in Germany in 1927, and moved to Minneapolis where her father worked as an exchange teacher. They returned to Germany, but left it for Paris in 1933. They moved to Waco, Texas in 1935, where her father was first assistant professor, later professor and finally head of the Art Department of Baylor University.{{r|staatsgalerie}}
She grew up in New Mexico and Texas, and took a year off from school to work in theatre,{{r|ix}} She was first trained in art by her father and Hans Hofmann in New York,{{r|giaracuni}} and then studied art at the University of Colorado Boulder,{{r|wa}} where she met her husband, Narayan Contractor. They moved to Nashik in the 1950s, and to Mumbai in the 1960s, raising four children.{{r|wa|bba}} After separating from her husband she moved to Andretta, an artists’ village established by Norah Richards in the Kangra Valley of Himachal Pradesh in the 1970s.{{r|wa}}
Contractor's eldest daughter, Maya Narayan is a retired clinical psychologist. Over the years she has cared a lot for her mother. Contractor's youngest daughter is author and academic Kirin Narayan. Narayan has written about the Contractor household in Mumbai, in a beachside compound in Juhu which Contractor ran as a combination youth hostel and literary salon, in her memoir My Family and Other Saints.{{r|outlook}} Her son Devendra Contractor trained as an architect and practices in Santa Fe, New Mexico.{{Cite web |last=administrator |date=2020-08-05 |title=Architecture for the Senses |url=https://trendmagazineglobal.com/architecture-for-the-senses/ |access-date=2023-03-17 |website=Trend Magazine |language=en-US}} The children studied in the U.S.{{r|zimmerman}}
Contractor died at home in Sidhbari on July 5, 2021, at age 91.{{r|varghese}}
Buildings
file:Ram Nath Kovind presenting the Nari Shakti Puruskar for the year 2018 to Ms. Delia Narayan Contractor, H2019030865834.jpg presenting the Nari Shakti Puruskar to Didi Contractor in 2019]]
Contractor was self-taught in architecture and was inspired as a child by a talk by Frank Lloyd Wright. She specialised in buildings that fit into, rather than contrast with, the landscape, and are made of natural local materials: mainly mud, bamboo, and stone, with small amounts of deodar wood. They also include frequent use of staircases as a design element. They can be found in the area around Dharamsala, and include over 15 homes and three institutions, including the Nishtha Rural Health, Education and Environment Center in Sidhbari, the Sambhaavnaa Institute of Public Policy and Politics in Palampur, and the Dharmalaya Institute in Bir.{{r|ad|wa}}
Recognition
Contractor was the subject of two feature films, Earth Crusader (2016),{{r|tbi}} and Didi Contractor: Marrying the Earth to the Building (2017).{{r|giaracuni}} She was the 2017 winner of the Women Artists, Architects and Designers (WADe) Asia Life Time Achievement Award.{{r|tbi}}
In 2019 the president of India gave her the Nari Shakti Puraskar, India's highest civilian award for recognising the achievements and contributions of women.{{r|earthville|toi}}
References
{{reflist|refs=
{{citation|url=https://indianexpress.com/article/express-sunday-eye/unto-the-earth-didi-contractors-oeuvre-is-a-story-of-rare-beauty-5023346/|title=Unto the Earth: Didi Contractor's oeuvre is a story of rare beauty|newspaper=The Indian Express|date=January 14, 2018|first=Shiny|last=Varghese}}
{{citation|first=Bhaichand|last=Patel|date=November 10, 2008|magazine=Outlook|title=An Old Haunt: A tale of turbulent adolescence and life in a bicultural household, we visit '60s Bombay and a mystic's haven|url=https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/an-old-haunt/238887}}
{{citation|url=https://www.staatsgalerie.de/g/sammlung/sammlung-digital/einzelansicht/sgs/werk/einzelansicht/F18127E8542F4B1EB1C3376215CEA857.html |publisher=Staatsgalerie Stuttgart|title=Edmund Daniel Kinzinger (1888–1963) / Paris, Seinebrücke und Häuser, 1913 |date=2016|language=de}}
{{citation|newspaper=The Indian Express|url=https://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/life-style/didi-contractor-champion-of-low-waste-buildings-is-no-more-nari-shakti-puraskar-7390195/|title=Didi Contractor, champion of low-waste buildings, is no more|first=Shiny|last=Varghese|date=July 6, 2021}}
}}
External links
- {{IMDb name}}
- {{citation|url=https://pro.magnumphotos.com/Catalogue/Marilyn-Silverstone/1960/INDIA-East-West-wedding(joint-family)-NN160794.html|title=East-West wedding|year=1960|first=Marilyn|last=Silverstone|author-link=Marilyn Silverstone|publisher=Magnum Photography}}. Silverstone's photo-essay on Didi Contractor, "East-West wife", was published in Coronet magazine, November 1960.
- Narayan, Kirin: [https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/568201.html My Family & Other Saints] (excerpts) press.uchicago.edu
- Singh, Joginder: [https://www.immaterialonline.com/didi-contractor-interview/ Didi Contractor / Ideas and Concerns] (interview) immaterialonline.com
{{Nari Shakti Puraskar}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Contractor, Didi}}
Category:21st-century American architects
Category:20th-century Indian architects
Category:University of Colorado Boulder alumni
Category:Nari Shakti Puraskar winners
Category:American emigrants to India
Category:20th-century American architects
Category:American women architects
Category:Indian women architects
Category:Architects from New Mexico
Category:Architects from Texas
Category:American people of German descent
Category:Indian people of German descent
Category:20th-century American women