It hardly seems possible in a world as intensely documented as ours that there remains a corner of New Delhi that, whilst familiar, perhaps, to architects and insiders, might be barely known to the rest of us. Locals call it Steinabad – a district unified by the work of a single man, an American modernist who arrived in India in the early 1950s not by design but by necessity, fleeing the long arm of McCarthyism. That man was Joseph Allen Stein, and his legacy – a collection of low-rise, beautifully shaded cultural institutions softened with stone, water and lush landscaping – looms quietly in the shadow of Lutyens' imperial grandeur.
Explore Joseph Allen Stein's work with Architourian
The son of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, Stein passed through some of the most charged creative institutions of mid-century America – among them the Cranbrook Academy of Art, where Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen had established a fierce tradition of handcraft, and the Los Angeles studio of Richard Neutra, where California modernism was being quietly reinvented for a new climate and a new society. His work on low-cost housing with Gregory Ain brought him the wrong kind of attention, and by 1950, with McCarthy's shadow lengthening, America was no longer a comfortable place to be. Serendipitously, Jawaharlal Nehru’s newly independent nation was then building itself from scratch, and Stein – arriving in 1952 with modernist architecture in his bones and a pragmatist's respect for local stone, craft and punishing heat – proved exactly the architect the moment required.
Three-quarters of a century later, Architourian, a boutique architecture travel outfit founded by Ian Macready, has made Steinabad a cornerstone of its India itinerary. Macready, who spent three decades navigating London's design world before launching what he describes as ‘a very small new company’, leads intimate tours that weave together architecture, food and travel, the whole enterprise echoing, as he puts it, ‘the ideas behind Wallpaper* magazine’, and all without ever tipping into boot-camp territory.
India, Macready explains, was the natural starting point for Architourian. 'There is an extraordinary story to tell about the last hundred years,’ he says, ‘from Lutyens' Delhi to Le Corbusier's Chandigarh to the handcrafted work of [Studio Mumbai's] Bijoy Jain, where each one stands almost in opposition to the other.’
The Steinabad walk – a few hours, three sites, one auto-rickshaw ride – is offered as an introduction to a broader seven-night journey through Delhi, Chandigarh and the Himalayan foothills. Vicky Thornton, director of London architecture practice Allies and Morrison and one of the early tour participants, describes Steinabad as ‘a completely unexpected revelation of extraordinary buildings’.
Finland is next on the horizon, timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the death of Alvar Aalto, with Ahmedabad – home to works by Le Corbusier, Louis Kahn and the great Indian modernists Charles Correa and BV Doshi – earmarked to follow.
Discussing Joseph Allen Stein with Architourian
W* sat down with Macready to talk about Stein, the art of architectural pilgrimage, and what the rest of the world still has to learn from a building that knows how to make you breathe.
Wallpaper*: You’ve built an entire travel company around the idea that architecture can be experienced rather than just studied. What is Architourian, exactly?
Ian Macready: It echoes in many ways the ideas behind Wallpaper* in the combination of design, art and architecture alongside food and travel. It's very much not intended to be an architecture boot camp. We travel in some style with a focus on looking at how architecture can shape, and be shaped by, the ambitions of the society.
W*: And how did it come about?
IM: In my previous life, I worked in a small design and architecture studio where we were lucky enough to work on designing a new house in Chandigarh and on a resort project started by Bijoy Jain of Studio Mumbai, some 80 kilometres away up in the mountains. I ended up one evening at this resort – the Amaya, in the Himalayan foothills – having a perfect dinner with the client and falling into a conversation about the diversity of architecture in India. We realised that there is an extraordinary story to tell about the last hundred years, from Lutyens' Delhi to Le Corbusier's Chandigarh to the handcrafted work of Bijoy Jain, where each one stands almost in opposition to the other. That conversation became Architourian.
W*: What does the tour actually look like in practice and who comes on it?
IM: So far, I offer one core tour: a seven-night trip starting in New Delhi, then Chandigarh, and finally a few nights up in the hills at the Amaya, where star chef Prateek Sadhu offers his extraordinary take on contemporary Himalayan cuisine. The tours are curated to work for people with anything from a fleeting interest in design to the total geek, though they are emphatically not for the completist. We do not tick off every building in town. To date, we've completed five trips, including one specially designed for a group of friends who were in India to attend a wedding. This summer we're heading to Finland – it’s the 50th anniversary of the death of Alvar Aalto, and Finland remains one of Europe's most under-explored countries for architecture and food lovers.
W*: The Steinabad walk is a newer addition. How does it fit into the broader itinerary?
IM: I came across Steinabad relatively recently, and I’ve introduced it as an add-on for guests arriving for the main tour. Visitors spend the first afternoon walking around the vicinity of the hotel to understand the rather remarkable story of this American architect leaving such a concentrated legacy in one corner of New Delhi. It's a few hours covering three sites: the India Habitat Centre, the India International Centre, and then a quick auto-rickshaw ride up to the stunning arts centre, Triveni Kala Sangam. The next tours start again from October.
W*: How much access do you actually get to these buildings?
IM: Access is one of those tricky things. Generally a call in advance, and if nothing is taking place in the buildings, we're usually allowed inside. In Chandigarh, I'm very lucky because my local contact has been working in tourism since the Unesco World Heritage designation was given in 2016 to Le Corbusier's set pieces – he’s a well-known figure and can organise fantastic access to the most important sites.
W*: Le Corbusier gets Chandigarh, the textbooks, the pilgrimages. Joseph Allen Stein gets relative obscurity. Why has history been so much kinder to one than the other?
IM: Le Corbusier is arguably the greatest architect of the twentieth century, and his work and ideas continue to influence architectural practice today – though the results of that influence have not always been well executed. He placed himself, in the 1920s and 1930s, right at the heart of the debate about the future of architecture and city planning. Stein, by contrast, ended up in India in order to escape the politics of the early 1950s United States. The fact that he managed to design such high-quality, elegant works is a testament to his perseverance, and to the political and economic landscape of India as a newly independent nation. Different places, different times, different motivations – these explain their very different legacies.
W*: Stein arrived in India carrying the DNA of California modernism and a deep commitment to affordable housing. How much of that political and social background made it into his Indian buildings?
IM: He arrived at a time when India needed new cultural, educational and institutional buildings urgently. His architecture used the language of openness – courtyards, shaded plazas, bridges – realised in straightforward, economical materials: brick, stone, concrete. The buildings are modest and do not dominate their surroundings. They are also acutely sensitive to the brutal heat of a Delhi summer. That instinct for economy and climate responsiveness goes all the way back to his work in California with Gregory Ain, designing homes that ordinary families could actually afford to live in.
W*: Delhi is full of grand colonial monuments and Lutyens-era pomp. What made Stein's approach so radical – or so quietly subversive – in that context?
IM: Stein was exactly that: a quiet radical. Nehru specifically wanted the architecture of independent India to stand in direct contrast to what had gone before. It's also worth pointing out that there were very few qualified architects in India in the immediate post-independence era – only around 300. Stein, along with a handful of other American architects at the time, was able to be part of building a new vision for a secular, non-aligned state. The scale of that opportunity was enormous.
W*: To your earlier point about designing homes for ordinary families, Stein’s work is described as humanist and inclusive, but what does that actually mean when you're standing inside one of these buildings?
IM: Those terms are really a reflection of scale and circulation. The buildings encourage people to move through indoor and outdoor spaces fluidly and without hierarchy. They're set within green landscapes, which means that when you're in the middle of one of the world's most populous cities, they allow you to slow down and breathe a little. That's not a small thing.
W*: Steinabad is an unofficial district named after a single architect. It's a remarkable thing for a city to do. Can you think of anywhere else in the world where that's happened?
IM: Steinabad sits within Lutyens' Delhi, which remains a descriptive rather than official title. There's rue Mallet-Stevens in Paris and Plaça de Gaudí in Barcelona – but let's face it, architects are, for some reason, often not especially popular. The fact that an entire neighbourhood carries Stein's name, even informally, says something rather significant about the affection Delhi holds for him.
W*: If there's one lesson contemporary architects – working anywhere in the world – should take from Stein and Steinabad, what is it?
IM: Be responsive to your location. Match your design ambition to the skill of the craftspeople who are already there. Do not impose unnecessary innovation. It sounds simple, but it is, of course, incredibly hard.