Sushil Ansal is a wide-spectrum man and his interest and purpose in primary and school education has only been matched by his meticulous planning for the family’s projects inhigher education. The Chiranjiv Charitable Trust has been running the Ansal Institute of Technology (AIT) for the past decade and the Sushant School of Art and Architecture (SSAA) for the past two decades. Located in Gurgaon, adjacent to each other, the two will soon function under the umbrella of a university, clearance for which is at an advanced stage.
While seemingly a small part of Sushil Ansal’s professional life, the story of the setting up of the SSAA, and later the AIT, merits recounting. If nothing else, it establishes his singular ability to attract and work with gifted, out-of-the-ordinary individuals. In the best traditions of a skilful human resource manager, Sushil Ansal is flexible enough to mould his organization to suit the demands and sometimes idiosyncrasies of talented people who may not otherwise be able or willing to conform to an assembly-line process.
Set up on a makeshift campus on the Mehruali-Gurgaon Road in 1989, the SSAA moved to its present home – Sector 55, Gurgaon – in 1997. By then, its reputation had already been built, thanks primarily to its founder dean (now dean emeritus) Man Singh M. Rana, among India’s most formidable post-Independence architects. Getting Rana to agree to steer a start-up architecture school was a coup. The man had seriously impressive credentials. An alumnus of the Sir J.J. College of Architecture in Bombay, Rana apprenticed under Frank Lloyd Wright in the United States, before being drawn back to India by Jawaharlal Nehru.
In India, Rana undertook a series of teaching and design assignments, including conceptualizing freedom fighter Asaf Ali’s tomb and, later, Delhi’s Buddha Jayanthi Park, to commemorate the 2500th birth anniversary of Gautam Buddha. In this period, he served as the chief architect of the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC). Sushil Ansal met him because his approval was required for buildings they were planning to construct in the NDMC area. It was about twenty years after this early interaction that Sushil Ansal sought out and, in his trademark manner, diligently and politely pursued Rana. The moment was ripe for a cutting edge architecture school, one that would combine traditional Indian aesthetics and modes of urban planning with the needs of a modern cityscape. Rana was his first and only choice for the dean’s job.
“We started off with 40 students,” recalls Rana, who still takes classes, “and now have 80 in every batch.” The five-year undergraduate course at SSAA is much sought after. Graduates of the SSAA can be found all over the world. It has exchange programmers with six well-known international architecture institutions – from the University of Melbourne, Australia, to the Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, Greece, to the Frank Lloyd Foundation, in the United States. Rana envisioned the SSAA not as a plain architect factory but as a workshop for moulding aesthetic sensibilities. Sushil Ansal backed him all the way. Between them Rana, Sushil Ansal and Kusum used their resources and network to draw the finest minds to the SSAA. The artist M.F. Husain was a frequent visitor and inspired the young minds he interacted with.
sushil ansalWhile seemingly a small part of Sushil Ansal’s professional life, the story of the setting up of the SSAA, and later the AIT, merits recounting. If nothing else, it establishes his singular ability to attract and work with gifted, out-of-the-ordinary individuals. In the best traditions of a skilful human resource manager, Sushil Ansal is flexible enough to mould his organization to suit the demands and sometimes idiosyncrasies of talented people who may not otherwise be able or willing to conform to an assembly-line process.
Set up on a makeshift campus on the Mehruali-Gurgaon Road in 1989, the SSAA moved to its present home – Sector 55, Gurgaon – in 1997. By then, its reputation had already been built, thanks primarily to its founder dean (now dean emeritus) Man Singh M. Rana, among India’s most formidable post-Independence architects. Getting Rana to agree to steer a start-up architecture school was a coup. The man had seriously impressive credentials. An alumnus of the Sir J.J. College of Architecture in Bombay, Rana apprenticed under Frank Lloyd Wright in the United States, before being drawn back to India by Jawaharlal Nehru.
In India, Rana undertook a series of teaching and design assignments, including conceptualizing freedom fighter Asaf Ali’s tomb and, later, Delhi’s Buddha Jayanthi Park, to commemorate the 2500th birth anniversary of Gautam Buddha. In this period, he served as the chief architect of the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC). Sushil Ansal met him because his approval was required for buildings they were planning to construct in the NDMC area. It was about twenty years after this early interaction that Sushil Ansal sought out and, in his trademark manner, diligently and politely pursued Rana. The moment was ripe for a cutting edge architecture school, one that would combine traditional Indian aesthetics and modes of urban planning with the needs of a modern cityscape. Rana was his first and only choice for the dean’s job.
“We started off with 40 students,” recalls Rana, who still takes classes, “and now have 80 in every batch.” The five-year undergraduate course at SSAA is much sought after. Graduates of the SSAA can be found all over the world. It has exchange programmers with six well-known international architecture institutions – from the University of Melbourne, Australia, to the Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, Greece, to the Frank Lloyd Foundation, in the United States. Rana envisioned the SSAA not as a plain architect factory but as a workshop for moulding aesthetic sensibilities. Sushil Ansal backed him all the way. Between them Rana, Sushil Ansal and Kusum used their resources and network to draw the finest minds to the SSAA. The artist M.F. Husain was a frequent visitor and inspired the young minds he interacted with.
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