Palace of the Spinners

Le Corbusier – Spinners’ Palace in Ahmedabad India, 1952-1956

Mill Owners' Association Building, also known as Ahmedabad Textile Mill Owners' Association House (ATMA House), is a modern architecture building in Ahmedabad, India, designed by Le Corbusier.
Le Corbusier came to India to design Chandigarh in 1951. He was invited to Ahmedabad by Mayor Chinubhai Chimanbhai. Surottam Hutheesing, then president of the Ahmedabad Mill Owners Association, commissioned Le Corbusier to build the association's new headquarters. It was completed in 1954.

A ceremonial ramp leads with great emphasis into a triple-height entrance hall, open to the wind. The arrival is on the first floor, where the offices and the boardroom of the managers are located. The ground floor houses the workspaces of the employees and a separate single-story canteen in the rear.
On the third floor there is a tall auditorium lit by a canopy and a curved, closed wall, as well as a generous hall. The east and west facades are protected by brise-soleils, one of Corbusier's many formal inventions, which, by avoiding direct sunlight, allow visual connection with the outside and the movement of air. While the brise-soleil characterizes these two facades, the north and south sides are built in rough brick and almost completely closed.

On the second floor the hall is treated as “an open space defined by harsh, angular shapes and the auditorium as a closed space delineated by soft, curvilinear shapes… two contradictory elements that both need the other to exist. "

In designing the office, Le Corbusier understood the essence of the Association very well. Since 1891, AMOA has provided an institutional framework for the close family ties of the owners of textile mills throughout much of the city. Le Corbusier expressed the dual character of the institution, the public and the private, through his concept of the house as a palace (Une maison – un palais).
Villa Cook, designed by him in 1926 and based on this same concept, is considered the closest ancestor of the Mill Owners' Building. In contrast, many of his later designs, particularly the Harvard's Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, have benefited from some of the experiments conducted in this particular building.

Source: Translation from Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mill_Owners%27_Association_Building