Delia Narayan "Didi" Contractor (née Kinzinger; 1929 – July 5, 2021) was an American artist and builder known for her work on the vernacular traditions in India, 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.
Life
Born Delia Kinzinger in
Minneapolis
Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with list of lakes in Minneapolis, thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. ...
, she was the daughter of
expressionist painters
Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it r ...
Edmund Kinzinger and Alice Fish Kinzinger, both associated with the
Bauhaus
The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 2 ...
movement. Her father was German, from
Pforzheim
Pforzheim () is a city of over 125,000 inhabitants in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg, in the southwest of Germany.
It is known for its jewelry and watch-making industry, and as such has gained the nickname "Goldstadt" ("Golden City") ...
, Grand Duchy of Baden. Her mother was American. 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
Waco ( ) is the county seat of McLennan County, Texas, United States. It is situated along the Brazos River and Interstate 35, I-35, halfway between Dallas and Austin, Texas, Austin. The city had a 2020 population of 138,486, making it the List ...
in 1935, where her father was first assistant professor, later professor and finally head of the Art Department of
Baylor University
Baylor University is a private Baptist Christian research university in Waco, Texas. Baylor was chartered in 1845 by the last Congress of the Republic of Texas. Baylor is the oldest continuously operating university in Texas and one of the ...
.
She grew up in New Mexico and Texas, and took a year off from school to work in theatre, She was first trained in art by her father and Hans Hofmann in New York, and then studied art at the
University of Colorado Boulder
The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University of Colorado s ...
, where she met her husband, Indian building contractor Narayan Contractor. They moved to
Nashik
Nashik (, Marathi: aːʃik, also called as Nasik ) is a city in the northern region of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Situated on the banks of river Godavari, Nashik is the third largest city in Maharashtra, after Mumbai and Pune. Nash ...
in the 1950s, and to
Mumbai
Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the secon ...
in the 1960s, raising three children. After separating from her husband she moved to the
Kangra Valley
Kangra Valley is a river valley situated in the Western Himalayas.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''. Her son, Devendra Contractor, also became an architect. The children studied in the U.S.
Contractor died at home in
Sidhbari
Sidhbari is a suburb of Dharamshala town, situated in the foothills of Dhauladhar mountains, in Kangra district of the state of Himachal Pradesh, India. The '' Samadhi'' (final resting place) of Sri Chinmayananda is located here.
Over ...
on July 5, 2021, at age 91.
Buildings
President Ram Nath Kovind presenting the Nari Shakti Puruskar to Didi Contractor in 2019">Nari_Shakti_Puruskar.html" ;"title="Ram Nath Kovind presenting the Nari Shakti Puruskar">Ram Nath Kovind 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 Cedrus deodara, deodar wood. They also include frequent use of staircases as a design element. They can be found in the area around
Dharamsala
Dharamshala (; also spelled Dharamsala) is the winter capital of Himachal Pradesh, India. It serves as administrative headquarters of the Kangra district after being relocated from Kangra, a city located away from Dharamshala, in 1855.
The ...
, and include over 15 homes and three institutions, including the Nishtha Rural Health, Education and Environment Center in
Sidhbari
Sidhbari is a suburb of Dharamshala town, situated in the foothills of Dhauladhar mountains, in Kangra district of the state of Himachal Pradesh, India. The '' Samadhi'' (final resting place) of Sri Chinmayananda is located here.
Over ...
, the Sambhaavnaa Institute of Public Policy and Politics in Palampur, and the Dharmalaya Institute in Bir.
Recognition
Contractor was the subject of two feature films, ''Earth Crusader'' (2016), and ''Didi Contractor: Marrying the Earth to the Building'' (2017). She was the 2017 winner of the Women Artists, Architects and Designers (WADe) Asia Life Time Achievement Award.
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.