On the first floor as you move forward, you come to the massive sun breaker trellis on the other side, facing the Sabarmati river. There is a small garden on the lower level next to the river. Corbusier uses free standing walls and staircases to loosely define spaces. There are slender circular columns supporting the slabs above. The marks of the wood shuttering planks are still visible on the surfaces.
There is an amazing free standing staircase leading up to the mezzanine, where the landing is totally unsupported on any walls or columns and is hanging in the air. This is a work of structural ingenuity and shows us that it is possible to push the frontiers of design if there is a will. The entire building is of exposed concrete, with a few elements in wood and steel painted in bright colours to add contrast.
The Mill Owners building has reinforced my belief that a building is much more than its facade – that the articulation of space is one of the primary challenges for an architect.