10 Facts About Didi Contractor

Delia Narayan "Didi" Contractor was an American artist and builder.

Didi Contractor was a recipient of the Nari Shakti Puraskar, India's highest civilian award for recognising the achievements and contributions of women.

Didi Contractor's father was German, from Pforzheim, Grand Duchy of Baden.

Didi Contractor's parents married in Germany in 1927, and moved to Minneapolis where her father worked as an exchange teacher.

Didi Contractor grew up in New Mexico and Texas, and took a year off from school to work in theatre, Didi Contractor was first trained in art by her father and Hans Hofmann in New York, and then studied art at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she met her husband, Narayan Contractor.

Didi Contractor died at home in Sidhbari on July 5,2021, at age 91.

Didi Contractor was self-taught in architecture and was inspired as a child by a talk by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Didi Contractor 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 deodar wood.

Contractor was the subject of two feature films, Earth Crusader, and Didi Contractor: Marrying the Earth to the Building.

Didi Contractor was the 2017 winner of the Women Artists, Architects and Designers Asia Life Time Achievement Award.