Editorial Note
Indian architects report that a significant amount of their work remains unbuilt – whether as concepts that didn’t make the cut at competitions, as proposals which got tied up in red tape, or as projects that were abandoned by stakeholders. While we measure the worth of a building by the visual, tactile and spatial experience it offers, the fact remains that unrealized ideas are just as crucial as built structures – for design, development and discourse. This volume seeks to celebrate these ideas.
Prem Chandavarkar is the managing partner of CnT Architects: an award-winning and widely published architectural practice based in Bangalore, India.
Amritha Ballal is an architect and urban planner, and a founding partner at Space Matters, a multidisciplinary, Delhi based design studio.
Rahoul B. Singh is a New Delhi based architect, writer and curator. He is deeply interested in and committed to the quality of the built environment.
Anupam Bansal (b. 1969) is an architect, urbanist and academician who co-founded ABRD Architects along with his fellow classmate Rajesh Dongre.
Rupali Gupte is an architect and urbanist based in Mumbai. She is an Associate Professor at the School of Environment and Architecture (SEA).
Himanshu Burte, an architect and urbanist, is Assistant Professor at the School of Habitat Studies, TISS, Mumbai.
Sanjay Prakash is an architect with a commitment to energy-conscious architecture, people’s participation in planning, music and production design.
It’s a beautiful book. Congratulations! I enjoyed the articles and the projects are very well curated. It’s not often that thought provoking and well put together books on design are published.
Abhimanyu Dalal
Abhimanyu Dalal Architects
india: unbuilt architecture is a wonderful venture in the first place. The format of the book is really well done. The quality of layouts hats off. The quality of printing very well done. All those who contributed in writing excellent and well edited. The projects would have been many that landed on your table but you have chosen well. And the range of projects also very well selected. Across typologies and economy. Brilliant effort. Much wanted.
Pramod Balakrishnan
Edifice Architects and Interior Designers
I was very pleased to receive the book – unbuilt India – which sadly has some excellent projects that will never be realised – Nalanda being prominent among them. Though it’s sad to see so much apparently wasted effort, I do believe that the ideas formulated in such schemes find their way into future schemes. That said, it is a fascinating survey of what might have been.
Graham Morrison
Alles and Morrison
The book features 54 inspiring yet unbuilt architecture ideas by Indian architects, and nine intriguing essays on the theme contributed by professionals and academicians. The first ever book to celebrate the value of unbuilt Indian architecture.
Rupali Gupte is an architect and urbanist based in Mumbai, Professor at the School of Environment and Architecture (SEA) and a partner at BARDStudio. Her work often crosses disciplinary boundaries and takes different forms – writings, drawings, mixed-media works, story telling, teaching, curation, walks and spatial interventions.
Her works include extensive research on contemporary Indian urbanism with a focus on architecture and built environment; tactical practices; housing; and urban form. In 2013, she co-founded the School of Environment and Architecture (sea.edu.in). SEA is envisaged as an experimental academic space for research and education in architecture and urbanism. She has a wide range of publications, has delivered lectures and been on juries across the world. Her works in collaboration with her partner Prasad Shetty, have been shown in several exhibitions including the 56th Venice Biennale, X Sao Paolo Architecture Biennale, Seoul Biennale of Art and Architecture, at Manifesta 7 in Bolzano, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona and at galleries such as Project 88, Devi Art Foundation and the Mumbai Art Room. She has recently curated an exhibition involving artists and architects titled ‘When is Space? Conversations in Contemporary Architecture’ at the Jawahar Kala Kendra.
SUBSCRIBE
