New Exhibition in Mumbai To Debate the Death of Architecture

Put together as a labour of love by 13 architecture firms from across the country, this travelling exhibition takes a critical look at the state of architecture in the country today. Its first stop is Mumbai.

What’s happened to our cities? What’s happened to nostalgia and beauty in a mileu that’s dominated by by-laws and apathy? There are many kinds of death, and what is happening to the profession of architecture may well be one kind of demise, so says architect Aniket Bhagwat of Prabhakar Bhagwat Associates, “We are standing in front of a deluge.”

Through this bold new exhibition, a collective of 13 architecture firms from across the country have come together to raise some pertinent questions for the architecture community and general population at large. “It’s in the hands of people to demand better environments,” says Samira Rathod of SRDA, Mumbai.

The inauguration of the exhibition will take place on February 23, at 6:30 PM at Nehru Science Centre, Mumbai. This will be followed by ten days of informal discussions with architects, guided tours, walk-throughs for schoolchildren and film screenings. See the schedule of events in Mumbai here.

The not-for-profit exhibition will then travel the country from February 2018 to January 2019, visiting the cities of Mumbai, Pune, Kolhapur, Baroda, Ahmedabad, Surat, Rajkot, Jaipur, Delhi, Chandigarh, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pondicherry/Auroville, Bangalore, Cochin, Trivandrum and Goa.

The 13 architects that are partaking in this include Ahmedabad’s Rajeev Kathpalia of Vastu-Shilpa Foundation, Vijay and Meghal Arya, Riyaz Tayybiji of Anthill Design and Aniket Bhagwat. Other architects on board include Shabbir Unwala, Zameer Basrai, Bijoy Ramachandran, and other distinguished architects, each of whom have a prolific architectural practice, academic bent of mind and strong ethical position with regard to their practice.

“The present poses challenges. Of a lack of a collective agreement of areas of examination, and on the other of a forced idea of identity that is being firmly if superficially applied,” reads the exhibition brief. Art installations, posters and illustrated drawings make the exhibition legible even for the lay public. Each of these architects has chosen a theme to look at, be it the theme of the city, the act of building, the idea of history, or professional process.

The exhibition is a mirror to the profession at large. Make plans to visit it in your city. See the calendar of the travelling exhibition here.