Apurva Bose Dutta trained as an architect but chose not to practise architecture in the conventional sense. Instead of designing buildings, she practises through architectural design writing, journalism, criticism, communications, discourse, and curation – her preferred career path since she graduated from the Chandigarh College of Architecture in 2005 and followed that up with a diploma in freelance journalism.
“I always had an inherent love for the written word. I discovered architectural writing and journalism through an elective in my final year. I knew how writing could articulate and symbolise a thought process,” says Bose Dutta.
She wondered why creative fields like architecture and design that combine the arts and sciences and need translation, analysis and interpretation were not focusing on writing as a primary skill for architects and designers.
“My research indicated that writing was always considered integral to architecture overseas. In India, though there were master architects, such as Charles Correa, BV Doshi, and Christopher Benninger, who were also masters with words, and publications such as Design and The Indian Builder, which were representations of the impact of words in architecture, no one had focused persistently on the relevance of writing to architecture. Those were times when trained architects were supposed to only design buildings,” she says adding that she decided to meld her academic background with her love for words.
“After stints with publication houses in New Delhi and Mumbai, I started working independently in 2009 when I moved to Bengaluru. Over 18 years, my exploration into architectural design writing, journalism, criticism, communications, discourse, and curation has translated into a unique career with the AEC industry,” she says. This has involved global collaborations with prominent multimedia publication houses, firms, organisations, and institutions affiliated with architecture, design, and building. Alongside, she has also focused on increasing the visibility of architectural design writing through talks, seminars, and training initiatives in the discipline.
Her first book, Architectural Voices of India (2017) which included the thoughts of 19 well known architects, aimed to initiate a discourse on architecture as a subject and a profession. Architectural Inheritance and Evolution in India, her second, pivots on three aspects: Family, architecture, and India. The nation has many families that share an architectural practice across generations, whose members head multiple architectural practices, and who work with alternate architectural avenues, such as writing, research and construction.
“The book explores how a creative and subjective field like architecture, which trickles into our lives, situates itself in family bonds in India. By taking 10 acclaimed architectural families as case studies and traversing their journeys, I explore how architecture can contribute to family bonds or how family bonds can impact architecture,” she says. The book also discusses the pros and cons of being predisposed to architecture and the consequence of having family members who are also architects.
The 10 families who feature in the book include:
* Sumit Ghosh, Suchitra Ghosh and Sudipto Ghosh from New Delhi
* Uttam C Jain, Maya Shah, Chirag Jain and Shona Jain from Mumbai
* Late Achyut Kanvinde, Sanjay Kanvinde, Tanuja BK and Vrinda Kanvinde from New Delhi
* Late Sharad Kembhavi, Nalini S Kembhavi, Indrajit Kembhavi, Nita Kembhavi, Partha Kembhavi and Soumya Partha Kembhavi from Bengaluru and Hubli
* Habeeb Khan, Smita Khan, Sabrina Khan Talaviya and Samiha Khan from Nagpur and Rajkot
* Sanjay Puri, Nina Puri and Ayesha Puri Kanoria from Mumbai
* Sagar Shah, Shaila Shah, Pinkish Shah, Shilpa Gore-Shah, Rahul Gore and Sonal Sancheti from Mumbai
* Late VN Shah, Rajiv Khanna, Sabeena Khanna, Ajay Shah, Sakshi Khanna and Himanshu Khanna from Gurgaon, Mumbai, and Vancouver
* Shiv Datt Sharma, Sangeet Sharma, Purnima Sharma and Shivansh Sharma from Chandigarh
* Lalichan Zacharias, Jabeen Zacharias, Bhyrav BR and Aatira L Zacharias from Kochi and Bengaluru
Bose Dutta’s initial research revealed that there are about 100 families in the country that include at least two trained architects. In the interests of streamlining the book, she chose to include only those that had at least three “living” architects.
“The book is based on detailed conversations I had with 10 families. To have a diversity of views, I looked for family members from different generations and regions who shared varied familial bonds (grandparents, parents, in-laws, and siblings), who were into practice, academics and alternate avenues of architecture and who bonded over architecture in different capacities (intergenerational and heterogenous practices),” she says. The book especially focuses on how architecture situates itself in family bonds in a nation that rejoices in its rich family culture.
“Family bonds in India are unique and tied to tradition and socio-cultural ethos. Unlike many professions, architecture glides into our lifestyles and impacts our holistic perception accordingly. Two creative people can look at things differently, and six architects in a family can have six different ways of creating spaces,” says Bose Dutta.
She was curious to know how members navigated family and professional dynamics in a culture where ties are revered and where, in some cases, different generations live together. “How do their different perceptions and ideologies come together? What is the equation they share at work if they share a practice? Since architecture is omnipresent, does it become a topic of their dinner conversations?”
The book is primarily based on the author’s detailed conversations with 40 architects. “Since the age group of these architects ranged from the early twenties to the early nineties, their perceptions and interpretations, anecdotes, journeys, experiences, and approaches became reflective of the massive transformation architecture has witnessed in these six to seven decades. The families became a lens to understand India’s architectural inheritance and evolution,” says Bose Dutta.
The epilogue draws parallels between the 10 families and examines their differences too, revealing numerous professional and personal aspects that impact them. “Professional aspects include how and when they were introduced to architecture, their work setups and management, and how pivotal shifts (due to technology and globalisation) affected their perceptions and approach towards architecture,” she says. Personal aspects include members’ varying personalities, interests, gender, educational backgrounds, and geographical locations.
The author believes every family taught her something about architecture, life, and relationships. “The conversations for the book happened with all family members present, and almost every family acknowledged they had never sat down together to have such detailed discussions on architecture. Through their numerous anecdotes, I witnessed their journeys and realised how architecture impacted their familial bonds and vice versa,” she says.
So what’s next for Bose Dutta? “Many interesting engagements are currently lined up, including the curation and spearheading of an international journal issue on writing and literature, which will soon be published,” she says.
Teja Lele is an independent editor and writes on books, travel and lifestyle.
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Apurva Bose Dutta trained as an architect but chose not to practise architecture in the conventional sense. Instead of designing buildings, she practises through architectural design writing, journalism, criticism, communications, discourse, and curation – her preferred career path since she graduated from the Chandigarh College of Architecture in 2005 and followed that up with a diploma in freelance journalism.
“I always had an inherent love for the written word. I discovered architectural writing and journalism through an elective in my final year. I knew how writing could articulate and symbolise a thought process,” says Bose Dutta.
She wondered why creative fields like architecture and design that combine the arts and sciences and need translation, analysis and interpretation were not focusing on writing as a primary skill for architects and designers.
“My research indicated that writing was always considered integral to architecture overseas. In India, though there were master architects, such as Charles Correa, BV Doshi, and Christopher Benninger, who were also masters with words, and publications such as Design and The Indian Builder, which were representations of the impact of words in architecture, no one had focused persistently on the relevance of writing to architecture. Those were times when trained architects were supposed to only design buildings,” she says adding that she decided to meld her academic background with her love for words.
“After stints with publication houses in New Delhi and Mumbai, I started working independently in 2009 when I moved to Bengaluru. Over 18 years, my exploration into architectural design writing, journalism, criticism, communications, discourse, and curation has translated into a unique career with the AEC industry,” she says. This has involved global collaborations with prominent multimedia publication houses, firms, organisations, and institutions affiliated with architecture, design, and building. Alongside, she has also focused on increasing the visibility of architectural design writing through talks, seminars, and training initiatives in the discipline.
Her first book, Architectural Voices of India (2017) which included the thoughts of 19 well known architects, aimed to initiate a discourse on architecture as a subject and a profession. Architectural Inheritance and Evolution in India, her second, pivots on three aspects: Family, architecture, and India. The nation has many families that share an architectural practice across generations, whose members head multiple architectural practices, and who work with alternate architectural avenues, such as writing, research and construction.
“The book explores how a creative and subjective field like architecture, which trickles into our lives, situates itself in family bonds in India. By taking 10 acclaimed architectural families as case studies and traversing their journeys, I explore how architecture can contribute to family bonds or how family bonds can impact architecture,” she says. The book also discusses the pros and cons of being predisposed to architecture and the consequence of having family members who are also architects.
The 10 families who feature in the book include:
* Sumit Ghosh, Suchitra Ghosh and Sudipto Ghosh from New Delhi
* Uttam C Jain, Maya Shah, Chirag Jain and Shona Jain from Mumbai
* Late Achyut Kanvinde, Sanjay Kanvinde, Tanuja BK and Vrinda Kanvinde from New Delhi
* Late Sharad Kembhavi, Nalini S Kembhavi, Indrajit Kembhavi, Nita Kembhavi, Partha Kembhavi and Soumya Partha Kembhavi from Bengaluru and Hubli
* Habeeb Khan, Smita Khan, Sabrina Khan Talaviya and Samiha Khan from Nagpur and Rajkot
* Sanjay Puri, Nina Puri and Ayesha Puri Kanoria from Mumbai
* Sagar Shah, Shaila Shah, Pinkish Shah, Shilpa Gore-Shah, Rahul Gore and Sonal Sancheti from Mumbai
* Late VN Shah, Rajiv Khanna, Sabeena Khanna, Ajay Shah, Sakshi Khanna and Himanshu Khanna from Gurgaon, Mumbai, and Vancouver
* Shiv Datt Sharma, Sangeet Sharma, Purnima Sharma and Shivansh Sharma from Chandigarh
* Lalichan Zacharias, Jabeen Zacharias, Bhyrav BR and Aatira L Zacharias from Kochi and Bengaluru
Bose Dutta’s initial research revealed that there are about 100 families in the country that include at least two trained architects. In the interests of streamlining the book, she chose to include only those that had at least three “living” architects.
“The book is based on detailed conversations I had with 10 families. To have a diversity of views, I looked for family members from different generations and regions who shared varied familial bonds (grandparents, parents, in-laws, and siblings), who were into practice, academics and alternate avenues of architecture and who bonded over architecture in different capacities (intergenerational and heterogenous practices),” she says. The book especially focuses on how architecture situates itself in family bonds in a nation that rejoices in its rich family culture.
“Family bonds in India are unique and tied to tradition and socio-cultural ethos. Unlike many professions, architecture glides into our lifestyles and impacts our holistic perception accordingly. Two creative people can look at things differently, and six architects in a family can have six different ways of creating spaces,” says Bose Dutta.
She was curious to know how members navigated family and professional dynamics in a culture where ties are revered and where, in some cases, different generations live together. “How do their different perceptions and ideologies come together? What is the equation they share at work if they share a practice? Since architecture is omnipresent, does it become a topic of their dinner conversations?”
The book is primarily based on the author’s detailed conversations with 40 architects. “Since the age group of these architects ranged from the early twenties to the early nineties, their perceptions and interpretations, anecdotes, journeys, experiences, and approaches became reflective of the massive transformation architecture has witnessed in these six to seven decades. The families became a lens to understand India’s architectural inheritance and evolution,” says Bose Dutta.
The epilogue draws parallels between the 10 families and examines their differences too, revealing numerous professional and personal aspects that impact them. “Professional aspects include how and when they were introduced to architecture, their work setups and management, and how pivotal shifts (due to technology and globalisation) affected their perceptions and approach towards architecture,” she says. Personal aspects include members’ varying personalities, interests, gender, educational backgrounds, and geographical locations.
The author believes every family taught her something about architecture, life, and relationships. “The conversations for the book happened with all family members present, and almost every family acknowledged they had never sat down together to have such detailed discussions on architecture. Through their numerous anecdotes, I witnessed their journeys and realised how architecture impacted their familial bonds and vice versa,” she says.
So what’s next for Bose Dutta? “Many interesting engagements are currently lined up, including the curation and spearheading of an international journal issue on writing and literature, which will soon be published,” she says.
Teja Lele is an independent editor and writes on books, travel and lifestyle.
Continue reading with HT Premium Subscription
Daily E Paper I Premium Articles I Brunch E Magazine I Daily Infographics