Rugberry Universe
Homes, makers and the craft behind the rug.
For decades Mumbai embroidery went uncredited on European runways. A free school for women set out to change who gets named for the work, and what naming the maker asks of anyone who buys handmade.
Raw Mango and the Politics of Colour
Sanjay Garg made handloom a medium for ideas, often through colour. Then in London he took the colour away. On Raw Mango, judgement and the romance of the weaver.
Bengaluru's Museum Mile, from Kasturba Road to Palace Road
Within a few kilometres of Cubbon Park, Bengaluru now has a private museum by Mathew and Ghosh, a national gallery in a royal era mansion and an art college with a crafts mela. A route through shad...
Chandigarh Modernism, Built for Sun and Shade
Chandigarh was drawn by Le Corbusier and built by Pierre Jeanneret, whose teak and cane chairs now go to auction abroad. Where the material vocabulary of the modern Indian room came from.
Dinner Under Jaali Light at Indian Accent
Indian Accent now cooks inside a hotel wrapped in stone jaali screens, in a room of marble floors and white linen. A lesson in restraint, and in continuity after a famous chef moved on.
The Bombay Canteen's Bungalow That Never Was
The Bombay Canteen built a memory of the old Bombay bungalow inside a former mill compound, then grew it up in warm wood and terrazzo. How a room can feel inherited without being old.
Phantom Hands and the Many Authors of Chandigarh
A Bengaluru workshop that began as a catalogue of vintage objects now remakes Chandigarh furniture, and insists the pieces belonged to many hands, not one famous name.
Kolkata's Second Lives: Old Houses, a Jail and a Post Office
Kolkata rarely tears its old buildings down. It finds them new tenants: a century old house as a crafts store, a barrister's mansion as a cafe, a jail as a museum, a post office with coffee under i...
Bijoy Jain and the Studio Where Builders Draw
Studio Mumbai is admired as a near spiritual practice of earth, lime and bamboo. Its real subject is labour, and the people who make what Bijoy Jain designs.
Sangath, Doshi's Studio Pressed Into the Earth
B.V. Doshi set his own studio into the ground to escape the Ahmedabad heat and roofed it in vaults of white mosaic. Sangath argues that a modern building can be cool, communal and handmade.
Coffee, Brick and Teak in a Byculla Warehouse
Subko turned an abandoned printing press in Byculla's JAK Compound into a roastery of brick, teak and spotted marble. On adaptive reuse, craft and the line between reviving a place and dressing it.
Laurie Baker's Kerala, One Bare Brick at a Time
Laurie Baker spent four decades in Kerala asking whether each part of a building was necessary. His rat trap walls and brick jalis cost less and breathed better. A history of the idea behind the br...
Bombay Deco: How a Reclaimed Shore Became Modern
Bombay Deco rose on land pulled from the sea, with ship rails, portholes and Indian names. Facing the Victorian Gothic across the Oval Maidan, it shows how a city argues with its past.
