Studio Mumbai's theory and praxis

Studio Mumbai, Praxis is the title of an exhibition organised by the British School at Rome as part of the Urban Landscapes-Indian Case Studies, curated by Marina Engel. Having been given worldwide visibility by Kazuyo Sejima at the 2010 Venice Architecture Biennale, Studio Mumbai's international success centres on an operational model of architects-artisans who design the architecture but also build it themselves, in an approach that is both a new and an old interpretation of the architect's profession. Can you imagine Italian architects such as Zucchi, Botticini, C+S, Liverani/Molteni or OBR (to mention only some of those shortlisted for the Triennale's Gold Medal for Italian Architecture) getting their hands dirty constructing their own designs? Yet, this approach gives the Indian collective a unique opportunity to gain hands-on control of all the project phases and to make any necessary adjustments. It is no coincidence that their site photographs always feature a mock up which serves for verification, almost like the bench on the worksite of the Brion cemetery, which enabled Carlo Scarpa to design details on the spot.

The key question is whether this method is simply a consequence of the Indian context or might it also be applied in Europe. A comparable precedent is Rural Studio, founded by Samuel Mockbee in 1993 in rural Alabama, which builds experimental architecture for the local communities, aided by the students of Auburn University. Analysing the projects in terms of linguistic and theoretical consistency without being captivated by the process is an entirely different matter, however, and shows that what may appear "extraordinary" and interesting is not all to the credit of Studio Mumbai but also prompted by the weakness of today's architectural approach. A shallow appraisal of architectural phenomena by the critics leaves us spellbound before the "normality" of sketches, construction details, photographs and models that are simply design basics. In a world where we are numbed by the smart, cool language of the formerly up-and-coming Bjarke Ingels, who copies Koolhaas without possessing his theoretical clout, and the eccentricity of the increasingly inward-looking MVRDV, a correct approach clearly seems the exception.

Studio Mumbai's designs must be praised for breaking away from the vernacular and injecting a modern spirit into Indian culture. There were, after all, only two options — either to continue along the path paved by Le Corbusier in Chandigarh, with its sculptural monumentality and beton brut, or to revisit the Modern Movement mediated via the experience gained by Bijoy Jain, the Studio's founder, in Richard Meier's model workshop during the design of the Getty Center in Los Angeles.

The collective opted to internationalise Modern design and build residential architecture that places the emphasis on the relationship with the ground and landscape, and to work with one material: wood. This has become the Studio Mumbai's stylistic cipher, both in its load-bearing structures and its external claddings, as can be seen in the Tara House (2005). Wood is used for its roof, pillars, doors, windows and the vertical slats that separate the inside from the outside. The group's architecture could be described as organic in its layout, for the arrangement of support walls that create well-defined elementary geometries, and that it contains a certain emphasis on the horizontal dimension, with an extensive catalogue of references and citations that centre on the material factor.

The assonances with the Modern masters are clear, especially in the Palmyra House (2007). Consisting in two rectangular blocks, it is entirely covered with brise-soleil to protect the internal space against the climate and light. Despite the time Bijoy Jain spent with Meier, his real influence is Rudolph Schindler's Japanese-like architecture in Los Angeles, as too the Charles & Ray Eames house-studio in Pacific Palisades. The Belavali House (2008) is an example of this and, in it, Studio Mumbai has produced poetry of the highest standard.

Other projects, by contrast, such as the Leti 360 resort (2007) built in a mountainous zone, adopt traditional stone in a stylistic exercise that unintentionally references Pietro Lingeri's approach in the Case d'Artisti on Isola Comacina (1940), and proves that the use of stone is unavoidable in some contexts, albeit treated with a modern approach and assembled in a certain way. All the designs are strongly characterised by their natural surroundings and their geographical location impacts positively on the projects. The real challenge will come when they have to build houses with the same spirit in urban Indian contexts, where the shapeless city development will be a major test to Studio Mumbai's thought. Emanuele Piccardo

Through 3 November 2012
Studio Mumbai, Praxis
British School at Rome
Via Gramsci 61, Rome