Finding Connections Art, Architecture And Beyond

Award-winning architect Martand Khosla gets candid about his creatively inspired design principles

- Seema Sreedharan

Surreal twisted doors, towers reaching for the sky, and minimalistic yet intricate drawings! Artist and architect Martand Khosla’s recent exhibition titled 1:2500 was an engaging play of scale, dimensions, and configurations.

His works, while profoundly philosophical, are also a practical commentary on the city, its structures, and its people. “I used the title 1:2500 because it is a common scale used for survey plans of cities. The title alludes to the idea that it is not just physical aspects of a city that are scalable; the more intangible aspects align to the idea of scale as well,” he explains.

To the onlooker, it might seem as though the two roles, that of an artist and architect, must collide. But for Khosla, art and architecture are two parallels. One doesn’t inhibit or influence the other. “I see them be distinctly different in their practice, but they do attempt to address similar conceptual concerns about the nature of our cities and the futures that lie ahead of us.”

As far as architecture is concerned, he prefers to define the profession in a broader sense than purely as the construction of buildings. While for us, the architecture might seem to be more pragmatic and scientific, and art more fantastical, Khosla has the most interesting theory. “I believe that conceptual architecture, theoretical architecture and abstract architecture are just as vital as-built architecture. Both art and architecture can have aspects of pragmatism and fantasy. They exist as distinctly separate entities and sometimes occupy spaces that are more ambiguous, where perhaps they can exist as two simultaneous objects.”

To him, the definition of architecture or design is simple – Reimagining the future!

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