“An Architect Needs To Go Beyond Buildings”

Mumbai-based architect and urban conservationist, Brinda Somaya started her practice, Somaya and Kalapa Consultants, in 1978. She shares her thoughts, insights, views and path-breaking journey.

- Aditi Pai

Numerous trophies and certificates adorn the office of Somaya and Kalappa Consultants in Mumbai’s Ballard Estate. The accolades by varied bodies, a doctoral degree by Smith College, US and the Baburao Mhatre Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement by Indian Institute of Architects bear testimony to the vast work that architect and professor Dr Brinda Somaya, 68 has done ever since she first began her practice in 1975 from her studio in a garden shed. In four decades, she has built sprawling corporate and educational campuses, homes, restored and conserved heritage structures and spearheaded movements for a better planned Mumbai. Her recently published book Brinda Somaya Works and Continuities documents the 200 plus projects she has worked on, most of which, she proudly says “are still in use and have not been demolished.” She’s an architect of the ‘bridge generation’, a term she coined to define the generation that bridged the architectural space between the masters and the current generation and grew in the wake of a free India. Somaya chose architecture at a time when there were few women in the field and worked her way to becoming one of India’s leading architects. She speaks to us about her design vision and inspiration.

An architect in the early seventies