Delhi Vision

An interior designer’s retreat in the Indian capital champions modernist influences, Islamic ancestry and local craftsmanship.

- Sunil Sethi

A farmstead in Delhi does not denote bucolic acres dotted with haystacks and barns. It means luxurious mansions with manicured lawns set in gated compounds that are homes to the new gentry, seeking an escape from the congested, polluted capital. Sprouting on what was once agricultural land are dwellings in a mimicry of styles, from faux-Palladian to pseudo-Rajasthani.

London-based interior designer and architect Shalini Misra’s ‘farmhouse’, cocooned in 3.7 acres of artfully sculpted gardens, is a refreshingly original family home. Its low-slung volume is distinctly modernist, but trimmed with classical blue-green tiles of Islamic ancestry; its sinuous curves follow the arcs of healing chakras, and seven moon gates punctuate the densely planted perimeter walk. Despite doffing her cap to modern masters such as Frank Lloyd Wright, James Turrell and Joseph Allen Stein, Misra wanted ‘essentially a “Made in India” house that would provide both anchor and seasonal sanctuary’ for her family’s peripatetic, international lifestyle. Long before they moved to America, Shalini and her husband Rajeev – who heads SoftBank’s Vision Fund that’s invested $8bn in Indian start-ups – were Delhi people. An architecture school graduate, Misra later studied urban planning at Columbia University. A shift to London in 1994, and raising a family of three, did not deter her from taking another degree in virtual reality architecture at the Bartlett.