Soumitro Ghosh

INTERVIEW

1. What kind of architecture are you drawn to, both as individuals and as partners?

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Soumitro Ghosh: Architecture is a need, one way or another. It is for the need for shelter/congregation/utility/symbolism or other purposes, or for a mix of purposes. Each project is unique with its expectations,  and yet they aspire for more beyond that, explicitly or otherwise. 

It is in this promising space that challenges an architect’s understanding, interpretation and resolution of the aspiration, irrespective of the purpose of the project. Its important here to point out that the kind of architecture is unknown till the project idea unravels and unfolds, as one works on the project. . This creative challenge takes precedence over the type of project hence there is no kind of project/architecture that draws me more than the other.

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2. How much professional importance does your personality have while interacting with clients, contractors, engineers, or fellow architects?

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Soumitro Ghosh: The uniqueness of each architect is to the depth of their thinking, process, knowledge, wisdom and externalized behavior and communication. So in all forms of interaction, it is the subjectivity of the individual personality which plays an overarching role. 

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3. “Light is a line. It becomes a surface and then a volume, and with various intensities, it travels. Light is immaterial, unmeasurable; you can neither catch nor contain it. It is fluid without volume or dimension. It is invisible unless there are floating particles that you can notice. It penetrates through pinholes, but no sooner than it hits a surface it spreads in any form that it has – fluid, invisible, yet representing the objects it hits. This is the miracle of light” - BV Doshi. Can you describe how you use and explore light in your practice?

Soumitro Ghosh: Blessed with abundant sunlight and strong shadows, the sunlight in the tropics is unique and so is our behavior to its presence/absence. Doshi has explored poetically over the decades through his projects what Prof. Kurula Varkey would call ‘the architecture of India as the architecture of shadows’. To take this another step I call light in architecture what ‘opens the darkness’. 

In renaissance art the light began to focus on the characters within space, highlighting the conversation and the light of the space begins to gain depth by the differential highlights of light. It begins to get closer to the way we perceive scenes/events/times. While Raja Ravi Varma borrowed in much of his work similar settings and methods of representation, over time it would account for the sun in the tropics as different. 

We love the shade, the shadows and like the direct bright sun only in the wintry weather, for brief time spans. Our projects have learned from our experiences across India, from the architecture of ancient times to the present, from the vernacular to the urban. 

Our projects are about light as ‘an actor that defines space and architecture’. Architecture is the enabler. Light takes precedence in the making of space, the definition of time, place, and moments. By doing this we place light into a primary player for the formation and perception of space and architecture. It is an enriching way to go about it.

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4. NASA India has a theme each year, and this year’s is grassroots. Could you elaborate on how you as individuals and as a company connect to your roots?

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Soumitro Ghosh: Architecture has been in denial that it can make grassroots change in the traditional way of its practice. However, it does so in its limited ways. Of engaging greater manual labor and lesser processed materials, using local origin and available materials, etc., small ways that one does this with. These create soft landing with good intentions, creating jobs for dying skills with traditional hands, dying guilds, dying economies and local materials.

5. How can architecture act as a catalyst to connect communities?

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Soumitro Ghosh: Architecture is guilty of positioning itself like the camera of the journalist, always from behind the police/ armed forces, when recording an event / especially of protest/dissent. To prove itself relevant is a huge responsibility on architecture alone for connecting communities. While society is always in the process of negotiating socialism, democracy and capitalism and their various shades of conflict.

Architecture is slow, very vulnerable, and too dependent on the above forces and relies on the unreliable ‘good heart – empathy’ of the powerful to take on the catalytic role / make any difference to the integration of communities. 

Therefore, the opportunity for such efforts must be created in places of knowledge generation, at design / architectural education institutions, places of higher learning and research, etc. as well as public foundations that can support such endeavors for study/implementation. Such is the inherent nature of architecture ‘to engage and negotiate’ for becoming more relevant. Architecture is, as said by Arindam Datta, MIT, a ‘negotiated practice/ground’. Lest we continue to be delusional with heroic words and visions of the modern architects of the New World. 

6. If you could go back in time to any era of construction techniques, and work with the locals, which era would you choose and why?

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Soumitro Ghosh: More than an era, it would interest me to teleport myself to times when one material was explored for its use, its detail, and ornamentation for the construction. One material would be stone and others will be wood, steel and terracotta/brick. 

One material construction is a way of understanding the different conditions a singular and structurally limiting material is made to perform distinct roles. And depending on the place, the weather, etc. how the details of joinery and the process of making would vary. 

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7. The middle class generally does not hire architects, causing a gap in the construction industry and more climate- and material-insensitive buildings. How can we as students and architects change this?

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Soumitro Ghosh: Architectural recording of iconic buildings alone as the history of architecture, made with much expense has unfortunately made building for the middle class unfashionable for architects to aspire for. From a point of client perception too, architects have become synonymous with unaffordable expense and luxury. So, is there a meeting ground? Yes, there can be, but it cannot follow the process of the established but veer towards the reliance on the production teams as a resource for knowledge and expertise along with limited contact engagement of the architect. This is another resolution of the way of design, material, detail, production, skill, etc. Understanding this would have a far-reaching effect. Laurie Baker initiated this in extraordinarily rich ways decades ago thereby we had a beautiful architecture that was affordable for the middle class in his state of influence Kerala and Tamil Nadu and an enabled group of skilled and knowledgeable guilds of craftsmen. 

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8. What has been your most challenging project so far? How did you approach it?

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Soumitro Ghosh: Fortunately, it has been each project! 

Since we took the path of experimenting/prototyping across several types of projects, they have varied in the kind of challenge posed. The learning from each passed some lateral knowledge to the others. This cross-learning has continued now for over 26 years of our practice. 

At this moment we are working on a challenging and landmark project, the Museum of Art, and Photography in Bangalore, an inventive structure in structural steel with cladding in stainless steel and aluminum. It has innovative ideas of accessibility and inclusivity, safety, security, services, process etc. other than an eye-catching appearance.  

9. What is the one piece of advice you would give architecture students today?

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Soumitro Ghosh: I must exceed the one piece of advice limit and put forth a few things:  

look back - look forward - look around 

question – try – fail – resist 

be hopeful and persist