Overview

This book offers one of the first critical, research-oriented biographies of an architectural practice from the global South – the architecture of Nisha Mathew and Soumitro Ghosh commonly known as Mathew and Ghosh Architects – documenting over two and a half decades of work in post-liberalization India. Moving beyond the familiar narrative-descriptive mode of architectural biographies, it situates the practice within a broader intellectual world of ideas, unpacking reflections as a case study of the times. In dialogue with the modernist legacy and inflected by the critical regionalism of the global South, particularly that of India, the work demonstrates how architecture can engage with the nuanced complexities of contemporary India while conversing with international discourse. By tracing a trajectory that follows, but also departs from, the celebrated generation of Pritzker laureate B. V. Doshi, Achyut Kanvinde, Charles Correa, and Anant Raje, the book positions the practice as a distinctive voice in global architectural debates. Enhanced by 15 original drawing plates, including photographs, drawings, and sketches - the book bridges concept and craft, theory and practice. It stands both as a visual archive and an intellectual provocation, making it indispensable reading for researchers and students. While biographical, it is equally a critical analysis not usually available in books on architects from the global South.

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9781032966748

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Reviews

Object-form, building-form and land formations constitute the oeuvre of Nisha Mathew Ghosh. The range is conspicuously diverse – stainless steel wires are delicately woven together to make earpieces or “thalis”, architectural elements are turned asunder and reassembled to make houses, churches and offices, and the good old earth (on one occasion, the deeply depleted earth) is scooped out, set aside or stacked to create new topographies. From delicate metal weaving to robust earth excavations, there is a certain material intensity and topographical fidelity in what she does. While that might seem like very different ways of doing things, there is a kind of migration of ideas and intentions in the various endeavors. In the handwoven stainless steel “thalis,” which are no longer a concave solid that may hold a curry or sambal, the void transfers to the earthen scoops in some landscape projects. Is that intimated in her installation “Nest: Migrations and Territories”? The stainless steel work, often echoing the tender presence of Ruth Asawa’s jaali-work, evokes lightness and delicacy, achieved through a political act of (feminine) weaving that disrupts the otherwise arrogant swagger of stacked-up histories. In the woven piece “Tiger-Tiger,” the diaphanous form suggests two kinds of dematerialization, as she claims. First, the act of weaving dethrones the narrative of power and panache of the thing at hand, and, second, the dissipation warns us of an ecological catastrophe with the dwindling of the species. In an act of precarious presence, the woven tiger-form remains at the threshold of becoming, either its full form or its total disappearance. It’s a study in herculean ambiguity, being caught at the crossroad, and reflecting on which path to take. Disaggregated formation is another way to describe Nisha’s architectural work in partnership with Soumitro Ghosh, especially for building-forms and land formations. In the modest Benjamin House or the Mathew and Ghosh Office, building components appear accreted or aggregated, held together in a kind of tenuous truce which can only be described as an assemblage or disaggregated formation. Like the feline form at a threshold moment, the buildings are suspended in a convergence of presences and disentanglements. In landscape-driven projects, especially the National Military Martyrs Memorial and the Freedom Park, land is sculpted to reveal, to form depression and to enclose. In such a horizontally extruded condition, meander is not only possible but is the thing that ties the prolongation. Here too there is a weaving when it comes to ‘dwelling, depositing and narrating,’ with a declared intent of “the engagement with land embedded in understandings of text, geology, and geography.” Weaving is purposeful, meditative, and time-bound, it is a slow process. Weaving is a material and crafted act, an interlocutor in the various disciplines Nisha works with, but specifically here in the combined architectural oeuvre of Mathew and Ghosh. Whether art, architecture, sculpture or landscape architecture, whether with her own work or with Soumitro Ghosh, Nisha Mathew feels she works in the liminal spaces of those disciplines. There is certainly a traversing of the interstices of those disciplines, and quite often transgressions. Both fragile and formed, her work is more than being interstitial. They are a convergence of presences. Kazi Khaleed Ashraf Philadelphia, USA. September 28, 2025 Architect and Architectural Critic The trajectory of modern architecture in India has had to deal with the dilemma of negotiating the relationship between universal and local at once: the idea of modernity being always a contested terrain. Unencumbered by such false binaries and conceiving local as an interplay of “history, geography, and lived experience”, the practice of architects Mathew and Ghosh has been able to overcome this dilemma by transcending the circumstantial exigencies, with thoughtfulness and reflection. The resulting architecture is quintessentially modern and Indian at once. Seamlessly connecting education, training and practice with lived memories, architecture of Mathew and Ghosh open up myriad possibilities for contemporary Indian architecture to embrace. It gives me great pleasure to endorse this must-read book for all architects. Jaimini Mehta Rajkot, India, 30th September, 2025 Practicing architect, independent academic and author of seven books on architecture. Professor Emeritus, Indubhai Parekh School of Architecture, Saurashtra University, Rajkot, Gujarat. Nisha Mathew Ghosh has come out with a first book on Mathew and Ghosh architects, which is portraying their beginnings and their practice. It summarises the basis which they have developed out of years of academic and theoretical understanding and practice. Their practical knowhow gained through handling complexities of dealing with materials and construction in their design is clear through their various projects. During their practice they have been fortunate enough to get opportunities which have given them a very wide spectrum of designing different buildings and places for people. Their practice has given them very varied experiences of designing from small residences to large institutional projects dealing with various functions, some awarded through design competitions of public places, which really become important part to their portfolio of works. The way they deal with these projects, through their design skills and conceptual ideas leading to innovative material applications and constructional techniques, lend them a unique position in contemporary practice. Their works show exemplary freshness of imaginative design ideas and skilful realisation. There is sensitivity of context within their ideological thinking. This shows their understanding of contemporary theories of design and building possibilities. This surely reflects their grasp of concurrent theory and its design integration. The publication is an important addition to the existing literature on contemporary architecture in India. This will be of immense value towards the discourse on evolving architectural in India. Mathew Ghosh Architects have surely done an important contribution to the academic discipline and profession for which they deserve full recognition, and their effort a great appreciation. Rabindra J Vasavada Architect FIIA FRAS Architecture, Conservation and Historic Building Restoration. Former Founder Professor and Head: Post Graduate Programme in Architecture and Settlement Conservation, Faculty of Architecture, Former Founder Head: Centre for Conservation Studies, CRDU, CEPT University, Ahmedabad, INDIA

Author Information

Nisha Mathew Ghosh is a transdisciplinary spatial practitioner whose work spans writing, art, architecture as social agency, engaging land as an ecological and territorial practice orientated toward community repair and rehabilitation. As co-founder of an architectural practice with Soumitro Ghosh, she has received national and international recognition for architectural design. This book marks her academic publishing debut, extending her inquiry into architecture as cultural text. She interrogates how creative practice can respond to contemporary crises through tactical retrofitting of the megapolis, activist modes of practice, and socially empowering architectures. Working at the intersection of art, architecture, and community engagement, she examines geography and ecology alongside the derivations of architectural program, extending into waste-to-wealth empowerment and curatorial practices that position architecture as a critical agency for equity and inclusion.

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