Unit VEvolution of Interiors II (Indian Context)

Contemporary Indian Interiors

Liberalisation, the handmade-modern turn, and the identity question.

≈ 55 min + a position essayByAmogh N P· Architect & interior designer

The hinge is 1991 liberalisation, which floods in the glass corporate office, branded retail, the mall and boutique hospitality — and with them global interior norms. The defining tension is globalisation versus identity, and the powerful counter-movement is the handmade-modern / new-vernacular turn: a return to craft, local material and climate, deployed with contemporary rigour. Three threads — craft as design content, sustainability and adaptive reuse, and the identity spectrum from kitsch pastiche to rigorous new-vernacular.

Learning objectives

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to — mapped to the course outcomes for Evolution of Interiors II:

CO5 · Understand

Explain how 1991 liberalisation reshaped Indian interior programmes and norms.

CO5 · Analyse

Describe the handmade-modern / new-vernacular turn and its leading practices.

CO5 · Evaluate

Assess craft revival, sustainability and adaptive reuse as contemporary strategy.

CO6 · Evaluate

Locate work on the identity spectrum and present contested cases as live debates.

Craft answers the glass box

The handmade-modern turn

Liberalisation’s global interiors, answered by a return to the hand of the maker, local material and passive climate — attributed to practices, not lone heroes.^{[1, 2]}

DiagramThe handmade-modern turn — a hand laying local stone and lime by craft, a counter-movement to imported global glass-and-steel interiors

DiagramThe contemporary passive jaali skin — a perforated second skin on a modern building, the old climate device returned with new rigour

Global interiors arrive

The hinge is 1991 ECONOMIC LIBERALISATION. New capital and new programmes flood in — the glass CORPORATE OFFICE and IT campus, branded RETAIL and the mall, five-star and boutique HOSPITALITY, the branded urban APARTMENT and the airport — and with them arrive GLOBAL interior norms (open-plan offices, hotel-brand standards, imported systems furniture). The defining tension of contemporary Indian interior design is therefore GLOBALISATION vs. IDENTITY: does an Indian interior in the 2020s look like an interior ANYWHERE, or does it carry something rooted? The vast middle of the field is globally-generic corporate and retail interiors — which is exactly what the new-vernacular movement reacts against.^{[1, 2]}

Craft, reuse, identity

Three threads for a designer

Craft as design content, sustainability and adaptive reuse as environmental strategy, and the identity spectrum — with Central Vista, the IIM-A interventions and the Hall of Nations demolition held as live debates, not verdicts.^{[3, 4]}

DiagramAdaptive reuse — an old mill or warehouse shell kept and given a new interior life, the greenest building being the one that already stands

DiagramThe courtyard brought indoors — a modern atrium reprising the old aangan, a top-lit internal void that a mall, office or home gathers around

Recovery, not import

Two threads run together. The REVIVAL OF CRAFT in the interior is a conscious re-engagement with Channapatna lacquerware, Athangudi tiles, araish/lime, Kutch textiles, terracotta, Longpi stoneware and handmade brass — as design CONTENT, not nostalgia, and often as artisan-livelihood and low-carbon strategy (connecting directly to Unit II). SUSTAINABILITY, passive climate and ADAPTIVE REUSE bring the indigenous devices back as environmental strategy — jaali skins, courtyards, stepwell-cooling and thermal mass (Pearl Academy) — plus the reuse of colonial and industrial fabric (Bikaner House Delhi; the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum restoration, Mumbai; forts-to-hotels like Alila Fort Bishangarh; mills-to-malls in Mumbai). Frame sustainability as RECOVERY of Units I–II devices, not a Western import.^{[1, 4]}

Style-period explorer

The whole arc, unbroken

Return to the explorer and trace the through-line — courtyard, jaali, floor-culture and the ordering grid, running from the temple to the present.

Indian style explorer · the interior through time

Buddhist rock-cut

c. 2nd c. BCE – 7th c. CE

The idea: Interiors SUBTRACTED from living rock — the chaitya prayer-hall and the vihara monastery.
The interior: A barrel-vaulted hall imitating lost timber, a stupa to circumambulate, and (at Ajanta) walls of immersive mural.
Exemplars: Karla chaitya · Ajanta · Ellora Kailasa

A handful of Indian devices — the courtyard, the jaali, floor-culture and the ordering grid — run unbroken from the temple to the present.

Myth vs reality

At a glance

Aspect	One side	The other
Contemporary Indian interior	Myth: Mughal/'ethnic' pastiche for hotels	Reality: that is one pole; the serious field is new-vernacular
Studio Mumbai	Myth: one architect's vision	Reality: a workshop-collective; authorship is shared
Reviving craft	Myth: nostalgic, anti-modern	Reality: a contemporary material, livelihood and low-carbon strategy
Sustainable Indian interiors	Myth: a Western import	Reality: recovery of indigenous devices (jaali, court, stepwell-cool)
Central Vista / Hall of Nations	Myth: settled 'improvements' / still standing	Reality: live, contested debates — flag, don't adjudicate

Vocabulary

Key terms

1991 liberalisation

The economic hinge that brought global programmes (office, mall, hotel, airport) and norms into the Indian interior.

Handmade-modern / new vernacular

The counter-movement returning to craft, local material and climate with contemporary rigour.

Studio Mumbai (Bijoy Jain)

A craftsman-collective that designs by hand-building on site — the interior as artisanal object.

Kinetic City

Rahul Mehrotra's idea of the informal, temporary, ever-shifting Indian city.

Adaptive reuse

Re-inhabiting colonial/industrial fabric (forts-to-hotels, mills-to-malls) — sustainability as recovery.

The identity spectrum

Global-generic ↔ kitsch-national ↔ rigorous new-vernacular — a lens for locating contemporary work honestly.

Apply it

Study task

Find one recent Indian interior you admire and trace its lineage back through this course — does it use the courtyard, the jaali, floor-culture, or the ordering grid? Then write a short, honest paragraph placing it on the identity spectrum from kitsch-national pastiche to rigorous new-vernacular, and say what makes the difference.

Check your understanding

Self-assessment

1. The economic event that reshaped contemporary Indian interior programmes was —

2. Studio Mumbai's design method is distinctive because it —

3. Contested cases like Central Vista and the Hall of Nations demolition should be taught as —

In a nutshell

Recap

1991 liberalisation brought new programmes (office, mall, hotel, apartment, airport) and global interior norms — and the defining tension of globalisation versus identity.

The counter-movement is the handmade-modern / new-vernacular turn — Studio Mumbai's hand-building collective, Mehrotra's Kinetic City, sP+a's vernacular research, Morphogenesis's passive jaali skins, Studio Lotus's craft-forward reuse.

Craft revival treats Channapatna, Athangudi, araish, Kutch and Longpi as contemporary design content and livelihood; sustainability and adaptive reuse recover indigenous devices, not Western imports.

The identity spectrum runs from kitsch-national pastiche through global-generic to rigorous new-vernacular — locate work honestly on it rather than sneering.

Be honest with living practitioners: attribute to PRACTICES, and present Central Vista, the IIM-A demolitions and the Hall of Nations loss as live debates, not verdicts.

The evidence

References & further reading

[1]Rahul Mehrotra, Architecture in India Since 1990 — the essential contemporary survey by a practitioner-scholar.
[2]Peter Scriver & Amit Srivastava, India: Modern Architectures in History — carries the story credibly to the present.
[3]Marg / Architecture + Design (A+D India) / Domus India / AD India — current journals for project attributions and interviews (verify each project).
[4]Kaiwan Mehta (editor, Domus India) — critical contemporary framing; monographs on Studio Mumbai (2G / El Croquis) and Studio Lotus.