
Brutalist India | Akbar Bhawan, New Delhi
As part of Brutalist India series Bhawna Dandona writes about Akbar Bhawan, in New Delhi.

As part of Brutalist India series Bhawna Dandona writes about Akbar Bhawan, in New Delhi.

Did these spaces heal women or teach them how to disappear? Aditi A., through her research study as a part of the CEPT Writing Architecture course, in this chapter follows hysteria as it migrates from text to typology, inquiring how architectural decisions came to stand in for care itself. Rather than assuming architecture responded to illness, the inquiry turns the question around: did architecture help produce the vulnerability it claimed to manage?

As part of Brutalist India series, Bhawna Dandona writes about Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, 1974, in New Delhi.

Was architecture used by society to spatially “manage” women and their autonomy? Aditi A., through her research study as a part of the CEPT Writing Architecture course, examines the period before psychiatry, when fear had already become architectural, tracing how women’s autonomy was spatially managed through domestic regulation, witch hunts, informal confinement, and early institutional planning.

Why did acclaimed modernist architects suddenly introduce historical symbolism like arches, decorative elements, and other cultural references into their work after decades of disciplined restraint? Sudipto Ghosh interrogates this 1980s-90s symbolic turn as a rupture in architecture, questioning whether this represents an authentic reconnection with content and memory, or is it a mere superficial gesture towards absent meanings. Drawing from Heidegger’s analysis of the Greek temple, he distinguishes two modes of architectural representation, ultimately judging that this turn was a nascent rebellion against modernism that may have failed to achieve genuine integration of context, material, and memory.

Narendra Dengle, through his poem written in January 2006, presents a deep utopic vision for Pune—what the city could be as an ecologically sustainable, equitable city that balances nature with development. He sets ambitious benchmarks for prioritizing public transport over cars, preserving heritage, addressing slum rehabilitation humanely, and empowering local communities