Indian Architecture

Indian architecture is the building tradition of India, from the planned cities of the Indus Valley and the great Hindu, Buddhist and Jain temples to Mughal tombs, colonial capitals and the modernism of Chandigarh and Ahmedabad. Across all of it runs a practical intelligence about climate: courtyards, verandas, perforated screens, thick walls and water that cool buildings without machines.

What is Indian architecture?

Indian architecture is not one style but many regional traditions shaped by very different climates, from the hot, dry desert of Rajasthan to the humid, monsoon coast of Kerala and the cold Himalaya. It includes monumental religious and royal buildings, but also the far larger body of vernacular architecture: houses, wells, markets and villages built by local craftspeople with mud, brick, stone, timber, bamboo and thatch. Searches for "vernacular architecture India" usually point to this everyday layer, and it is where many contemporary Indian architects now look for ideas. On uni.xyz, the neighbouring topics vernacular architecture and Indian residential architecture go deeper into houses and building craft.

The field differs from "South Asian architecture" in being bounded by the modern Indian state, although historic styles crossed today's borders freely. It also differs from Indo-Islamic or colonial architecture, which are chapters within it rather than separate subjects. What holds the story together is a habit of absorbing outside influences (Persian, Central Asian, European, modernist) and remaking them for Indian light, heat, rain and ways of living.

A short history of Indian architecture

The cities of the Indus Valley Civilisation, in their mature phase from about 2600 to 1900 BCE, are known for remarkable civic planning, drains and tanks, and Mohenjo-daro has wells that may be the predecessors of the stepwell. Hindu temple architecture later divided into two main styles, the Nagara style of northern India and the Dravidian style of the south, with regional variants such as the Vesara style of the Deccan. Khajuraho, the Lingaraja Temple at Bhubaneswar, the Sun Temple at Konark and the Brihadeeswarar Temple at Thanjavur are among the best known examples.

Mughal architecture combined Persian, Indian and Islamic elements and set its great tombs in four-part chahar bagh gardens. Its most famous work, the Taj Mahal in Agra, is a white marble tomb built in 1631 to 1648 by Shah Jahan for his wife, and it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983.

Under British rule, colonial styles from Indo-Saracenic to neoclassical spread through the major cities, and Edwin Lutyens designed the government centre of New Delhi, including the Viceroy's House that is now Rashtrapati Bhavan. Independence changed direction again. The government commissioned Le Corbusier to design Chandigarh, and his Capitol Complex was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2016. Louis Kahn designed the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, and a generation of Indian modernists, including Achyut Kanvinde (IIT Kanpur) and Charles Correa (Jawahar Kala Kendra in Jaipur), built campuses, arts centres and civic buildings. Balkrishna Doshi, who worked under Le Corbusier in Paris and returned in 1954 to oversee his projects in Chandigarh and Ahmedabad, became the first Pritzker laureate from India in 2018.

"Over the years, Balkrishna Doshi has always created an architecture that is serious, never flashy or a follower of trends."

Pritzker Architecture Prize jury citation (2018)

Two other figures shaped how India builds today. Charles Correa set out the provocation "Form Follows Climate" in the 1970s energy crisis, arguing that buildings must respond to climate. Laurie Baker, a British-born Indian architect based in Thiruvananthapuram, championed cost-effective, energy-efficient building in exposed brick, with jali walls for airflow and economies such as rat trap bond.

Key principles of Indian architecture

The courtyard at the centre

Many traditional Indian homes are organised around an open-to-sky courtyard, the aangan, that brings in light and air and gathers family life. The uni.xyz journal on Colour Burst House by LIJO RENY architects shows a 502 m² house in Chavakkad built around three double-height open-to-sky courtyards after the client asked to enjoy the rain from every room.

Shade, screens and the veranda

Deep verandas, overhangs and perforated jali screens cut glare while letting breezes through. Doshi used patios, courtyards and covered walkways across his campuses, and in Surat, the journal on Chitrakut Residences by AANGAN Architects describes a family cluster modelled on the Gujarati faliyu, with verandas (atlas), central courtyards (chogan) and pergola walkways for passive cooling.

Building for a specific climate

Correa's "Form Follows Climate" is a working method, not a slogan. In the hot, dry old city of Jodhpur, Mangh House by Harshit Laddha and Niharika Pareek, an entry to Nano Nest 2020, designs a home for a family of six around two priorities.

"The key elements are ventilation and sunlight."

Harshit Laddha and Niharika Pareek, project statement for Mangh House

Local materials and local hands

Mud, lime, brick, stone, bamboo and timber are cheap where they are found and suited to local weather. The journal on the eArthshala Campus by Thumbimpressions describes a 970 m² learning centre in Kishanganj, Bihar, built with stabilized adobe, sundried brick, bamboo and thatch and no concrete columns, where local women made the bricks and artisans were trained on site to build the bamboo roof.

Order, proportion and Vastu

Indian building has long been guided by written canons. Shilpa texts such as the Mayamata and Manasara, in circulation by around the fifth to seventh centuries, set out Vastu Shastra rules for design, construction, sculpture and joinery. Some clients still ask for Vastu-aligned plans, and the uni.xyz journal on A House in the Grape Farms by Studio Frozen Music shows how a 5,000 ft² farmhouse near Nashik can respect Vastu principles while avoiding plain rectangular massing.

Water as architecture

Stepwells, temple tanks and kunds made water storage into public space. The uni.xyz journal on the Veiled Building by KUN Studio in Patna shows a latticed retail and cultural building that mediates between a state highway and a sacred kund.

Indian architecture on uni.xyz

uni.xyz has a large Indian membership, and this topic gathers both student competition entries and a growing set of editorial journals on built work across the country. A good share of the projects come from the Bharat Bhavan 2020 competition, where entrants proposed cultural centres for the arts in cities across India.

BHARAT BHAVAN - VADODARA by Chetan Gupta, Rishika Bindal, Shreya Sachan and Mohammed Ajmal frames its scheme as a place where artists can think, work and present their imagination. PLUG-IN by Rana Sarkar, Amit and Shridhar Rao, which received the People's Choice Award in the competition, treats the institution as a set of hybrid programmes plugged into an existing ecology. Other entries respond to place: PRAKOSHTH merges built forms with the landscape of its site in Ranchi, Jharkhand, and Bharat Bhavan, Maharashtra by Ketan Vaidya reworks the char baug garden and the wada courtyard house in a contemporary way.

Mughal heritage is the subject of The Black Taj competition. The Black Taj - XBST88 by Gregor Loeber, Johnny and Leon Vohl was named Runner-up, and two uni.xyz journals on shortlisted entries explore how a dark counterpart across the Yamuna could reinterpret the charbagh and Mughal symmetry with perforated steel and parametric forms. Related work sits under Mughal architecture.

Ross Island: A case of perishing paradise by Adhish Parkar, Runner-up in UnIATA '19, accepts the sinking of an Andaman island and asks how people and the Indian Navy might adapt as it disappears.

The journals bring built houses into the picture. The journal on 23 Degrees Design's timber courtyard house near Hyderabad follows the Telangana Manduva tradition with four timber pavilions around a central courtyard and an all-timber roof structure. Others cover Otla House in Bengaluru, built around a central aangan, and VIPA Farm House near Chennai, with twin courtyards, exposed brick and reclaimed wood.

Craft and reuse run through the newer journals too. The TARANG Pavilion by The Grid Architects in Gandhinagar is a terracotta tile vault built without beams, reinforcement or shuttering, which the journal describes as India's largest structure of its kind. Mana Workplace by IKSOI turns an abandoned family factory in Ahmedabad into a 190 m² studio with lime-plastered walls, keeping the original footprint and reusing old factory doors as windows. Smaller student projects work at the scale of a pavilion: ASURA PAVILION by Praneeth Aashwinay and Mahek Jain, an entry to Terra x Terra, interprets the culture of Mysore with locally available materials, and Angam by 72degN Design Studio proposes an interactive space for revisiting Tamil culture.

Challenges and future directions

As Indian cities grow, the risk is that sealed, air-conditioned blocks replace the courtyard houses and shaded streets that kept older neighbourhoods cool, and that the craft knowledge behind lime, mud and timber building is lost with them. Heritage is also under pressure, from historic town cores to modernist landmarks. The task for the next generation is to scale up what vernacular and modernist precedents already know about shade, airflow and water, and to do it for dense cities and for regions facing floods and heat.

Member work is already testing those questions. Neha Goyal Tater's thesis, Urban Renewal of Historic Core of Vrindavan, proposes a renewal model for religious settlements that respects their sacred environment while supporting the social, cultural and economic life of local communities.

"The main aim of the Thesis is to explore the possibility to revive the Urban Morphology of a historic town- Vrindavan, lost in the process of urbanization."

Neha Goyal Tater, thesis statement for Urban Renewal of Historic Core of Vrindavan

In Chandrapur, PULIYA by Saheel Birewar treats bridges and other transit infrastructure in a congested urban core as sites for public life, another way of finding room in cities that have little to spare.

Indian architecture for students and designers

Strong thesis angles include documenting and reviving a regional house type, climate-responsive housing for heat and flood, adaptive reuse of industrial or colonial buildings, earth and bamboo construction, and the renewal of historic town cores. The Charles Correa Foundation awards the Charles Correa Gold Medal each year to undergraduate architecture theses and urges students to focus on climate, energy and low-carbon materials. Explore climate-responsive design and the related topics above, and enter open briefs through uni.xyz competitions.

Frequently asked questions

What is vernacular architecture in India?

It is the everyday building of Indian regions, made by local builders from local materials such as mud, brick, stone, timber and bamboo. Examples include courtyard houses, stepwells and village dwellings, each tuned to its climate.

What are the main features of a traditional Indian house?

Most traditional houses are organised around a courtyard (aangan) and a front veranda (otla), with thick walls, shaded openings and jali screens. Regional types include the haveli of Rajasthan, the wada of Maharashtra and the Manduva house of Telangana.

What is climate-responsive design in Indian architecture?

It means shaping a building's form, orientation, openings and materials around local sun, wind and rain so it stays comfortable with little energy. Charles Correa summed this up as "Form Follows Climate", and Laurie Baker's brick jali walls are a classic example.

Who are the most important modern Indian architects?

Balkrishna Doshi, the 2018 Pritzker laureate, Charles Correa, Achyut Kanvinde and Laurie Baker are central figures, alongside foreign architects who built in India such as Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn.

Where can I find Indian architecture competitions?

uni.xyz lists open competitions on its competitions page, and past briefs such as Bharat Bhavan 2020 and The Black Taj have drawn many entries on Indian themes.

References and further reading

• Architecture of India, Wikipedia
• Taj Mahal: Overview, Government of Uttar Pradesh
• Chandigarh Capitol Complex, Wikipedia
• Balkrishna Doshi, 2018 Laureate, The Pritzker Architecture Prize
• Charles Correa and Climate Change, Charles Correa Foundation
• Laurie Baker, Wikipedia