Fragile construction

An awareness of history complicates the situating of any practice in contemporary India. These are fractured and strident political times in India; much of what passes for architecture, exhibits at best, a physical commodity of uncertain principles and dubious origin. Despite a rapidly accelerating urbanity, the fissures in contemporary Indian practice, expose serious limitations of historical oblivion, imperfect ethics, and a deep and growing insensitivity for social and environmental inequity. The results are physically manifest in our broken urbanity. Infrastructural decay, and extreme environmental degradation offer a sobering backdrop in Indian cities. Ephemeral curtain walls, conceal an absolute lack of empathy for culture, for craft, and for a citizenship in a precarious equilibrium with ecology. In an age preoccupied with technology and speed, vir.mueller architects strive to create designs that evoke beauty, and optimize relationships between architecture and ecology, endowing dignity and grace to material expression. Our work accords significance to the quality of human habitation within the intimacy of private dwelling, as well as in the celebration of dynamic public space.

Pankaj Vir Gupta is a licensed architect in the United States, and a registered member of the Council of Indian Architects. As founding partner of vir.mueller architects, he has led the office on award winning projects, across a range of typologies and scales. The work of vir.mueller architects has been published and awarded internationally, and the firm continues to advance design thinking in significant built works of architecture. Recent projects include the University of Chicago Center in India, and the Humayun’s Tomb Site Museum – the first contemporary museum in India to be built on a World Heritage Site. Since 2012, Pankaj has taught as a Professor of Architecture at the University of Virginia School of Architecture, where he co-founded The Yamuna River Project – the largest multi-disciplinary, pan- university research initiative. As Co-Director of the Yamuna River Project, he teaches an Advanced Design Studio each year focused on the predicaments of Mega Cities. He has previously taught at the University of Texas at Austin, the Arizona State University, and the University of New Mexico – where he received the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, as well as the J.B. Jackson grant award for research. Pankaj Vir Gupta received a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Virginia (1993), and a Master of Architecture from the Graduate School of Architecture at Yale University (1997).