Resurgent Modernism

There have been significant sustained professional practices in the city since the seventy years following its inception that have taken architecture into a modern Indian direction.

A book on the works of Namita Singh is long overdue. Her Chandigarh-based practice, has delivered a range of buildings—including educational institutes, offices, commercial projects, housing, heritage and restoration works, private homes and interiors—all across India. While much of her work is in tune with a contemporary modernism, she has always drawn on local values and technologies for its generic expressions. Having set up a practice barely a decade after independence, Namita belongs to the generation of architects who participated in the country’s rapid development, providing a range of infrastructure projects for a society in the making, its institutions and cities.

How does one assess the overall work of a five decade-long practice that has succeeded in creating monumental public works but also those of a fine-tuned residential scale, each structure dedicated to a precise ideal, conscious of environment and technology, scope and purpose? Foremost is the inclusion of work that illustrates principles the architect uses to build. Second, projects that clearly demonstrate a conceptual unity to an idea or design as well as those that are part of the stylistic consistency of the firm. The accompanying pictures tell a parallel story and lend value to the breadth of the varied projects presented and of a practice informed by inquiry.