make / shift mumbai

Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture and Environmental studies (KRVIA) is exhibiting its work on the city of Mumbai from July 9th – 12th in the Coomaraswamy hall of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Vastu Sangrahalay, formerly known as the Prince of Wales Museum.

The exhibition titled “Make/Shift Mumbai, Readings, Imaginations and Propositions” will showcase its large repertoire of work on the city completed over the last 15 years. Since the institute’s inception in 1992, a group of educationists, professionals and artists became involved in envisioning the direction of the school. Discussions on cities have been central to its academic investigations. Through its varied research and consultancy projects and through its undergraduate courses and its extra-curricular programmes the institute has actively engaged with the city and provided an important platform for debate and discussion. Espousing an interdisciplinary approach, its initiatives have ranged from mapping/reading the metropolis in multiple ways; to providing new spatial imaginations for the city through its academic work; to its advocacy work, which proposes alternative futures to the city’s development. The college is now starting a Postgraduate programme in Urban Studies, offered as an Master of Architecture (M.Arch) degree with a specialization in Urban Design and Urban Conservation. The intention is to take its earlier initiatives forward by providing a platform for structured research and design at the postgraduate level.

The Exhibition, “Make/Shift Mumbai, Readings, Imaginations and Propositions” is both a retrospective of the institute’s work and an introduction to its Post Graduate programme. While the three categories Reading, Imaginations and Propositions are in many ways interconnected, they form an important structure through which to see the institute’s work on the city. The work displayed through these above conceptual categories has been done through the institute’s Design and Research Cell, its Urban Studies courses conducted in the fourth year of the B.Arch programme, its Humanities courses, the Final year thesis projects, and the Design projects undertaken from the first to the fourth year of the undergraduate programme, which engage in readings and interventions in the city at various scales and through multiple approaches.