This is a curated list of books on Indian Architecture, 15 Must Reads for architects and design thinkers by the editorial team of The Architects Diary. The selected books bring together seminal voices, regional narratives, and critical perspectives, offering a layered understanding of Indian architecture. This collection serves as an essential reference for architects, students, and enthusiasts exploring India’s evolving architectural identity deeply rooted in history while dynamically engaging with contemporary contexts.
Stepwells – a testament of rich Indian Architecture are still unknown to people across the nation and globe. Stepwells were more than utilitarian water sources, they were architectural achievements that blended ritual, community, and design. Rather than portraying them as an engineering relic, the book captures the essence of stepwell as a temple. Constructed upside down, blending a spatial connection between human, ground, and sky.
Through the lens of the camera, their monumental scale, symmetry, and sculptural qualities are presented, echoing the sense of awe with its design. Today, many of these stepwells lie forgotten, their cultural and ecological importance buried with them. This book, however, revives their significance in the most articulated manner. It not only documents their beauty but also serves as a reminder of a time when architecture was intimately tied to nature, community, and spirit. To Reach the Source is a visual pilgrimage into India’s rich history binding humans and water.
Image Credits: Aayushi Lodha
This book explores the brick architecture of the nineteenth century in South India through the lens of tectonics and materiality. The book is a diachronically elaborated history of brick architecture, especially analysing the hybridity due to the indigenous and colonial intersections of nineteenth-century India. It offers a decolonial reading of architecture through meticulously measured drawings as a tool and presents an argument for reading buildings as archives. South India has thousands of dilapidated buildings, which may be erased due to neglect, lax laws, and ignorance.
The book exposes the tectonics, fixing, material choices, and socio-political circumstances of this architecture in brick. This method of analysing the dilapidated buildings as an archive of construction, forefronts the ‘makers’ and the agency of the local craftspeople rather than an Anglo-centric gaze. Brick buildings such as the extravagantly ornamental and structurally rich Chatrams of Thanjavur, Rosary Church, Hassan, and Fort School, Bengaluru, are some of the many cases elaborated in the book.
Image Credits: Routledge Publications
Hailing from the very region of South Kanara and having grown up in traditional ancestral homes of our family and friends, I had been exposed to the beauty and architectural mastery these structures embody from a very young age. Built in a deeply contextual way and responsive to the local climate and available resources, our generation has seen the glory and is now seeing the slow disappearance of traditional building techniques, maintenance techniques and craftsmanship employed in these homes.
This book was conceived as a response to help in the direction of protecting and resurrecting these invaluable knowledge systems as we not only owe it to our architectural fraternity but also to our craftsmen and local artisans. We eventually hope to take this many steps further and help employ and train local crafts persons to carry this knowledge forward, especially as many are moving away from agriculture and traditional building techniques due to our changing times and aspirations to move towards modernity.
The book thus aims to serve as the first step in documenting the valuable structures and all the knowledge systems they embody so it can bring out awareness and serve as a starting point for further studies on conservation, preservation, and restoration of these structures. This is crucial as we increasingly see ancestral homes being broken down for want of patrons. We thus hope that this documentation serves as the base to understanding these structures thoroughly and developing ways to not only protect these structures but also maintain and use them regularly.
Image Credits: Gayathri & Namith Heritage Matters
This book documents the design journey of Janmarg, Ahmedabad’s Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS), which has become a benchmark for public transit in India. Over the last decade, Indian cities have increasingly turned to BRTS as a solution for urban mobility, with eighteen cities at various stages of development. Janmarg, inaugurated in 2009, is recognized as India’s first complete BRTS, marked by its innovative experiments, thoughtful design decisions, and context-specific adaptations. This book captures those insights, detailing the alternatives considered, the rationale behind key choices, and the best practices that emerged. It offers valuable lessons for other cities and is a rich resource for researchers, students, urban planners, and policy makers interested in sustainable, inclusive mass transit systems.
We all are on many unique journeys within this main fascinating journey called Life. Every journey happens to be simultaneously a journey into the outside world. Outer wanderings with tangible places, incidents and encounters, as well as a journey within ourselves. Inner ponderings with introspection, new insights and understanding. This book is an attempt to share Shirish Beri’s wanderings through his 200 expressive sketches and ponderings through his 119 poems and 5 eloquent articles. Life will always be this continuous, amazing journey to him an unending learning experience.
Bangalore’s Lalbagh by Suresh Jayaram is an intimate yet rigorously researched portrait of the city’s oldest botanical garden, casting Lalbagh as both witness and agent in Bangalore’s layered evolution. Interweaving personal memory, archival fragments, and overlooked narratives, especially of the gardener communities, the book resists conventional historiography. Instead, it offers a slow, reflective, and deeply situated account of urban transformation. Jayaram’s multidisciplinary lens, as an artist, historian, and insider, enriches this hybrid chronicle, making it as much a biography of the garden as a critique of urban amnesia and erasure. A poignant, visually compelling tribute to landscape as memory.
From the bold concrete gestures of Chandigarh to the precise technological campuses of ISRO, S.D Sharma’s architectural journey mirrors the aspirations of a young, post-independence India. This richly illustrated volume, part of the Modernism in India Series, chronicles the work of a pivotal yet under-recognized architect who helped shape India’s modernist landscape.
Sharma began his career on the legendary Chandigarh Capital Project Team under Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, a crucible of modernist experimentation, before moving on to become Chief Architect at ISRO. His work reflects a nuanced adaptation of modernist principles to Indian contexts: climate-responsive, materially grounded, and pragmatically elegant.
More than a monograph, the book offers critical essays, interviews, and a chronology of Sharma’s projects across public, institutional, and private sectors. It’s a timely reminder of a generation that built not for spectacle, but for nationhood, and whose legacy now faces erasure under the pressures of globalisation.
India is the homeland of diverse arts & crafts that have shaped its cultural identity for decades now. Handmade in India is a remarkable compendium that documents the depth and diversity of India’s craft traditions. From the intricate pinjrakari of Kashmir to the elegant chikankari of Lucknow, the book maps regional craft clusters across the country through detailed fieldwork and stunning photography. It celebrates both iconic and lesser-known crafts, like jadupatua paintings and paabu boots, offering rich insight into their cultural, historical, and material significance. More than a reference, it’s an immersive resource for designers, architects, artists, and anyone drawn to the tactile beauty of handmade heritage. A visual and intellectual feast, this volume is a tribute to the living wisdom of India’s artisans and a call to preserve it in a rapidly changing world.
Studio Archohm’s 25-year monograph is a compelling chronicle of a practice that treats design as civic action and cultural inquiry. Framed as flagbearers of contemporary Indian architecture, the book traces the studio’s evolution into a responsible and responsive stakeholder in nation building, moving effortlessly from metros, riverfronts, and civic institutions to private commissions where risk and experimentation sharpen the craft. Beyond buildings, it forays into research, design thinking, experience design, city branding, and education, arguing that impact multiplies when architecture connects policy, identity, and everyday use. The projects are curated to show a wide range from small-scale details to entire cities, and the detailed drawings, diagrams, and photographs communicate both the process and the final outcome.
In this book, Jaimini Mehta proposes that art embodies memories, and memories, not facts, make history. By making a distinction between the Hegelian concept of history and its Sanskrit counterpart, Itihasa, and tracing the trajectory of architectural consciousness in India through memories, Mehta discovers that there exist not one but two deep structures that have animated and informed both spiritual architecture and temporal architecture in parallel throughout history and continue to do so even today. This has allowed contemporary Indian architects to confront global modernity in a uniquely Indian way. Mehta demonstrates this with several contemporary examples.
This illustrated book is an expansive portrait of a region that holds extraordinary cultural and ecological diversity within a small footprint. Documentary duo Dipti Bhalla Verma and Shiv Kunal Verma stitch together travelogue, visual anthropology, and natural history to map eight states through people-first stories and spectacular landscapes. From Sikkim’s Kanchenjunga skyline and Assam’s tea gardens to Arunachal’s biodiversity corridors, Nagaland’s martial tribes and Baptist churches, Manipur’s polo heritage, Meghalaya’s living root bridges, and farm lives in Tripura and Mizoram, the book represents a lived-in context. More than 300 photographs and twelve maps make it a persuasive coffee table volume, yet the voices keep it grounded and accessible.
This book lists the set of buildings most often discussed by historians of post-Independence Indian architecture, revealing the contours of an unofficial canon that has shaped discourse. Many of these buildings, as tangible objects, occupy relatively marginal positions within texts; they are culturally and politically situated without becoming corporeal works of architecture. By drawing and describing the set of buildings most often discussed in reference texts, the book focuses attention back to the architectural object itself. In this book, Catherine argues that buildings are not superfluous to architectural history, but central. Reading buildings opens questions with wide critical relevance to history and to contemporary practice.
One Continuous Line: Art, Architecture, and Urbanism of Aditya Prakash is a deeply engaging exploration of a visionary who connected varied fields with rare clarity and purpose. The book traces Prakash’s evolution from architect and urban thinker to painter and educator, revealing how his work formed a continuous narrative rooted in humanism and restraint. Through Chandigarh’s modernist landscape and beyond, Prakash’s ideas upheld simplicity, community, and a deep respect for lived experience. This volume not only documents his lasting impact but also reminds us that architecture, when guided by empathy and imagination, can become a continuous line connecting art, people, and place.
Mountain Temples & Temple Mountains by Nachiket Chanchani is an evocative unfolding of the Central Himalayas, where architecture, devotion, and landscape converge to form a unique cultural geography. Chanchani meticulously traces how sacred architecture emerges from and responds to the rugged mountain terrain, revealing temples not as built structures but as extensions of nature, memory, and myth. Through layered narratives and visual depth, the book uncovers relationships between pilgrims, place-making, and the spiritual imagination. It stands as an essential work for understanding how Himalayan environments shape religious experience, offering readers a richer appreciation of India’s architectural and cultural heritage.
When it comes to designing, true design is what elevates its users emotionally and delights them with each corner of the building. Justifying this ideology of designing, the book explores the built wonders of Ar. Gurjit Singh Matharoo through his practice over the decades. With the constant idea of connecting his work with nature, Ar. Gurjit designs each space in a peculiar way, responding to its surrounding context. Spanning diverse typologies, this remarkable volume offers an in-depth exploration of the creativity and vision behind a distinctly contemporary Indian architectural practice. insight into a very contemporary Indian practice.
Design is more than just aesthetic appeal; it shapes lifestyles, redefining how we live, interact, and communicate in society. But do we, as architects, always justify the purpose of design? To address these emerging questions, Gensler’s CEOs introduced Design for a Radically Changing World, exploring how design influences our daily lives and tackles global challenges. Issues such as climate change, urban revitalization, and the evolving nature of work are examined, highlighting design’s power to unite people, enhance experiences, and inspire change.
The book offers a feminist critique of heteronormative architectural practices that have led to the systemic exclusion of intersectional identities from safe, accessible, and efficient toilets. At the same time, it presents clear architectural design strategies with the potential to make this fundamental spatial typology more inclusive. A range of examples is explored, including toilets as spaces that celebrate self-identity, multi-user universal toilets, signage design, toilets as destinations for lounging and leisure, as urban spaces, as movement corridors, as technological products, and as ecological responses to the climate crisis. These concepts are cited and discussed throughout the book. Written in a simple and engaging style, the book aims to make toilet design central to architectural discourse rather than a mere requirement addressed as an afterthought.
A Place in the Shade delves into the architectural and urban challenges of India, exploring themes from climate-responsive housing to architecture’s deeper metaphysical role as a model of the cosmos. In this thought-provoking collection of essays, Charles Correa argues that our built environment must balance climate, culture, and economic realities while fostering inclusion, diversity, and synergy qualities that define a thriving city. He highlights the urgent issues of rapid urbanization, warning against the commodification of urban land for political gain. Correa’s insights remain profoundly relevant, positioning cities as invaluable national assets whose fate will shape India’s future.
This book paves the way for critical questions to emerge regarding the current state of *Institutions and Practices* in architecture in India. These questions will spark conversations among institutions and organizations, ultimately leading to meaningful systemic responses. The creation of this book has been a labor of love for over eighteen months, driven by a hundred young minds. Mostly architecture students and recent graduates who worked directly to bring it to life. It was a transformative experience for each of them, and everyone involved has taken something valuable from the process. As Prof. Chhaya aptly describes, this journey has led to **“the tuning of one’s inner moral compass.”
The masterminds behind Auroville, Piero and Gloria, were pioneering architects who brought the philosophy of Auroville to life. Their contributions and dedication continue to influence the community to this day. Piero’s impact is especially profound, as the manifestation of Matrimandir. The physical and spiritual center of Auroville would not have been possible without him. This book delves deep into the insights of their unique legacy, community-building efforts, and essays that explore how a strong philosophy can transform the built environment.
Timeless architectural features, such as courtyards, are always associated with bringing the naturally public forms to the world’s heart, building the most peaceful, secluded outdoor areas. These outdoor spaces maximize the living experience with their private space feature, which gives one the option for leisurely relaxation, recreation, or gardening. Furthermore, it has also been a […]
Architecture font choices go beyond style—they shape how your work is perceived. From portfolios to presentations, the right architecture font instantly communicates clarity, precision, and personality. As architects, we design not just with space but with every detail, including typography. Selecting a strong architecture font shows your commitment to visual storytelling and design consistency. In […]
Looking to make a lasting first impression? Your main door design is more than a point of entry, it’s the gateway that reflects and enhances your home. In this blog, we dive into 50 stylish door design concepts that blend style with functionality, from innovative materials, classic styles, and intelligent lock systems that provide convenience, security, and refinement straight to your front door. 1. Fluted Wooden Doors A combination of smooth fluted surfaces and deep wood grain, this modern door brings subtle drama to the entrance. Upgraded with a clever lock, it combines modern security with classic style. 2. Geometric Patterns The geometric element of the safety grill and […]
The Indian farmhouse accommodation goes on to capitalize on a mature evolutionary synthesis of ancestral aesthetics and contemporary features. With this, the outside and the inside of farmhouses became places of comfort with nature. In this blog, we delve into 15 incredible farmhouse designs that entail a harmonious blending. While they exhibit different spaces in […]
When it comes to enhancing the kitchen window over the sink, various design ideas are possible to decorate Indian homes. From rooted in tradition to Western-style modular kitchens offer both functionality and attractive aesthetics. Apart from the sleek profile and raised breakfast counter, the kitchen window over sink is another spot to add appeal and […]
In Indian homes with dynamic spaces, identification of standard interior door dimensions can have a positive impact on space optimization. First impressions matter, right? Beyond spaces inside the homes, doors carry long-time impressions through various panel sizes, intricate details, and more. While most of us remember the material and design, we tend to forget the […]
Indian homes place equal importance on pooja room door designs as they do on main door designs. With diverse and unique ethnic backgrounds, every family strives to reflect their personalities and identities in their designs. These identities can encompass religious or spiritual interests, local contexts, or other personal elements. This series of blogs, featuring 50 […]
The door design for main door is a defining feature of any Indian home, embodying both style and cultural significance. In a country rich with diverse architectural traditions, the entrance to your home reflects not only personal taste but also cultural heritage. Whether you’re drawn to the intricate carvings of traditional Indian door designs or […]
Pillar design is a cornerstone of architectural elegance, seamlessly blending structural support with aesthetic appeal. Our blog, “50 Best Pillar Design Inspirations,” celebrates this essential element, showcasing a variety of styles from classical Doric and Ionic to contemporary and avant-garde innovations. Whether you’re an architect, interior designer, or a design enthusiast, these pillar design inspirations […]
Wall Moulding Design is a great way to amp up your space and elevate the overall look of your home. There are a wide range of moulding designs that can add a distinct character to your space. Wall moulding design comes from different kinds of materials, such as PVC, plaster, wood, etc. The right choice […]