Working in Mumbai: RMA Architects

‘This is not a monograph,' avers Rahul Mehrotra in a foreword that is clearly urgent enough to precede the title page. The eminent architect and principal of RMA then explicates the social and political context of his firm's work and reflects on the applicability of his 2011 book Architecture in India Since 1990.

The book is indeed far more analytical than promotional. Over four chapters, Mehrotra undertakes a kind of Frankfurtian dialectical analysis, interrogating the tensions between interior and city, rural and urban, past and future, and local and global, in the process dissecting changing demographics, private sector power over the urban environment, affordable contemporary aesthetics and more. A fifth chapter deals with the Mumbai context and how it generates praxis in the firm.

Throughout, Mehrotra rejects simplistic modernist meta-narratives in favour of more nuanced, dynamic interpretations: ‘We celebrate our practice by sharing our failures, confusion, struggles, questions and reflections,' he says. There is heft here, to be sure, and unapologetic political argument, but the book's pacing and image-rich format make it accessible. The work is an asset to anyone curious about or critical of developing urban contexts.