An architect ensures the space within four walls is safe, comfortable and a home, where the heart is

From green buildings, sustainable buildings to climate-resilient buildings – an architect designs them all and ensures that the space within the four walls turns out to be a home, where the heart is.

- RITWIK MUKHERJEE

Speaking to The Statesman, Mitul S. Shukla, the founder and chief architect of Mass and Void, a well-known and leading architect firm, delves at length into wide-ranging issues relating to architecture, aesthetics, structural designing and so on, including how safe Kolkata is, why it is safer and more resilient to natural calamities and disasters.

Edited excerpts:

Q: It is said that architecture of any city or any place, for that matter, it actually creates and makes the character of a city or a place. A city is known by the kind of architecture that it has or it throws open. Do you subscribe to the same view?

A: That's 100 per cent correct.

Q: So you are not from the city. While many others have left the city and moved elsewhere for greater fortunes, you have moved in from Vadodara (Gujarat) to Kolkata. Can I say, this is a glorious case of reverse migration?

A: Yes. I feel very happy and proud and honoured when someone mentions that.

Q: So how have you seen the landscape of the city changing over the years that you have stayed in Kolkata?