An Artwork Of The City

The house reflects the nature of the city. A collage of not only materials, but of all the practices that the city is known for has resulted in a striking piece of architecture that is rare, beautiful and ingenious.

- Sahiba Gulati

Mumbai is a city that captures one’s fascination- with the local train and the hordes of people hanging from it, with Dharavi, one of the biggest informal settlements that the world has seen, and the opportunities that it offers as all kinds of people flock there. Perhaps it could be called cosmopolitan. The architects saw in the character of the city a collage.

“Living in Mumbai, India it is impossible to ignore the informal settlements in the city, and if looked at closely there are many lessons to be learnt in frugality, adaptability, multi-tasking, resourcefulness and ingenuity. A visual language emerges that is of the found object, ad-hoc, eclectic, patched and collaged.”

These lessons the architects have applied practically in their project of the Collage house, “without romanticizing or fetishizing them”. The idea of recycling and collage making has been practiced in various ways, using materials, energy and other material resources as well as employing and bringing forth the intangible i.e. history, space and memories.