The Outlier

Anupama Kundoo instinctively rejected the architectural principles born out of the industrial age. Today her searing vision places her at the heart of the global design zeitgeist.

- VIVEK MENEZES

ON THE 8TH OF OCTOBER 2020, even as much of the rest of the world stayed locked down against the devastating first wave of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen proceeded with opening "Taking Time", its retrospective of the remarkable oeuvre of Berlin-based architect Anupama Kundoo.

In their foreword to the book accompanying the exhibition, museum director Poul Erik Tøjner and curators Kjeld Kjeldsen and Mette Marie Kallehauge posed an elemental question: "How can architecture help solve the social, environmental, and economic crises that the world is facing?" They noted the industrial age established “time as a yardstick", which resulted in the hasty "creation of thousands of mediocre buildings around the world". But here was an alternate way of thinking: “Kundoo tries to return qualitative time to the production of architecture-by human work and human hand, which naturally takes longer than machines but involves a far better sense of materials, detail, space, and the building's relationship to the site."

"Taking Time" was a thunderclap of a turning point for Anupama Kundoo, and unleashed a cascade of honours. In May 2021, she was awarded the Auguste Perret Prize for Technology from the International Union of Architects "for her innovative use of local building techniques, material sourcing, and construction principles, all the while being acutely responsive to the environment, climate, and culture". Just a few weeks later, the Royal Institute of British Architects gave her the 2021 Charles Jencks award for "significant contributions to the theory and practice of architecture".