Celebrated architect Bijoy Jain is gearing up toward a major exhibition this year. The to-be-announced showcase takes place at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris. Jain’s Studio Mumbai Architects will present the large-scale show from December 2023 to May 2024.
Only last week, the Cartier Foundation had invited several international journalists to Mumbai to see first-hand Jain’s studio as well as some of his stellar works in and around the city. The group was also taken to Ganga Maki Textile Studio, a weaving facility run by Japanese textile designer Chiaki Maki and designed by the brilliant Jain and his team, at the foothills of the Himalayas, near Rishikesh.
Jain, 58, is among India’s most revered architects for his sustainable architectural practices, and equally for being a famous recluse. Jain is said to take on work that pleases him, regardless of commercial implications. Jain grew up in Mumbai and studied architecture at Washington University in the USA. He then worked in Los Angeles and London with Richar Meier. He returned to India and founded his office, Studio Mumbai, in 2005.
The Cartier Foundation describes it as “Studio Mumbai’s work explores the boundaries between art, architecture and material. The studio operates as an interdisciplinary group that shares an environment created from an iterative process, where ideas are explored using process and time as an integral part of its expression; water, air and light being the basis of all materiality in the synthesis of the work.”
Bijoy currently teaches at the Academia of Architecture in Mendrisio, Switzerland. He has also taught as a visiting Professor at Yale University in the USA and the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Jain’s works have been exhibited in numerous galleries around the world and have been acquired in the permanent collections of the Canadian Centre for Architecture, MOMA San Francisco and The Pompidou Centre in Paris. His studio has also exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London in 2010, Sharjah Biennial in 2013, and the Venice Architecture Biennial in 2010 and 2016.
Some of the awards Jain’s studio has received include the Dean’s Medal, Washington University, St. Louis (2021), Grande Medaille d’Or from L’Académie d’architecture, Paris, France (2014), the BSI Swiss Architecture Award (2012), the Spirit of Nature Wood Architecture Award: Finland (2012) and was a finalist at the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (2009).
Studio Mumbai has designed a cluster of houses in Mumbai’s Saat Rasta area with an inner courtyard, in an effort to promote community living in the city. Some of the studio’s other works in Maharashtra include Belavali House in Badlapur, Copper House in Alibaug, Tara House in Kashid, Palmyra House in Nandgaon as well as a private residence in Pali Hill, Mumbai. Jain has also designed the MPavilion in the Victoria Gardens, in Melbourne, Australia.
