Working in Mumbai is a critical reflection on thirty years of the practice of RMA Architects. Rahul Mehrotra weaves a narrative to connect his multiple engagements in architectural practice, including teaching, research, documenting, writing and exhibiting since the establishment of the practice in 1990. The book is structured around the subjects of interior architecture, critical conservation, and work and living spaces that straddle the binaries of the global and the local as well as the rural and the urban. While the book is a portfolio of the selected works of RMA Architects, the projects are curated so as to unravel and clarify the challenges faced by architects in India and in several parts of the “majority” world where issues related to rapid urbanization and the impacts of global capital are among the many that dispute conventional models of practice. Working in Mumbai is used emblematically to interrogate the notion of context and understand how the practice evolved through its association with the city of Bombay/Mumbai.

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See the citation from the jury for RMA Architects’ shortlisted scheme for the Sydney Modern Project, as well as the other finalists here

The scheme is conceived to take advantage of the natural landform of the site by embedding the new building in the landscape. This formal modesty allows the design concept to articulate a striking relationship between the existing and new buildings with most of the new spaces placed underground.

The scheme is porous and facilitates movement from the Royal Botanic Gardens and The Domain through the Gallery with a strong series of stepped terraces and ramps that reach down the site into Woolloomooloo.

The central concept of a ‘void’ connecting to both sky and earth is a powerful idea and the suggested creative programming would offer interesting ways of interpreting an art museum and its collection. Spaces created through the setting of a circular void in a rectilinear plan would provide unique spaces for curatorial creativity within the art museum context. The galleries for both contemporary art and temporary exhibitions are beautifully articulated spaces.

Through its deep commitment to the site and its potential for innovative programming the rigorously argued scheme presents a number of interesting ideas that address the concept of a 21st-century art museum.

‘The building is an armature for Art.

A Gallery should not be a singular image and overpower the artefacts; rather the site allows a plural dispensation of architectural strategies and form (or non-form, or earth-building)’

-RMA Architects

Three Court House was featured on ArchDaily. See the full article here.