BRINDA SOMAYA Constructive, Restorative, Contextual

Let’s start with something I know you really enjoy…tell us about the places that your work has taken you to.

Brinda Somaya: Well, I have worked primarily in India…every single part of India, from Gangotri in the Himalayas, right down to the southern-most tip, to Calcutta, through the deserts of Kutch, through Central India, up to the tribal areas of Jharkhand. I can proudly say that I have built in every part of my own country and that’s been my greatest fulfilment.

Travel, of course, is most important for any architect and it’s something I can say I have done a lot of. First as a very young girl of 16, when I won a scholarship to go to America, and that was so long ago that our flight went from Mumbai to Beirut, Beirut to Istanbul, Istanbul to Ireland, Ireland to Canada and Canada to New York. I think what’s really been exciting in my life is that I have seen this huge transition of free India – I’m post-independence born but not so far after that I didn’t know what it was like