CP Kukreja Architects exhibit at the London Festival of Architecture to explore five decades of India’s built environment

CP Kukreja Architects is set to open its exhibition ‘Five Decades of the Built Environment in India’ on June 24 at The Lalit in London, UK. As part of the London Festival of Architecture 2022 programme, the exhibition will take visitors on a journey through five decades of the evolution of India’s architectural landscape through the lens of pioneering Indian architecture and design practices. Presenting a wide range of projects across timelines, the exhibition will deconstruct histories, present ideas, and highlight bold and progressive architecture critical to the past, present and future of India and its people.

CP Kukreja Architects is the first and only Indian architecture firm to be invited to present an independent exhibition at LFA, London’s premiere celebration of architecture and the making of the city. CPKA was founded in 1969 by the late C.P. Kukreja, who was at the forefront of the modern architecture movement in India in the 1970s and 1980s with contemporaries such as Charles Correa and Raj Riwal. The company is currently run by Dikshu Kukreja, who is driving sustainability and innovation through the company’s latest projects. This practice has played a pivotal role in creating a distinct identity for the built environment in post-independence India and has completed over 1,000 projects across scales and styles to date.

The exhibition Five Decades of India’s Built Environment will explore the iconic buildings from the 1970s and 1980s that gave birth to a unique architectural identity for newly emerging and independent India. Moreover, moving into the 1990s and 2000s, the exhibition will present exploratory and investigative projects that experimented with new age materials and broken conventions as opportunities opened up in the country after economic liberalization. Finally, the exhibition will showcase today’s buildings that are prominently at the forefront of cutting-edge innovation and sustainability while being rooted in the local context.

The opening of the exhibition will include a stimulating discussion on the transformations in India across aspects such as literature, culture and politics over the past five decades and their impact on the development of the built environment in India. The conversation will be led by Dikshu C. Kukreja, CPKA General Manager; Rosa Rogina, Director of the London Festival of Architecture; Vinay Sahsrapodh, Member of Parliament and President of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations; Amish Tripathi, author and director of the Nehru Centre, London, the cultural wing of the High Commission of India in the United Kingdom.