session 1

A Queer Reading of Nawabi Architecture and the Colonial Archive: Lucknow Queerscapes

(Routledge, 2024)

by Sonal Mithal (co-authored with Arul Paul)

on Friday,
November 15, 2024, at 6:00 PM IST

School of Environment & Architecture
CKP Colony, Eskar Road, Borivali West, Mumbai 400 091

A Queer Reading of Nawabi Architecture and the Colonial Archives: Lucknow Queerscapes, by Sonal Mithal and Arul Paul, offers methods of using queer strategies to read the colonial archival and write erased, overlooked, and suppressed histories. Following nawab Asaf-ud-daula and nawab Wajid Ali Shah, the book provides a queer architectural history of Lucknow bookending the nawabi phase which lasted a mere eighty years. Asaf and Wajid were both subjected to colonial ridicule—one on the pretext of his homosexuality and the other on the pretext of being effeminate in mannerisms. To situate this ridicule, the book brings out words of disdain in the colonial archive that describe Lucknow architecture commissioned by the two nawabs. Reclaiming those words, we reveal the capacity of nawabi architecture to contest, discomfort, and disadvantage the colonial gaze. Nawabi architecture is presented as a form of drag embodied theatrically in the overlaps of the personal and the political ishq. Drawing upon embodied experience of the nawabs, nawabi architecture is redescribed using disorientation, position, proximity, direction, alignment, and non-alignment that disoriented the British visitor and recentered the agency and power of the nawabi state through its socio-sexual overlaps.

about

Sonal Mithal (she/her) is an architect, artist, and educator. She holds a doctorate from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, MArch from SPA Delhi; and BArch from Lucknow University. She is co-founder of research and conservation studio, People for Heritage Concern which offers consultancy for conservation and urban revitalization projects, and art projects for the public sector. She is serving as chair of the Masters in Conservation and Regeneration program at CEPT University. Her research, teaching, and writing transects architecture, landscape architecture, queer studies, history, and architectural conservation. Her areas of interest are architecture approaches for climate change, feminist-materialism, and intersectionality which is central to shaping the built environment.

Arul Paul (he/they) is an architect and educator, currently serving as an Associate Professor at the Nitte Institute of Architecture in Mangalore. Their research explores the intersections of architecture, urbanism, history, and queer studies. Paul holds an MArch in History, Theory, Criticism, and Urban Design from CEPT, and a BArch from Anna University, Chennai. Through the lens of history and theory, he critically examines the evolution of pedagogy in response to emerging challenges and innovations, contributing to academia, research, writing, and practice. Committed to social justice and equality, they actively champion these values for all, regardless of gender or sexual orientation.