Tucked behind a discreet gate in Mumbai’s Byculla neighborhood, a tree-lined alley leads to a bamboo door and, through it, into a voluminous courtyard.
In the surrounding rooms, architect Bijoy Jain’s Studio Mumbai atelier brims with objects: found rocks, vats of indigo, bowls of bright iron-oxide pigments, drawings, paintbrushes, and books, lots of books. But there are living things too. On a recent September afternoon, artisans wove chairs of muga silk, and dogs ran around as, outside, a monsoon poured down. Everything, or rather everyone, belonged, all parts of a creative ecosystem that pioneers new ways of building.
The space has long loomed large in the imagination of Hervé Chandès, artistic managing director of Fondation Cartier, who came across a photograph of it in a magazine nearly a decade ago.…
