This paper is an exposition into findings related to the dwellings of Rabindranath Tagore, at Santiniketan in Bengal, India. Tagore, one of modern India's foremost cultural and literary figures, spent forty years (1901-41), most of his very prolific and creative adult life, in the houses he built here. As regards disciplinary approach, the investigations take an architectural perspective, revealing several ideologies and approaches of Tagore, based on historical context as well as personal philosophy. The paucity of Tagore's direct references to his houses in his writings makes it imperative to rely on in-situ analyses and written allusions about space and architecture. In doing so, the paper also attempts to realize the immense potential for understanding and appreciating Tagore's genius through his architectural creations, while placing these within contemporaneous endeavours of discovering an Indian and pan-Asian identity in the then colonised nation.