The lap pool of Utsav House, built by the architect Bijoy Jain in 2008 in Alibag, a cluster of coastal villages just outside of Mumbai, India. In the ’90s, Jain spent time there reconnecting with a non-Western idea of architecture

I wondered if the 54-year-old architect enjoyed witnessing that first beguiling effect his building had upon me. No sooner had we stepped inside the private residence, built in 2008 and known as Utsav House — utsav means “an occasion” or “festival” in Sanskrit but is also a palindrome of vastu, the ancient Indian science of architecture — than the temperature fell by a few noticeable degrees. (sic!)

CreditCreditTobias Alexander Harvey

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