Brick Architecture of South India: Reflecting Through Material Histories

Priya Joseph
Srishti Manipal Institute of Art Design and Technology


 



South India has thousands of 19th-century dilapidated brick buildings, which may be erased due to neglect, lax laws and ignorance. The talk reflects on ways to read these buildings as archives, through their construction layers, revealing embedded information. This method of analysing the building as an archive of construction forefronts the ‘makers’ and the agency of the local craftspeople rather than an Anglo-centric gaze. In this talk, I elaborate on brick buildings such as the extravagantly ornamented and structurally rich Rosary Church (1810), Hassan, Chatrams of Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu (1790-1810), among other examples that demonstrate how material and construction histories reveal their tectonic and socio-economic complexities. The talk will draw on the recently published book, titled ‘Brick Architecture Craft in Nineteenth-Century South India: Reading Buildings as Archives’, Routledge 2025, elaborating on the craft of brick architecture and why its material history becomes relevant.

A Short Visual History of the Long Life of Goa’s Basilica of Bom Jesus

Vishvesh Prabhakar Kandolkar
Goa College of Architecture









This presentation offers a variety of representations of the Basilica of Bom Jesus, the structure which famously houses the remains of St. Francis Xavier, highlighting its aesthetic transformations historically. Through this visual journey, I shall intervene in ongoing debates about the Basilica’s appearance, these having arisen over the necessity to alter the building’s iconic look. Such visual education may then hasten its replastering, a restoration that not only returns the Basilica to its original form but that will extend its life by protecting it from climate-related damage.