Jaipur in Rajasthan is famous for its palaces and museums, its craft traditions and its characteristic pink shops and houses. A planned city within walls, it was built in pre-modern times according to a distinctive Indian body of theory known as vastu vidya. Later, as Indian architecture developed in response to British and subsequent post-colonial policies, this system became increasingly marginalized and fragmented, decreasingly practised and understood. A chasm divides today’s architecture from the principles that guided the city’s first builders. Building Jaipur is an essay in intellectual archaeology, explaining historic buildings according to the rationale of their architects, and exploring the relationship between theory and architectural practice from the city’s foundation in the 1720s to the present day. Challenging post-modernist interpretations of the past, the authors set out the terms of a fresh engagement with vastu vidya to enrich both current design philosophy and the architecture of contemporary India. With 130 illustrations, of which 25 are in full colour, this architectural biography of a fascinating city presents a history and a new understanding of the use and purpose of Indian architectural theory over the last 300 years.
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