Rahul Mehrotra
Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design, Director of the Master of Architecture in Urban Design Degree Program and Co-Director of the Master of Landscape Architecture in Urban Design Degree Program
John T. Dunlop Professor in Housing and Urbanization

Rahul Mehrotra is Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design and the John T. Dunlop Professor in Housing and Urbanization. He also serves as Director of the Master in Architecture in Urban Design Degree Program and Co-Director of the Master of Landscape Architecture in Urban Design Degree Program. He is a practicing architect, urban designer, and educator. His Mumbai + Boston based firm, RMA Architects, (http://rmaarchitects.com) was founded in 1990 and has designed and executed projects, including government and private institutions, corporate workplaces, private homes, and unsolicited projects driven by the firm’s commitment to advocacy in the city of Mumbai. The firm has designed a software campus for Hewlett Packard in Bengaluru, a campus for Magic Bus (an NGO that works with poor children), led the restoration of the Chowmahalla and Falukhnama Palaces in Hyderabad, and formulated a conservation master plan for the Taj Mahal with the Taj Mahal Conservation Collaborative. The firm also recently designed and built a social housing project for 100 elephants and their caretakers in Jaipur, as well as a corporate office in Hyderabad. The firm has designed several single-family houses across India, and one in Karachi, Pakistan. In 2015, RMA Architects completed the ‘Lab of the Future’ on the Novartis Campus in Basel, Switzerland, and were finalist in an international design competition for the Museum of Modern Art in Sydney. Recent projects of the firm include a Library for the School of Architecture at CEPT, (www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEwjWfvTMZ8), the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Ahmedabad University and a School of Public Policy IIM, Ahmedabad. In 2018, RMA Architects were awarded the Venice Architecture Biennale Jury’s ‘Special Mention’ for “three projects that address issues of intimacy and empathy, gently diffusing social boundaries and hierarchies.” www.labiennale.org/en/news/awards-biennale-architettura-2018
Mehrotra has written and lectured extensively on issues to do with architecture, conservation, and urban planning and design in Mumbai and India. His writings include co-authoring ‘Bombay: The Cities Within’, which covers the city’s urban history from the 1600s to the present; ‘Banganga: Sacred Tank’; ‘Public Places Bombay’; ‘Anchoring a City Line’ a history of the city’s commuter railway; and ‘Bombay to Mumbai: Changing Perspectives’. He has also co-authored ‘Conserving an Image Center: The Fort Precinct in Bombay’. Based on this study and its recommendations, the historic Fort District in Mumbai was declared a conservation precinct in 1995 – a first such designation in India. In 2000, he edited a book for the Union of International Architects, which earmarks the end of the last century and is titled, ‘The Architecture of the 20th Century in the South Asian Region’. In 2011, Mehrotra wrote ‘Architecture in India – Since 1990’, which is a reading of contemporary architecture in India. This was extended through an exhibition he co-curated titled, ‘The State of Architecture: Practices and Processes in India’, at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Mumbai in January 2016. It was followed in 2018 by a second co-curated exhibition titled: ‘The State of Housing: Realities, Aspirations and Imaginaries in India’, which showed between January – March 2018 and will now travel in India. Since 2014 Mehrotra has been a member of the CICA – the International Committee of Architecture Critics.
Mehrotra is a member of the Steering Committee of the Laxmi Mittal South Asia Institute at Harvard. In 2012-2015, he led a Harvard University-wide research project with Professor Diana Eck, called ‘The Kumbh Mela: Mapping the Ephemeral Mega City’. This work was published as a book in 2014. His research was extended in 2017 in the form of a book titled ‘Does Permanence Matter?’ The research was also extended into an invited exhibition at the 2016 Venice Architectural Biennale.
Mehrotra’s latest co-authored book is titled ‘Taj Mahal: Multiple Narratives’ which was published in December 2017. Mehrotra’s research on urbanism is focused on evolving a theoretical framework for designing in conditions of informal growth – what he refers to as the ‘Kinetic City’. He has run several studios looking at various aspects of planning questions in the city of Mumbai, under the rubric of “Extreme Urbanism” (see video – https://vimeo.com/53595522). His current research is on the small towns and emerging urban conglomerations in India, and is expected to be published as book in Fall 2019.
Rahul Mehrotra has long been involved in civic and urban affairs in Mumbai, having served on government commissions for the conservation of historic buildings and environmental issues with various neighbourhood groups and, from 1994 to 2004, as Executive Director of the Urban Design Research Institute in Mumbai. He studied at the School of Architecture, Ahmedabad (CEPT) where he received the gold medal for his undergraduate thesis and graduated with a master’s degree with distinction in Urban Design from Harvard University. He has taught at the University of Michigan (2003–2007) and at the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at MIT (2007–2010).
Courses
Publications
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Today’s Global
Edited by Sarah M. Whiting, Rahul Mehrotra and Julie Cirelli
Remment Koolhaas, Malkit Shoshan, Bryan Lee, Mark Lee, Christopher C.M. Lee, Ron Witte, Farshid Moussavi, Jerold S. Kayden and Jennifer Newsom, ContributorsMay 2022
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America
By Mark Lee, Julie Cirelli, Jerold S. Kayden, Jennifer Bonner, K. Michael Hays, Michael Meredith, Edward Eigen, Mack Scogin, Max Kuo, Sharon Johnston, Maurice Cox, Rahul Mehrotra, Kersten Geers, David Van Severen, Sean Canty and Michael Van Valkenburgh
February 2021
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Ephemeral Urbanism: Does Permanence Matter?
By Rahul Mehrotra and Felipe Vera
September 2017
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The State of Architecture: Practices and Processes in India – Documenting the Exhibition and its Allied Events
By Rahul Mehrotra
March 2016
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The State of Architecture: Practices and Processes in India
By Rahul Mehrotra
January 2016
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Kumbh Mela: Mapping the Ephemeral Mega City
By Tarun Khanna and John Macomber
Edited by Rahul Mehrotra and Felipe VeraJuly 2015
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Architecture in India Since 1990
By Rahul Mehrotra
January 2011
News
Projects
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Harvard Mellon Initiative: Reconceptualizing the Urban
Stephen Gray, Alex Krieger, Rahul Mehrotra, Sibel Bozdo??an and Robert Pietrusko, Lead Faculty
Eve Blau and Julie Buckler, Principal InvestigatorsFall 2015
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Urban India Atlas
Rahul Mehrotra, Principal Investigator
Fall 2013
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Kumbh Mela
Rahul Mehrotra, Principal Investigator
Spring 2013
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Extreme Urbanism I: Reimagining Mumbai’s Back Bay
Rahul Mehrotra, Principal Investigator
Fall 2011
Exhibitions
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Madrid Río
Rahul Mehrotra, Curator
JAN 20 – MAR 6, 2016
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Soft Thresholds: Projects of RMA Architects, Mumbai
Rahul Mehrotra, Curator
AUG 21 – OCT 15, 2017
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Transformative Mobilities: Porto & Medellín
Rahul Mehrotra, Curator
AUG 26 – OCT 13, 2013
Events
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Conservation in a Shifting Landscape: The Future of Modern Architecture in South Asia
Rahul Mehrotra, Host
Eve Blau, ModeratorFebruary 14, 2022
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Harvard Design Magazine #50 Issue Preview and Conversation
Edited by Sarah M. Whiting and Rahul Mehrotra
Julie Cirelli, HostJanuary 23, 2022