Sections
Six sections, twenty-five entries, all of them reachable from this page without a menu.
Water Architecture
4 entriesWhere the water table falls through the dry season, the building goes down to meet it. These entries treat the stair as the structure: what retains the soil, what spans the bay, and how far the descent has to go before water is reliable.
Printed and Dyed
5 entriesPrinting here means resist, mordant and wash as much as it means pigment. Each entry names the town and the community whose block set and sequence identify the cloth.
Woven Cloth
5 entriesA weave is an arithmetic problem worked out on a frame. These entries cover what each kind of loom makes possible, and what has to be settled in the yarn before weaving starts.
Temple Structure
4 entriesTwo structural traditions are routinely filed as one. These entries separate the curved shikhara from the storeyed vimana, and take the base mouldings as the more reliable evidence of which is which.
Spice Regions
4 entriesWhat grows where is decided by rainfall, altitude, drainage and shade rather than by cuisine. These entries follow the crop to the ground that suits it, and then to the grading floor.
Colonial and Princely
3 entriesImported iron, local stone and a deep shading arcade, laid over ground that had been built on for centuries. These entries read the elevation as a record of who was being addressed.