In the context of India’s history, culture, location and climate Jacob van Rijs will speak about recent work, among them the Amanora Future Towers in Pune and differences and parallels of the work in India in comparison to other recent projects of MVRDV in Europe and the Netherlands. The IES College of Architecture in Mumbai will host the lecture on the 24th January 2014.

“I want you to make me happy!” was the brief MVRDV received from one of their Indian clients, it is an ambivalent sign of the different cultural setting foreign architects experience in India. In the past years MVRDV has taken its first steps in India and started to develop a housing portfolio which is characterised by large surfaces and fast planning, compared to many of the other projects of the world wide operating architecture studio. The challenges of working in India are fascinating: MVRDV, who are generally considered experts in housing had to do a research on Indian housing before designing the specific lay-outs for the burgeoning Indian middle classes.