Mapping the Profession
1947 - 2026  

Review, Reflect, and Expand

In 2016 one-third of the exhibition The State of Architecture: Practices and Processes in India at NGMA, Mumbai mapped the profession through a detailed infographics, quantifying professional growth vis-a-vis national economic growth, architectural education, architecture's public reception, important ratios vis-a-vis national or regional population, or women in architecture education and practice, and so on. This was parallel to other professional matrices such as a chronology of publications - books, journals, magazines, and so on. Maps across timelines, maps comparing locations of larger firms and schools of architecture, etc. were also an added layer. This quantified data was not an end in itself but allowed the research framework to compare perceptions with data, analyse data to reflect and project on various issues such as the making and the subsequent role of the architect, or the professional influence in the public and social sphere.

The data and its representation now extended and updated over the last decade further allows us to understand crucial aspects of a profession that are more contemporary and dynamically changing the nature of the profession or its self-image. While the data noted a stark rise in the number of architecture schools and enrollments around 2016, it is now notable for the drop in number of schools and sharp plummeting of enrollment numbers in the last 2-5 years. Infrastructure related projects and policies related to housing and housing stock also seem to dominate the construction world; while infrastructure development is now dominating the emerging built environment, we see very few of these projects turning into opportunities for architects and creative experimentation. The media and critical voices clearly have veered towards the digital media, with a good and wide range of platforms such as web-based journals and podcasts, however, while they have a better outreach, their content is not always dynamic or future-thinking, nor critically rich in evaluating emerging buildings and projects. There also seems to be a forest of awards for architects, across platforms and festivals now, the number of available opportunities get an award is strikingly high, however, it has neither resulted in indicating quality trends nor have they proven to be markers or identifiers of unique or special practices, with specially guided directions in a project or two. Between awards and media covering architecture there clearly is a blur of much too much!

The datasets gathered and presented here are in most cases indicative rather than exhaustively representative, and accurate to the best of the team's access to data sets and respective information. However, the intent here is to use a template and structure such as this to understand directions and perceptions in the profession through more grounded knowledge rooted in data and the possible kinds of data that may help us understand the larger ecology of the profession

The infographic is part of the book The State of Architecture - Practices and Processes in India, A Research Framework. This book is available for purchase at the Architecture Foundation, write to us at info@architecturefoundationindia.org for further details.