Architectural Digest India

A few days before this issue went to print, I found myself alone in the office, turning the pages of the final dummy, and for the first time, I read the masthead without scanning it for corrections. Seeing my name beside “Editor” did not feel triumphant; it felt clarifying. That single word carries the gravity of choice: what to bring into view, how to frame it and, perhaps most importantly, why it should enter our shared design memory. Stepping into this position has sharpened a question that has long occupied my thinking: what power does publishing hold within a rapidly evolving design culture? AD reflects ambition, but it also helps define it—the act of selection quietly steering attention and influencing through steady calibration of what is seen and how it…

DIVYA MISHRA WRITER In this issue, the former deputy editor of AD writes about the Bawa Pavilion (pg 110) at AD Design Show 2025, built by Bengaluru-based furniture studio Phantom Hands and the Geoffrey Bawa Trust. “For me, what the Bawa Pavilion really showcased was how deeply the team at Phantom Hands had imbibed the Sri Lankan master’s way of making. I mean, the idea of using their packing fabric for the tent walls? Genius! Bawa would’ve 100% approved.” SUJATA ASSOMULL WRITER Dubai-based Assomull is a fashion journalist, author and columnist who writes about the evolving language of luxury in India and the Middle East. In this issue, she writes about Gayatri Oberoi’s Mumbai beachfront mansion (pg 62). “What moved me most was that this isn’t just a beautiful house—it’s…

Art, design, fashion and history come together in these pages of AD. We visit Raw Mango’s latest flagship inside an early-20th-century Kolkata building, fashion label Zilzom’s new space in Leh as well as furniture brand Objectry’s first-ever store in Delhi. In Abu Dhabi, we take in the newly opened Zayed National Museum, which marries local traditions with cutting-edge responses to extreme climate needs. We also explore Hydra, the dynamic lighting sculptures from Paul Matter, along with the new additions to Van Cleef & Arpels’s iconic Alhambra collection.…

How does one distill the identity and ambition of a country into a singular building? When it came to the UAE’s new Zayed National Museum, which opened last December, architect Norman Foster, of Foster + Partners, took inspiration from the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the driving force behind the creation of the gulf state. “He had a vision for what the UAE could be and believed in its potential as a place for driving innovation that was rooted in the heritage of its people,” says Foster, who, through an international competition, was awarded the project in 2007. Spanning over 6,00,000 square feet, the museum features six permanent galleries across which over 3,00,000 years of human history unfold. On display for the opening phases are more than 1,500…

Mortimer Chatterjee and Tara Lal of Chatterjee & Lal are excited about their new space on the third floor of the crescent-shaped Sir HC Dinshaw Building in Mumbai’s historic Horniman Circle. “You can catch the most breathtaking sunset from here,” gushes the couple, as they look out from their quaint balcony offering sweeping views of the Horniman Circle Garden. The neighbourhood, a heritage area laid out in the 1870s during the city’s cotton-trading boom, has long been home to fashion and retail giants like Christian Louboutin, Sabyasachi and, most recently, Galeries Lafayette. The gallery, previously an Hermès office, is housed in an elegant landmark structure built in 1924, and though immaculately maintained, the duo enlisted the services of Rajeev Agarwal, their longtime architect friend, to help with the sensitive restoration…

When you enter a space, light is perhaps the first design element you encounter. It shifts with movement and establishes its presence almost effortlessly. Hydra, Paul Matter’s new series, operates within this logic. It reaches and recalibrates—every slender arm extending like a fascinating otherworldly creature. For founder and creative director Nikhil Paul and his team, early explorations began as delicate wire studies, allowing them to understand balance, weight and spatial reach. “We were interested in how a slight movement could completely alter the trajectory and presence of the object,” explains Paul. As the explorations were translated to full-scale metal prototypes, gravity and structural integrity began to assert themselves, shaping the final forms. Hydra I reaches outward, tentative and searching. Hydra II establishes a continuous spatial dialogue from the floor to…