Taking pandemic as the prompt!

In December 2019, I left my job in India and moved to the USA with my husband. We started life in California and just when we were getting a hang of the sunny West Coast, the pandemic hit. The world was shutting down and companies were going online. I felt overshadowed by all the data architects around me, working from their comfortable home offices, and there I was losing all my touch on architecture. Cynicism got the better of me and I spiraled down the rabbit hole.

After months of mental recuperation, a trip to the woods, and some finely ground coffee, I was able to think clearly. I sat with my journal and started scribbling about my feelings and everything that inspired me. I thought deeply about my purpose and ways to fulfill it. All I had with me was my knowledge, my experiences, and an understanding of the built environment.

Taking pandemic as the prompt, I built the courage to put myself out there as a Solopreneur. Focusing on my niche I started working as a freelance architectural journalist and an architectural blogger. Encouragement came in easy when I saw my articles getting published in the digital media. After doing several journalism projects I felt motivated and wanted to start a blog series. With this blog, I aim to disseminate the field of Architectural History and Criticism. It will revolve around the concept of making architecture equitable and history understandable.

A creative profession asks for a portfolio. So I asked my husband for his technical prowess and help me design a website. This website is a constant reminder of who I am and what I want to do. In this maturing journey from an Architect to a Historian to a Writer, I have been fortunate enough to live in dynamic cities like Barcelona and London, where the sun rises to Art and sets to Architecture.

Having moved to San Francisco, I want to leverage my experiences from different architectural settings and weave them into a blog series called ‘Architecture sans building(s)’. This blog will not just be focused on built evolution, but on intangibles like the historical, theoretical, and critical interpretations of architecture, cities, urban spaces, creative practices, and their representations.

The central idea behind this blog is to widen the scope of architectural history and understand it from a critical/analytical viewpoint; to lend a perspective into the realm of history focusing on ancillaries that shape architecture.

Time to rekindle the historian in me!