Experience the art of architecture at this exhibition in MumbaiMumbai, Jan 24(AZINS) What do posting pictures of a famous landmark you visited on your last vacation, sitting in a café, lazing around at home or working late nights at the office have in common? Architecture! We interface with buildings every day but their architects remain unknown creators — preferring to be known by their work and rarely emerging from their habitat.

A thin man with thick, black-rimmed glasses, dressed head to toe in black – that's the stereotype of an architect. Over the next eight weeks, if you find yourself wandering the Kala Ghoda district, you might be lucky to spot a few and see if the stereotype actually fits. And, if you follow one into the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), for the State of Architecture exhibition, you will get to experience the wonder of their world.

The ongoing exhibition, curated by architect-historian Rahul Mehrotra, poet and cultural theorist Ranjit Hoskote and architect-editor Kaiwan Mehta, is a significant effort to research, index and curate data about the education and practice of architecture. "The exhibition is becoming an important archive of the vast range of contemporary work. It is turning out to be a substantial platform for the possible directions that architecture can take. It recovers the role of an architect within the public forum instead of he/she being relegated to a lifestyle designer," says Kaiwan Mehta.

The exhibition takes up four floors. The ground floor sets the context. It speaks of the environment of architecture with a conscientious effort to be relatable – the statistics are infographics, publications are a picture wall and vitrine, real estate trends are mapped against an event timeline. The revealing statistics juxtaposed with the event timelines allow many connections to be made. Once an overview has been absorbed, one can move up to the other floors where there is a more intense engagement with the curved immersive walls of NGMA.

The intermediary levels trace events post-independence to the present scenario. Some images take on entire walls, such that the scale allows you to feel a part of the architecture. Some text, rhetorical questions such as 'Does architecture matter?" keeps you pinned to a wall. Till finally the intimate scale of the mezzanine level with the turquoise walls puts you upfront with a wide swath of contemporary architecture.

Architecture is ubiquitous but very rarely does it get discussed and even rarer is the opportunity to discuss it with the architects themselves. In case you are enraptured, there are numerous other occasions to get involved in. If you find yourself reaching for a black t-shirt at the end of eight weeks, then undoubtedly you are in a 'state'!

Lectures, movies and events
Keynote lectures:
3 Feb: Raj Rewal
5 Feb: Christopher Charles Benninger
2 Mar: Bimal Patel

Film screenings:
29 Jan: Doshi: Architecture Without Adjectives
17 Feb: Jain Architectural Heritage: Building New and Restoring Old Temples in Gujarat
24 Feb: In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones

Events
15 Mar – 09 Apr: Exhibition 'Charles Correa: Unbuilt Works'
18 Mar – 20 Mar: Windows & Mirrors: Looking at New Architecture in South Asia
Details: www.stateofarchitecture.in