Saptarshi SANYAL (Dr)

Saptarshi Sanyal is an architectural historian exploring spaces and buildings as processes rather than just objects in historical narratives. His research questions ideas of modernity, traversing postcolonial studies, construction history, production studies, and the framing of architectural authorship. Saptarshi’s current book project adopts a connected histories approach to uncover novel spatial imaginaries and experimentations within architecture during South Asia’s colonial rule in the twentieth century. It foregrounds how interpersonal empathies and contacts, exchanges of personnel, knowledge and materials across cultures and geographies translated into and transformed modes of producing buildings and inhabiting space.

Prior to his role as Assistant Professor (History, Theory, Criticism) at the NUS Department of Architecture, Saptarshi was a faculty member at the School of Planning and Architecture New Delhi. His PhD at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London was awarded a UK government Commonwealth Scholarship, and his thesis won an honourable mention at the University of California, Berkeley’s South Asia Art and Architecture Dissertation Prize (2023). His research has appeared in the Architecture Research Quarterly (arq) and Architecture Beyond Europe (ABE) journals, and proceedings of the International Congress on Construction History and Structural Analysis of Historical Constructions conferences, among others.

Saptarshi has served as a peer reviewer for journals like arq, ABE, Architectural Histories, the Journal of Architectural Education, and (since 2025), been part of the ABE journal’s editorial team. Previously, he served on the board of the SPA Journal of Planning and Architecture (SPACE) and has been the national coordinator of International Training and Development (CIF) for ICOMOS/India. Saptarshi is a co-founder of PATIO (Platform for Architectural Transfers in the Indian Ocean Rim), a scholarly network of diverse researchers and academics who focus on trans- and intra-cultural exchanges in architecture and building production.