Anupama Kundoo

Anupama Kundoo studied at Mary Immaculate Girls' High School, University of Mumbai Sir JJ College of Architecture and Technische Universität Berlin. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is architecture, sustainable architecture and architectural design. Places of work recorded in the authority are Auroville. Residence is recorded at Auroville and Madrid. Employment is recorded with University of Queensland, Parsons School of Design and Technische Universität Berlin. Work by Anupama Kundoo is recorded in the collections of Museum of Modern Art. Distinctions recorded are Auguste Perret Prize and RIBA Charles Jencks Award.

• Name — Anupama Kundoo • Born — 24 April 1967 • Occupation — Architect, Professor • Years Active — 1990–present • Family — House of Dar

Kundoo was born on 24 April 1967 in Pune to Bengali parents who relocated from Dhaka to Bombay. Kundoo is a descendant of Hatkhola and Manikganj royal family via Peary Charan Sarkar and Maharaja Manik Ram Basu and also Dar Raj Kashmiri Zamindari via Judge and former Dewan of Mayurbhanj Mohini Mohan Dhar Esq. and Maharaja Virendra Mohan Dar. Anupama Kundoo studied architecture at the Sir J. J. College of Architecture, University of Bombay and received her degree in 1989. She was awarded the Vastu Shilpa Foundation Fellowship in 1996 for her thesis on "Urban Eco-Community: Design and Analysis for Sustainability". She was awarded her doctoral degree from Technische Universität Berlin in 2008. Kundoo established herself as an architect in Auroville in 1990 where she designed and built many buildings with "energy and water efficient infrastructure" adaptations. She worked here from middle of 1990 till 2002. Kundoo taught at Technische Universität Berlin and later at Technische Universität Darmstadt during 2005. She worked as Assistant Professor at Parsons The New School for Design, New York until 2011 then moving to Australia as a senior lecturer in the University of Queensland. In 2014, she returned to Europe and began working at the European School of Architecture and Technology at the Universidad Camilo José Cela in Madrid. Since 2024 she has been a Full Professor for Architecture and Design Methods at TU Berlin.

Her approach to building design is based on material research that minimizes environmental effects. Her basic design approach is to use "waste materials, unskilled labour and local communities". One of the notable buildings built for her own residence is titled the "Wall House", built in a community area of 15 acre with a built-in space of 100 m2 constructed for one million Rupees in 2000, in Auroville for communal living. This house is L-Shaped in the plan, has a courtyard in the middle; while it is modern in concept it adopts traditional "vernacular" use of materials such as compressed earth, concrete, and steel. The bathroom is set in an open-to-sky design, with smooth merging with the interior and external spaces and landscaped, giving it both a modern and a regional appearance. A full-sized replica of her Wall House was made by hand and exhibited at the Venice Biennale of Architecture. New York Times called it as "a gem among rubble". Another of her theme is "Liberty" which presents a reading place as a free library, a creation built with three types of trees fixed in the centre of a square space. The trees' trunks and branches are made from steel and the leaves made of salvaged books, with the floor made of concrete. This was exhibited at the Placa de Salvador Segui in Barcelona during June–September 2014. In 2024, Kundoo joined the judging panel for the Dezeen Awards alongside other prominent architects. In the same year, she was part of the multidisciplinary advisory committee for the inaugural Ammodo Architecture Awards.

• Wall House, Auroville, India, 1997-2000. • Town Hall, Auroville, India, 2006-. • Nandalal Sewa Samithi Library, Pondicherry, India, 2018. • Sharana Daycare Center, Pondicherry, India, 2019.

• Abundance not capital, Architekturzentrum Wien, Vienna, Austria, 18 September 2025 – 9 March 2026 • The Architect’s Studio, Anupama Kundoo – Taking Time, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark, 8 October 2020 – 16 May 2021 • High‐speed housing, Roca London Gallery, London, United Kingdom 31 March-18 June 2016 • Wall House One to One, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, 2012

The canonical record carries the following identifying particulars.