Professor Soumyen Bandyopadhyay BArch, MArch, PhD

Research Overview

My research concerns the architectural and urban history of the Gulf region and modernity in India and South Asia, with the broad aim to study cultural topographies. My approach combines physical and ethnographic fieldwork with archival research, and my outputs include government reports, research-by-design outputs and research exhibitions, and several invited public lectures, keynotes and presentations.

I am currently working on the monograph, Cosmopolitan Muscat, aimed at bringing together 500 years of urban development of this Indian Ocean port town. My book, Site and Composition (Routledge 2016), reviewed as a significant contribution to the understanding of the role of ‘sites’ in 20th century architectural design. My monograph on Oman’s settlement and architecture (Liverpool 2011) was reviewed as an “outstanding” “major work, erudite, and thorough” and “invaluable reference work for Islamic scholars for years to come” (Lewcock, former Aga Khan Professor at MIT). My design research work through ArCHIAM research centre has resulted in implemented buildings, and the creation of two virtual museums (Oman, India), as well as permanent installations at the two national museums in Oman.

My successful grants as PI and CoI totals over £2 million. More recently, the first phase of the world’s largest digital humanities project for Gulf architecture and urbanism – the Gulf Architecture Project (GAP, £736,900) – was completed in June 2020, funded by the Qatar National Library. Over 9,000 digital assets were created, supported by extensive technical and researched metadata records in English and Arabic.

In October 2021 I presented the “Doha Vision 2050: Sustainable Urbanism for the Gulf” – a strategic vision for Gulf coastal cities – with Harvard University, the UN Urban Economic Forum and Prof Nader Ardalan. I have been invited to deliver keynotes at several institutions and conferences internationally, including in Bangladesh, China, the EU, Germany, India, Iraq, Italy, Kazakhstan, Oman, Qatar, Tunisia, UAE, UK and the USA. I am on the Steering Committee of the Encyclopaedia of Vernacular Architecture of the World (EVAW), several other international journal advisory committees and on the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Peer Review Panel.