There are many ways in which the chawl is a unique marker of urbanisation; signifying Mumbai’s historic transformation and its unique social and political identity. The chawl held multiple narratives and very often resembled a neighbourhood in itself. At our Online Talk #GalleriesOfLife, architect Neera Adarkar discusses what makes a chawl unique from the various residential building types across the island city of Mumbai and highlights the relevance of the chawl in the present and post-pandemic times.

Talk link will be shared a couple of hours before the event

About the speaker

Neera Adarkar is a practicing architect and an urbanist based in Mumbai. Neera’s work emerges from deep concern of social, urban and gender issues. She has actively participated in the struggle waged by Mumbai’s mill workers to use mill lands for the larger, urban good. She has three books to her credit: ‘One Hundred Years One Hundred Voices: Oral History of Millworkers of Girangaon’ (co-authored with Meena Menon, 2004), ‘The Chawls of Mumbai: Galleries of Life’ (editor, 2011), and ‘MultipliCities: Urban Cultures of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region’ (published by MMR-HCS, 2021).