Category Archives: Lectures

The Future of Drawing

October 13, 2026 ASO Communications Leave a comment

AYAZ BASRAI

A Recorded Lecture from FRAME CONCLAVE 2025 —
[AUTHORING 01: TO DRAW]

In this lecture, Ayaz Basrai explores drawing as a way of thinking, not just a way of recording, tracing how the act itself can reveal how the mind constructs and misremembers what it sees. He sees drawing as a bridge into unfamiliar ways of perceiving, whether human, ecological, or computational, and concludes with a sense of cautious optimism speculating where emerging technologies might take the practice next.

The lecture series presents the full set of talks from the conclave. The published text is an edited transcript (adapted from spoken presentations) rather than a formal essay written by the author themselves. For complete documentation including visual material and video, please refer to the recording.

Edited Transcript

(referring to image 01) What I would like to talk a little bit about is to explore the contours of what we have been interested in doing within the studio, and it is loosely termed a pluriverse, so bear with some of the chaos that we will be sharing. As a studio, one thing that we have always tried to build in is a sense of polyvalence, trying to be excited about as many diverse things as possible.

Over the years, we have done a lot of hospitality projects. We have probably contributed to more cultural detritus than any other practice. A lot of the junk that you see around your cities probably has our signature on it – bars, restaurants, clubs, cafes, everything that starts today and shuts down in six months. Along the way, we have also worked on Bollywood films. We have done lots of work with immersive media and illustration. Drawing has been, I think, a fairly central part of that expression.

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Frame Conclave, Lectures

On Drawing

August 4, 2026 ASO Communications Leave a comment

NÍALL MCLAUGHLIN

A Recorded Lecture from FRAME CONCLAVE 2025 —
[AUTHORING 01: TO DRAW]

In this lecture, Níall McLaughlin talks about drawing and building as verbs, not nouns, arguing that their real purpose is not to produce perfect objects but to pull people together. Drawing from his own projects and collaborative drawing experiments, he makes a case for architecture as a social act that binds communities across time, especially as technology transforms the discipline.

Edited Transcript

[01:43] What was extraordinary about today for me was that it featured expansive talks describing the fertility of everyday life and all its particulars through drawing. There was a contrast between those projects we saw this morning, which were spare templates that described absence, blockage, and loss through drawing, and the last presentation this afternoon, which was about spawning, expressive techno-optimism, also embodied through drawing.

For me, the fulcrum of the day was that moment when we had the two sign painters in Hanif Kureshi’s film. Referring to a choice of fonts between Arial and Helvetica, one of them said, “Arial,” because “When I have a choice of typing A-I-R or H-E-L, I find it easier to type H-E-L.” The other one was still holding on to the beauty of the painted sign, its durability, the colours, the way they worked with each other, and pleading that these signs were superior to the mechanically produced ones; but the thing he said as an aside was much more important.

He looked around and said, “I used to have 20 people working here.” I do not know how you all feel, but a shadow passed over me when I thought about that, because what technology can do to a sign painter, it can also do to an architect. We have to ask ourselves, at this point in history: what do we think we will be doing, and how can we resist or acquiesce to the way technology will fundamentally transform
our world?

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Frame Conclave, Lectures, Modern Heritage

The Architecture of Golconde

April 15, 2025 matter Leave a comment

Pankaj Vir Gupta

A Recorded Lecture from FRAME Conclave 2019: Modern Heritage

In this lecture, Pankaj Vir Gupta discusses the conception of Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry. Gupta delves into the architectural history of this structure, highlighting its pioneering use of concrete in India. He recounts his personal experiences at Golconde, sharing vivid details about the architecture and its unique features.

Edited Transcript

It is a particular privilege to be presenting a project with which we started our practice in 2003 and in the office archives, this is project 001 (referring to image 01). So, this morning to wake everyone up, I think it is important to understand why we are here to talk about this building and I will try and make it as energizing for you as possible.

My name is Pankaj Vir Gupta, and with my partner, Christine Mueller, I run a practice in New Delhi called Vir-Mueller Architects. I am also a professor of architecture at the University of Virginia, where I run what is called the Yamuna River Project, a multi-disciplinary research project, looking at ecology and urbanity in the megacities of the world. But to go back to how we started our practice, I was leading a study abroad program with some students from the University of Texas and we happened to be visiting Pondicherry, to look at the urban fabric of the city (referring to image 02), and we came across this extraordinary building (referring to image 02) and it was a surprise to me personally, because in several years of architectural education and research, I had never come across this building in any writing or any publication, at least not in the curricular work that we had been exposed to in our education.

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Lectures

CONSTRUCTING THE SACRED OUTSIDE TRADITION

October 23, 2024 Matter Leave a comment

A Srivathsan

A Recorded Lecture from FRAME Conclave 2019: Modern Heritage

In this lecture, A Srivathsan presents his view on the construction of Hindu Temples, and raises pertinent questions about the orientation of contemporary and modern architecture within this discourse. Using examples of temples built by young practitioners as a prism, he draws distinctions and similarities between what the sacred is and what is modern.

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Frame Conclave, Modern Heritage

NID’s Early Years: An Indian Experiment of Global Relevance

April 19, 2024 Matter Leave a comment

Ashoke Chatterjee

A Recorded Lecture from FRAME Conclave 2019: Modern Heritage

In this lecture, Ashoke Chatterjee talks about the inception of the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, its formative years, the pedagogy provided to the students, the experiments with the curriculum, the challenges, successes, and failures it faced in becoming the ‘world-class’ institute it sought out to be today.

Edited Transcript

I am delighted to have this opportunity to be back in Goa after forty-one years. The last time I came here, it was to assist the Government of Goa with a study of its ‘carrying capacity’ for tourism: how would Goa manage the growth of tourism in coming years? This might mean tough decisions of planning and control. I need not tell you that my report was trashed long before the Hall of Nations. Goa is clearly still struggling with those issues, but it is good to be back. I am grateful to the organizers, to FRAME Conclave for inviting me.

Let me start by indicating that this talk will be a very personal view of one part of contemporary Indian design history. It will focus on the experience of one institution, the National Institute of Design, its educators, and those who studied there. It will cover some years of a larger institutional history as well as design in modern India. Yet NID has been a catalyst, so it is valid to draw on an experience which has been unique not only in India but in a global context.

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