Studio Mumbai exhibition at Fondation Cartier explores craft, architecture and ‘making space’

A Studio Mumbai exhibition at Paris’ Fondation Cartier explores the trailblazing Indian practice’s inspired, hands-on approach
During monsoon season in Mumbai, the rain falls suddenly, in big, heavy drops, bouncing noisily off the stones in the open courtyard of Studio Mumbai. Steps away, two craftsmen are shaving sticks of bamboo to create a bench that will travel 7,000km away to the Fondation Cartier in Paris, which Studio Mumbai will occupy for five months with an exhibition titled ‘Breath of an architect’. Don’t go expecting to find elevations and scale models; the studio’s unconventional founder, Bijoy Jain, sees no difference between creating an exhibition, a chair or a house. ‘It’s all about making space,’ he says.