In conversation with Nozer Wadia

“Like all good Bawas,” he told me, “your choices were engineering, law or accounting. I sat for the engineering entrance exam, walked out midway, crossed the road, and enrolled at Sir JJ School of Architecture. I picked the seven-year part-time diploma so that I could work during my course. I joined Talati and Shroff on a 40 rupee salary. Around exactly 10 years later, as planned, I began my practice.” Short but precise. I nodded as I took notes. “What more do you want to know?” he probed. I continued, “Why don’t you document your work? Should this generation, my generation and the ones after me not learn from your work?” His reply was characteristically level. “I enjoy what I do, but is it the best in the whole wide world? You might be a decent architect in Mumbai, big deal! The world is vast and Mumbai is one little town. And if people like me start thinking that they feature on the list of master architects, then they are deluding themselves…” Certainly an unusual perspective, but definitely one that needs to be respected.

I experienced Nozer’s work when we visited him in Alibag where he had built a home for a friend on a contoured site, with rooms connected across levels. He tells us, “When we began work on this site, we had to hold on to trees for support.” But one cannot miss the vantage offered by the swimming pool onto the sea, and the intriguing play of vistas created by its architecture.

The home appears and disappears into the landscape, connected by walkways and bridges. It makes little impact from the outside (though the entrance framed by trees is beautiful), but indoors you are always in the lap of nature. And when you step outside, you enjoy your creature comforts. To me, it is apparent that he is a master of his craft, with a rare vision to erase the boundaries between indoors and outdoors.

Nozer has often insisted that his true client is the project and not someone signing the cheque. He simply mediates between the two, arriving at the most fitting solution for the owner who will occupy the project. “The design of a house is important but planning is paramount, the planning being dictated by your site, owners requirements, lifestyle and location,” he says. “Once you put these things in order, the plan starts falling in place. The site will determine circulation based upon sun-path, wind direction, existing trees, views, etc. The client’s requirements will tell me their priorities, if they want big bathrooms, or an expansive balcony, or more toilets…” Nozer jots down a simple handwritten list of names, ages and room breakups on a piece of paper. His process is intuitive, almost ritualistic, with a simple handwritten list: names, ages, and room allocations. From this modest first step, every detail of the house begins to take shape. 

Keeping the paper aside, he tells me, “I will plot these on the site plan.” He shows us a drawing with contours and lightly circles an area, “There is a valley being formed here.” And then he moves his pencil lower, “And this is the sea.” Going back to the valley in the drawing, he explains,” I’ll span the house between both ends and connect them with a bridge, so that the natural terrain is not impacted. There will be gardens on the side, nothing in front so as to not obstruct the view of the sea. The site is critically important, you have to approach it with minimal baggage and no preconceived notions,” he smiles

The way I see it, Nozer approaches architecture like an agnostic approaches faith: sceptical of doctrine but faithful to logic and principles. He adds, “The plan will be compliant with Vastu, without intentionally superimposing its tenets.” What we know as Vastu, at its best is planning by common sense. “In the olden days Vastu was the science of designing townships, temples and palaces only, not for homes.” As resources widened, the science was translated for homes, becoming an accessible rule book to guide daily living, but only if applied with context. His objectivity and detachment are only one side of the coin.

There is also him being a stickler for the standards that he sets for himself, his project and everything in between. Nozer recalls an incident at a weekend home where he had specified a particular silicone for fixing the glass. On a site visit, he noticed that the tubes were not what he specified. “We never use substandard materials. I made a bonfire with the lot. After that, I took a hammer and smashed all the glass that had been installed using that silicone,” he says. That same principle extends to the seemingly smallest things, often the ones that are overlooked.

From hinges to breathability of a fabric — he will specify or even design them when the climate or load demands. Indian humidity, heavier woods and sea air change performance, so he prototypes, samples finishes and talks directly to the karigar. “Expertise lies with the maker,” he says, “and the maker should be heard.” For years, he even encouraged his team to try their hand at plastering, brickwork, even randha-maroi, just to understand what it takes. “Not a single person, including myself, could get the plaster to stay on. It just kept falling back. Most of what I learnt was on site with skilled karigars,” he tells me.

He pauses, before adding, “To me, the artisan is more skilled at what he does than I am at what I do.” That silicone burning episode was not rage. It was principle. “Will you tell your doctor what medicine to prescribe or which surgery to conduct for your ailment? Are you going to instruct your lawyer on how to fight your case in court? So then when an architect is making your home that will outlive you, and last the next generations, why do you take it so lightly?”

He cites a lesson imparted by his mentor Nari Gandhi, “For me an interior project should have a life of minimum of 25 to 30 years, and an architectural project should have a life of 100 years. Bungalows that were built by me 40 years ago still have the original plumbing and electrical work.” It is not a quirk. Nor is it ego. If they do not respect your process, they will not respect your outcome. “If a client does not value what you are going to be doing for them then they do not deserve us,” he says.

I notice how he switched to ‘us’ from ‘me’, speaking on behalf of the fraternity. “Hence I have a set of criteria when it comes to accepting new clients,” he says. What are these criteria, I interject. But the specifics or a checklist is not important for Nozer, “Everyone should make the criteria for themselves, and stick to them.” In the end, it’s not about what your rules are. It’s about having the spine to follow through. That quiet clarity of knowing your terms and seldom diluting them is constant across the conversation. So when I ask what he would tell his younger self, or someone starting out today with similar conviction, he does not skip a beat. “You are asking the wrong person for advice because I don’t understand how things work today. I still do things the way I’m comfortable doing, and I am not afraid of the repercussions. When I am told, “you have built a lovely house, but you are a pain to work with” I wear that as a badge because the same clients come back to me and are willing to tolerate the high standards that I set.

 If I had to begin all over again today, it would not work. I cannot do things the way I did decades ago, even my mentors cannot do things similarly, or even speak the way they did. Honestly because that would create a lot of outrage on social media,” he chuckles.

But he does have some observations, “We have superlatively talented labour in India which is dying out in the West. We also have access to more materials than most architects in Europe or in America have. But we don’t appreciate Indian materials because it’s common. Take stone for example, I use it in my bungalows. I’ve done floors in Kadappa and people will call me and ask where this exotic stone comes from, and I laugh at them saying it’s just Kadappa!” And if you are led to believe that by using local materials Nozer will allow us to compartmentalise his work under the bracket of sustainability, you are wrong (even though his line of thought and action is perhaps the dictionary definition of sustainable).

When you egg him, he defines sustainability as place and lifespan: build architecture to last a century and interiors at least a couple of decades. But I look forward to him rejecting this label. “Sustainability is a deep and all encompassing subject. If I’m using a sustainable material but importing it from halfway across the world, it’s counterproductive. However, until we use renewable sources of energy, solar, wind and hydropower, nobody can call themselves sustainable. Even an electric vehicle, and I drive one myself, is not as efficient because for that energy, someone is burning coal somewherein some corner of India.” For all his conviction, he carries no condescension.

He makes it clear that his path is not the only one. In India, there is space for scale, craft and everything in between. He continues, “You can be a large architectural factory and churn out quantity over quality. It’s a trade-off. Either you grow big and systematise, or stay small and original. Large firms have their place since they serve the masses, deliver scale and that’s necessary too. But you can’t push boundaries when you’re churning out big volumes. We made a conscious decision to step away from that path, to downsize and protect the integrity of what we do.” Both choices are valid, one is not superior to the other. But yes, each path comes with its own cost.