Faculty

Education

Courses Taught

Research/Design Projects in Areas of Expertise

Sonal Mithal is an architect, artist, and educator. She holds a doctoral degree from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, master’s degree from SPA Delhi; and a bachelor’s degree from Lucknow University. She is co-founder of research and conservation studio, People for Heritage Concern; and is program chair of the MCR (Master of Conservation and Regeneration) program at CEPT University, Ahmedabad, India. Her work transects architecture, landscape architecture, queer studies, history, and heritage. Her work focuses on processes and agencies of ecological survival, contingencies of identity and representation, and emergent intersectionality as central to shaping of the built environment. Her teaching in architecture studios focus on developing contemporary ecological and/or politically sensitive design sensibilities—based on material research and post-humanist inquiry. She has been commissioned to provide research-based artworks permanently installed at four underground metro stations in the World Heritage City of Ahmedabad (2022). She is co-consultant for restoration of Surat Castle, and several revitalization of urban precincts in Gujarat commissioned by city municipal corporations (2015-). She has published “Government Officer Housing Precincts in Urban Lucknow” (Bloomsbury, 2020), “Lucknow Unrestrained: a Palimpsest of Incongruous Possibilities” (Sage, 2021); exhibited “Matter in the Future Continuous” (Art/NaturSci Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2019), “The Sentient Ruins” (India Pavilion, London Design Biennale 2021), “Lucknow Unrestrained” (Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, 2019). Her artworks have also been exhibited in Sweden, USA, Netherlands, Taiwan, and India. She is currently working as a co-author on a book, Queer Architecture of Nawabi Lucknow: Postcolonial Perspectives (Taylor and Francis, expected 2024) that offers a feminist perspective on 18th and 19th century Lucknow architecture. The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts 2022 has supported the project.

Presented Papers and Invited Lectures in Areas of Expertise

2023: Invited speaker. Mapping Kaiserbagh. School of Architecture, Christ University, Bangalore, India.

2022: Invited participant at the Environmental Storey-Telling Circle with Isabelle Doucet, Hélène Frichot, Charity Edwards, Sepideh Karami, Elke Krasny, Jane Rendell at the conference, Building Ground for Climate Collectivism: Architecture after the Anthropocene. Organized by Architectural Humanities Research Association (AHRA) at Pratt Institute School of Architecture, Brooklyn, USA.

2021: Invited speaker. Lucknow Cantonment: A Cartographic History. 12^th session at the Lucknow Military Literature Festival. 

2021: Invited speaker. Sentient Ruins. Sustainable Futures Episode 26. In Conversation with Nisha Matthew Ghosh. Supported By Sustainability Ideas Lab.

2021: Invited speaker. Agency of Mapping. National Lecture Series: Politics of Ecology, Gender, and Materiality: The toilets of an Indian City. School of Architecture, Christ University, Bangalore, India.

2020: Invited panelist. International webinar: Public Spaces, Gatherings, and the Performing Arts, in the time of Pandemic. Project Platypus, Bangalore, India. 

2020: Invited speaker. School of Environmental Design and Architecture, Navrachna University, Vadodara, India.

2020: Invited speaker. Figuring Material Archives. Smt. Manoramabai Mundle College of Architecture, Nagpur, India.

2019: Invited talk and exhibition of maps of Lucknow. Lucknow Unrestrained: Palimpsest of incongruous Possibilities. Srishti School of Art and Design. Bangalore, India.

2019: Invited speaker. Cyborg City. RV College of Architecture, Bangalore. India.

2019: Invited speaker. Manifestoes of the Modern India. Master Class Series. Wadiyar College of Architecture, Mysore. India.

2019: Invited speaker. Architecture for Non Architects. Azeem Premji University, Bangalore. India.

2018: Invited panelist:  Cyborg City. Designed Environments: climate change, adaptability, and our nomadic futures. Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin.

2015: Invited speaker. Neutralizing Heritage? Evaluating UNESCO's World Heritage Nomination Process through the example of Santiniketan, India. Collaborative for Cultural Heritage Management and Policy (CHAMP), UIUC, USA.

2022: Speaker. “Staging Ecologies—Reframing Architecture of Care” at the panel Design Actions II  at the conference, Building Ground for Climate Collectivism: Architecture after the Anthropocene. Organized by Architectural Humanities Research Association (AHRA) at Pratt Institute School of Architecture, Brooklyn, USA. 

2021: Co-presenter. “Queering Colonial Archive—Queer Architecture of Nawabi Lucknow.” Society of Architectural Historians 2021 Virtual Conference.

2020: Presenter. “Melding Matter.” At the Gender and Academic Leadership in Architecture in India conference. Organized by Avani Institute of Design, Calicut, India.

2019: Presenter. “Government Officer Housing Precincts in Urban Lucknow: a construction of urban exclusivity through occupation defined neighborhoods.” At the International Seminar on Locating Neighborhood in the Global South. Organized by Department of Sociology, Tezpur University, Assam, India.

2018: Presenter. “Performing Urban Palimpsest—an inquiry for design.” At the Conference on Research, Art, and Design. Organized by Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore.

Professional Honors, Prizes, Fellowships, Grant-in Aids

2022: Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts for co-authored book, Queer Architecture of Nawabi Lucknow: Postcolonial Perspectives.

2021: Scott Opler Emerging Scholar Fellowship for the SAH 2021 Virtual Conference for the paper “Queering Colonial Archive—Queer Architecture of Nawabi Lucknow.” Society of Architectural Historians.

2020: Project titled Botanizing the Asphalt received special recommendation at the Entekochi Urban Design Competition for “Sound Approach to Ecology.” 

2014 : Project titled Liminal Narratives: From Context to Text selected for iLAND Laboratory, awarded by iLAND-interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art Nature and Dance, New York, USA. 

2012, 2013, 2014: University Fellowship, awarded by Department of Landscape Architecture, UIUC, USA.

2009, 2010, 2011: HDES Scholarship, awarded by Human Dimensions of Environmental Systems [HDES] program, UIUC, USA. 

2010, 2008-2009: Vincent J. Bellafiore Fellowship, awarded by College of Fine and Applied Arts, UIUC, USA.