Date of Award
Spring 5-31-2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Design (MDes) in Interior Studies / Exhibition + Narrative Environments
Department
Interior Architecture
First Advisor
Eduardo Benamor Duarte
Abstract
In contemporary India, the museum remains a symbol of cultural prestige, yet according to national cultural surveys, fewer than 1% of Indians visit museums annually, a statistic that reflects not only structural and spatial exclusions, but also psychological barriers shaped by class, language, and institutional codes of conduct. These institutions are far from neutral: they embed expectations about how to see, move, and behave, privileging a didactic framework. In the absence of intimacy, dialogue, and belonging, the museum becomes a space visited, not inhabited.
Rather than viewing space as a container for artifacts, this thesis reimagines space itself as an artifact that unfolds gradually, through movement, pause, and return. It challenges the limitations of institutional typologies through strategies of decentralization. How can museums be reimagined as porous spaces that invite dialogue and embed themselves within communities?
Inspired by the conception of museums as “looking glasses” for wonder and emotion, this thesis is situated within a two-story vernacular bungalow in Bandra, Mumbai. Embedded in a neighborhood shaped by migration, artistic practices, and layered identities, the bungalow offers more than just a site—it offers a social network. Its transitional edges, fragmented volumes, and lived-in spatial structure resist institutional formality, allowing the museum to unfold not as a place of authority, but as a space of relation.
By adapting the existing structure, this thesis explores design strategies centered on soft thresholds, blurred boundaries, and spatial porosity. It develops a spatial language that holds, frames, and reveals meaning through detail—composing relationships between rooms, courtyards, and passages. This language is built on gestures of joining, layering, concealing, and opening—subtle acts that shape the relationships between people, space, and cultural narratives.
Recommended Citation
Bapna, Dhwani, "'manch' beyond - museum" (2025). Masters Theses. 1389.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/1389
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