Speaking on topics that ranged from centuries-old rural Indian temples to Sri Lankan modern architecture, four professors from esteemed universities took the podium this Friday evening in the Carl and Ruth Shapiro Admissions Center. Professor Tamara I. Sears, from Yale University, Professor Alka Patel from the University of California, Irvine, Professor Sussan Babaie from the University of London and Professor Elizabeth Dean Hermann from the Rhode Island School of Design each had 45 minutes to speak, and their lectures were followed by a dinner reception.

The event, titled "Architectural Exchanges in South Asia: Medieval to Contemporary Period," was a symposium jointly funded by the series of Soli Sorabjee Lectures in South Asian Studies and the Richard Saivetz '69 Annual Memorial Architectural Symposium. 

The Soli Sorabjee Lectures, an initiative sponsored by the South Asian Studies program and the Brandeis-India-Initiative, engages with themes of justice in South Asia. Likewise, the Richard Saivetz '69 Annual Memorial Architectural Symposium is a program funded by the Saivetz family in honor of Richard Saivetz, an architectural student at Brandeis, who in his post-graduate years suffered an untimely death. The fund aims to perpetuate interest in architecture, annually funding symposiums in the field. 

Prof. Talinn Grigor (FA) has been in charge of organizing the Soli Sorabjee lectures since 2009. When she was asked last year to be responsible for the Saivetz lecture series as well, she decided to combine the programs into one event. "The speakers were among the leading scholars in the field of South Asia and architecture. I wanted [them to cover] topics from medieval to modern hence my pick of the speakers," Grigor wrote in an email to the Justice. 

In a fascinating opening lecture, Sears spoke about rural temples in India. Sears put the focus on sites of worship in which imperial leaders were not the center of attention.
Traditionally, Sears noted, scholars have looked at "rubrics of royal patronage" when examining temples from this period. However, Sears set out to decenter the emphasis on royal patronage when looking at Indian temples ranging back to the 13th century. Sears spent most of her lecture examining Kadwaha, a temple on the rural outskirts of India. Instead of emphasizing a royal connection to the temples, Sears put the emphasis on, in her words, "a distinctly frontier architecture" in looking at the edifices. She looked at the temples' humble appearances and their engagements in and relationships with their natural surroundings. 

In gathering information about the temples as they stood hundreds of years ago, Sears looked at accounts of various travelers through the region. 

At the end of her lecture, Sears noted that the region of Kadwaha still sustains a local population today-it is a "lived place," said Sears. Kadwaha was not beholden to larger dynamics and administration, a facet that allows for its current habitation today.

Next, Babaie began noting the common theme of "fluidity of cultural exchanges in South Asia," in the scholars' lectures before hers. This note provided a perfect introduction to her own lecture-a lecture that discussed the fluidity of art and architecture between India and Iran. 

Babaie spoke about how Iran's conquest of India in the mid-18th century influenced Iranian architecture. According to Babaie, there has been very little scholarship on this "extraordinary transmission" of artistic designs and ideas from India to Iran-Babaie sought to fill in those gaps where the scholarship is lacking. 

Babaie spoke about Nadir, the Shaw of Iran at the time and the leader of the conquest. From his palace, Kalat-e Naderi, one can see evidence of a reshaping of architecture toward Indian influence. Babaie looked closely at the materials used, as well as stylistic elements of the palace, in her lecture. It turns out that in addition to pilfering Mughal treasures from their conquests, such as the famous Peacock Throne, Nadir also brought back hundreds of workers from India to work on the new architecture in Iran. With a knowledgeable and skilled crew, materials and new architectural ideas, Nadir was able to create Kalate-e Naderi, what Babaie calls a "showcase for his admissions." 

After the lectures, Grigor invited the attendees to a dinner featuring South Asian foods and encouraged them to then speak in intimate groups, discussing the topics and questions raised in the lectures.