Queer Reading of Nawabi Architecture and the Colonial Archive

Sonal Mithal runs the research, conservation, and art studio People for Heritage Concern and is program chair of the conservation graduate program at CEPT University, India. Her work transects architecture, feminist ecologies, queer studies, and history. She recently published Lucknow Unrestrained (2021) and Melding Matter (2021).Arul Paul is Associate Professor at Nitte (Deemed to be University), Nitte Institute of Architecture (NIA), Mangalore, India. Arul’s research focuses on the intersection of architecture, urbanism, history, and queer studies. Arul’s recent publications include Lucknow Unrestrained (2021) and Queering Academia (2021).

• Introduction Part I: Dragging Up the Past 1. Gender, Sex, and State in Nawabi Lucknow 2. Locating Forms of Resistance and Transgression 3. Queering the Colonial Archive 4. Locating Inaccuracies, Fallacies, and Biases in the Colonial Archive 5. Counter-Archives 6. Contesting Colonial Claims Part II: Lucknow Queerscapes 7. Architecture of Asaf-ud-Daula 8. Architecture of Wajid Ali Shah 9. Of Vaudeville Variety 10. Of Perverse Compositions 11. Of In-Tensions and Obscurations Conclusion

“In A Queer Reading of Nawabi Architecture and the Colonial Archive: Lucknow Queerscapes, Sonal Mithal and Arul Paul talk about how Lucknow’s Awadhi architecture challenged norms, unsettled the colonial gaze, and created spaces of queerness. [Mithal and Paul] created this project because they understood that the architectural history of Nawabi Lucknow has always been understated, despite its magnificence — largely because it refused to be moulded into anything conventional. Instead of defining Awadh as a queer project, their work opens the door to another approach of thinking, adding onto the collective memory of Lucknow.”- Architectural Digest