Prof. Smita Dalvi, PhD

Smita Dalvi retired as Professor at Pillai College of Architecture, Panvel (1992–2025), where she was also the founding editor of Tekton, a scholarly journal of architecture (2014–2025). An alumna of the Academy of Architecture and IIT Delhi, she earned her PhD at IIT Bombay with a thesis on the house as architectural space in Hindi cinema.

She writes regularly on architecture as social history, urban history and heritage, and film studies, in journals and publications on architecture and culture. She has delivered public lectures at museums and academic and cultural institutions in India and abroad, and now gives her time to book and research projects, with select guest lectures and workshops for students and the general public.

Indian art and aesthetics are her special interest. For over a decade she was a resource person for the Indian Aesthetics programmes at Mumbai University and Jnanapravaha Mumbai, and she has taught lectures and short courses on these subjects to specialist and lay audiences in India and abroad. As a Fulbright Visiting Specialist: Direct Access to the Muslim World (2007), she taught modules on Indo-Islamic art and architecture at five universities in the USA, and spoke to school children and community groups.

Smita Dalvi is an avid traveller and photographer.