Hema Sankalia

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Hema Sankalia (1934–2015) was one of India's first female architects. She was born in Sialkot (then part of British India, now in Pakistan) into a Maharashtrian Brahmin family. Her father worked in the Indian Civil Service and studied in England but died in 1935 when she was just a year old. Her mother, Rama Bakhle, was a writer who moved the family to Mumbai to be with her uncle, an engineer and head of Western Railways.

At 17, in 1951, Hema joined the Sir J. J. School of Art, one of only a few girls in her class. After three years she hoped to study abroad, but she lost her uncle’s support for that plan. She started her architecture career with the Bombay firm Mody and Colgan, where Piloo Mody and Vina Mody hired her to work on construction sites. Vina Mody became a mentor, and Pravina Mehta inspired her creativity, helping her become one of the country’s first female partners in architecture.

In 1957 she married Shireesh Sankalia, an engineer who supported her career until his death in 1984. Sankalia and Mody later formed Contemporary Arts and Crafts (CAC) to design and educate people about modern household products. The CAC store, which displayed products as if they were already in use, continued to operate in Mumbai and Pune; Sankalia worked there until 2005 and then passed it to her son.

Her commissions included houses, women’s hostels, printing presses, hospitals, research centers, governmental offices, and educational institutions. She contributed to the design of the Environmental Planning and Coordination Organization (EPCO) between 1987 and 1988, combining traditional and modern elements. In 1985 she founded the Research Unit for Practice (RUP) with Subodh Dhairyawan, a multidisciplinary studio for product design, architecture, and urban/environmental planning. RUP developed housing projects for low-income groups as well as middle and upper-class communities.