
MILON DUTTA | A Japanese House in Bengal | Architect's Dialogues #35
My guest this time comes from India. Milon Dutta is an architect from Santiniketan in West Bengal — the town Rabindranath Tagore built around his art university — and a fellow alumnus of the Glenn Murcutt Master Class. We have been following each other on Facebook for eight years and writing to each other since 2023, but we met in person for the very first time on the day this conversation was recorded. The bond with Japan began in childhood — listening to NHK Radio Japan, and a hand fan with a bamboo handle that arrivedin the post from Tokyo. Rabindranath Tagore's hundred-year-old dream of a Japanese house in Santiniketan, which Milon finally built as Kokoro. The painter Jogen Chowdhury, who told him his architecture had to become more spiritual. Karesansui, ofuro, tokonoma and komorebi. A gallery built around the trees he refused to cut down — and the contractor who one night sent him a photograph of moonlight inside the exhibition hall. Terracotta, and a temple he designed free of charge. Bamboo, which Europe imports from South-East Asia today and may one day grow itself. And, at the end, the future of the profession in the age of artificial intelligence. “He told me: your architecture should be much more spiritual. At that time I couldn't understand how a design should bemuch more spiritual,” Milon Dutta recalls of his mentor's advice.You can find Architect’s Dialogues on YouTube at youtube.com/@architectsdialogues, as well as on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other podcast platforms. I’d appreciate your support by SUBSCRIBING on your preferred platform.


















