Thomas Oommen

Modern Architecture of South Asia, Eco-Critical Art & Architecture History, Histories of the Indian Ocean,
Labor, Postcolonial History and Philosophy of Science, Post-colonial theory & Subaltern Studies.

B.Arch (Professional), National Institute of Technology Calicut, India

M.Arch (Professional), Texas A&M University

Master of Urban Planning (Professional), Texas A&M University

I am an architect, urbanist and historian of modern South Asia interested in everyday built environment and visual culture of India, understood through the prism of labor, non-human and oceanic histories. I focus specifically on non-pedigreed artefacts, actors and actants in the oceanic and non-metropolitan peripheries (small towns and urban-rural continuums in Kerala, Southwestern India) , the metropolitan center (Delhi – National Capital Region) and the transnational diasporic center (Dubai). I’m currently a PhD candidate in my 6th year.

My dissertation titled, “Houses of Labor: Dwelling, Middling Experts and Oceanic Architectural Cultures on the Malabar Coast (1970-2022)” brings together these interests focused on the ethnographical object of the “Gulf house” – a phenomenon resulting out of the 15 billion dollars (the largest share of any sub-national region in South Asia) of remittances sent back by Kerala emigrants to GCC countries since the late 1960’s. Studying the complex phenomenon of the Gulf house through ethnographic fieldwork of the building culture allows my project to: a) be a situated exploration of a local yet transnational building culture within the context of ecological precarity and long-durée oceanic histories of migration b) bring hidden forms of creative labor operating at different scales (local, transnational and planetary) in the non-expert production/maintenance of everyday spaces of dwelling and c) rethink the metropolitan, expert and nation centric histories of South Asian modern architecture by integrating narratives and imaginations of transnational labor and local building culture – beyond that of the architect-expert – provincializing the ‘global’ and demonstrating the cosmopolitan and planetary imaginaries of the ‘local’.

This work is situated in the intersection of scholarly fields of eco-critical art and architecture history (and the larger environmental turn of post-colonial history) and the history and philosophy of science. However, like much of my earlier published work it is firmly situated in the larger tradition of post-colonial history and anthropology of South Asia in the anti-statist genre of subaltern studies. My teaching work in the US and India draws on this larger tradition to teach/re-think large undergraduate and graduate survey courses in architectural history and theory.

Architectural Theory (2012-2014, 2015-2017) for B.Arch program at Sushant School of Art and Architecture (SSAA), Gurgaon as Associate Professor of Architecture,

Research Methods/Studio – Reading the City (2015-2016) for M.Arch program at Department of Urban Design,

School of Planning and Architecture Delhi as Visiting Faculty in Urban Design,Contemporary Theories of Architecture and Urbanism (2014) for M.Arch (Urban Design) at R.V. College of Architecture (RVCA), Bangalore, as Assistant Professor of Architecture,

Architecture Design Studio (3rd, 4th year) & Urban Design Studio (5th year) from (2012-2017) for B.Arch at SSAA and RVCA – as Asst. and Assoc. Professor.

ARCH 230, Advanced Architectural Theory (Spring 2018, Spring 2021), Graduate Seminar,
CED, UC Berkeley – as Graduate Student Instructor (GSI),

ARCH 270, History of Modern Architecture (Fall 2018), Graduate Seminar – as GSI, Prof. Greg Castillo

ARCH 170A, A Historical Survey of Architecture and Urbanism – pre 1400 CE, as GSI, Prof. William Littmann (Fall 2019), Prof. Andy Shanken (Fall 2021)

ARCH 130, Introduction to Architecture Theory and Criticism, (Fall 2022), GSI, Prof. Greig Crysler

Junior Fellowship, American Institute of Indian Studies, 2022

International Dissertation Research Fellowship, 2021, Social Science Research Council

UC Berkeley Graduate Division Fellowship, 2020-2021

Stevens Scholars Program, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, UC Berkeley, 2019

Oommen Thomas, (2022) “The Glazed Eyes of Architectural History: Reflections on the (Dis)Contents of Global History Survey Courses”, Architectural Histories 10(1), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.16995/ah.8280

Oommen, Thomas and Sequiera, Ryan C, (2021) “The politics of infrastructural aesthetics: a case of Delhi’s Bus Rapid Transit corridor”, International Development Planning Review, 2021, 43, (4), 479–500. https://doi.org/10.3828/idpr.2020.21

Oommen, Thomas, (2019), “Rethinking Indian Modernity From the Margins: Architectural Politics in Thiruvananthapuram in the 1970s,” Architectural Theory Review, March 19, 2019, 1–24, https://doi.org/10.1080/13264826.2018.1516684

Oommen, Thomas, (2016) “Modern Urban Heritage and public engagement: The case of Thiruvananthapuram” in The Future of Historic Cities: Urban Heritage in South Asia, Special edition: Context: Built, Living and Natural, Volume XII, 2016. Aryan International Books, Delhi.

Oommen, Thomas and Pal, Shreyasi, (2015). “The Politics of Architecture”, Economics and Political Weekly, Vol – L No. 14, April 04, 2015. Mumbai, India.
https://www.epw.in/journal/2015/14/commentary/politics-architecture.html

Oommen, Thomas and Singh, Radhika, (2013), “From the ground up: Re-Appropriating Urban Infrastructure in Delhi” in Critical Planning, 20th anniversary edition, December 2013. University of California at Los Angeles. Los Angeles
https://criticalplanning.squarespace.com/volume-20-1