A Queer Reading of Nawabi Architecture and the Colonial Archive: Lucknow Queerscapes

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Sonal Mithal Arul Paul

A Queer Reading of Nawabi Architecture and the Colonial Archive

Lucknow Queerscapes

Sonal Mithal, Arul Paul

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English

Routledge
26 December 2025

History of architecture; Literary theory; Colonialism & imperialism; Gender studies, gender groups; Anthropology

A Queer Reading of Nawabi Architecture and the Colonial Archive explores the architectural production of nawabs Asaf-ud-Daula and Wajid Ali Shah and reveals the colonial bias against queer expression. It offers methods of using queer strategies to read archival evidence against the grain and rewrite erased, overlooked, and suppressed histories.

The book provides its readers a unique queer postcolonial architectural history of Lucknow from 1775–1857. It highlights the nawabs’ non-normative expressions, which not only offered a fierce resistance to the colonial enterprise but also were instrumental in furthering Lucknow as a cultural center. It simultaneously extracts parameters from queer studies and redefines them to illustrate ways in which queer architecture can be characterized. It reconstructs the footprint of nawabi architecture erased by the colonial enterprise and places it back on map—an exercise not undertaken meticulously until now.

A Queer Reading of Nawabi Architecture and the Colonial Archive is intended for scholars and students of queer studies, postcolonial studies, architectural history, and the global south, as well as the citizens of Lucknow.

By: Sonal Mithal, Arul Paul
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
Weight: 420g
ISBN: 9781032441344
ISBN 10: 1032441348
Pages: 220
Publication Date: 26 December 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

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).

Reviews for A Queer Reading of Nawabi Architecture and the Colonial Archive: Lucknow Queerscapes

“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