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A studio for Delhi, a space for reinvention: Satish Gujral’s iconic home opens to the public

Over the past two years, Mohit, also an architect, has led a meticulous project to restore the home to its original materiality.

5 min readNew DelhiDec 26, 2025 09:11 AM IST

The opening on December 25, Satish Gujral’s birthday, coincided with the late artist’s centenary year. (Express Photo)

Veteran architect Raj Rewal still recalls the long conversations he had with Satish Gujral in the late 1960s, when the artist was building his home on Feroze Gandhi Road in Lajpat Nagar.

“It was designed for them (Satish and his wife Kiran Gujral) to both live there and to display their work. The living room was almost like an art gallery and the studio had good natural light,” Rewal, now 91, who was very close friends with the Gujrals, said.

The red-brick structure into which the Gujrals moved in the mid-1970s, became, at the same time, a family home where the couple raised their children, a Delhi landmark, and a constantly evolving space in which the artist experimented with brick and mortar.

Five years after the Padma Vibhushan awardee passed away in 2020, the house has been opened to the public as a cultural hub that will be home to The Gujral Foundation, a nonprofit established in 2008 by his son Mohit and daughter-in-law Feroze to nurture talent across disciplines, including art, design, culture and architecture.

The opening on December 25, Satish Gujral’s birthday, coincided with the late artist’s centenary year. “It will be an adda of sorts – a place where people can come, sit, talk, argue, discuss, just like they did with Satish,” Feroze told The Indian Express.

“Delhi”, she said, “no longer has such a space. We want to find new ways of welcoming people back and starting some of those open conversations again.”

The formal opening is scheduled for mid-January, with a retrospective curated by Reha Sodhi focused on Satish Gujral’s architectural practice, including the award-winning Belgian Embassy building in New Delhi. To mark the centenary, a retrospective exhibition will open at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) on January 15.

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When he turned to architecture as a medium, Satish was already an artist who had produced some of post-Independence India’s most recognised artworks, including paintings depicting the trauma of Partition, which he had experienced first-hand as a young man.

Art became Satish’s refuge after an accident impacted his hearing terminally at the age of eight. Over the decades that followed, his art bore the influences of Indian traditions as well as those of his interactions with the Mexican masters Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros whom he met while on scholarship to Mexico in the early 1950s. By the 1960s and ’70s, Satish was also producing bronze and welded metal sculptures.

The Lajpat Nagar home became the site of his artistic experimentation. “It was never a fixed house and it wasn’t easy living like that, but the fluidity taught me more about living than anything else,” Feroze said.

So Satish dug up the front garden and rebuilt it five feet higher for “a different rhythm of arrival”, and constantly moved both rooms and furniture around. “For instance, every few years Satish would change where the dining room was. At one point the basement was his studio, then the dining room, then a library, then my living room, then my son Armaan’s nursery. There was also a time when we had no dining table at all. Everyone ate at different times, so he thought ‘Why bother with a table?’” Feroze said.

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After Feroze and Mohit were married, Satish told his daughter-in-law that the home had been lucky for everyone, and would be especially so for her, since the street itself carried her name. Feroze recalled visits by prominent artists, poets, industrialists and authors, to the home, including international dignitaries such as the former United States First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and the former Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme.

Over the past two years, Mohit, also an architect, has led a meticulous project to restore the home to its original materiality. “In some ways, Mohit has resurrected the first imprint of Raj Rewal’s early houses, which included [Satish’s brother and former PM] Inder Gujral’s house. For instance, the kota stone is back, and so are the arches,” Feroze said.

Rewal agreed that Mohit had given due respect to the original design and the spatial arrangements of fluid spaces at different levels. “The exposed brickwork, which we had in the interior as well as the exterior, has stood the test of time and the quality of light will enhance the paintings,” he said.

The restoration has rediscovered forgotten ceramic works by Kiran, which will now adorn the corridors, alongside Satish’s works. “Satish always said everything is a studio. Now the house will be a studio for the city,” Feroze said.

Vandana Kalra

Vandana Kalra is an art critic and Deputy Associate Editor with The Indian Express. She has spent more than two decades chronicling arts, culture and everyday life, with modern and contemporary art at the heart of her practice. With a sustained engagement in the arts and a deep understanding of India’s cultural ecosystem, she is regarded as a distinctive and authoritative voice in contemporary art journalism in India. Vandana Kalra's career has unfolded in step with the shifting contours of India’s cultural landscape, from the rise of the Indian art market to the growing prominence of global biennales and fairs. Closely tracking its ebbs and surges, she reports from studios, galleries, museums and exhibition spaces and has covered major Indian and international art fairs, museum exhibitions and biennales, including the Venice Biennale, Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Documenta, Islamic Arts Biennale. She has also been invited to cover landmark moments in modern Indian art, including SH Raza’s exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the opening of the MF Husain Museum in Doha, reflecting her long engagement with the legacies of India’s modern masters. Alongside her writing, she applies a keen editorial sensibility, shaping and editing art and cultural coverage into informed, cohesive narratives. Through incisive features, interviews and critical reviews, she brings clarity to complex artistic conversations, foregrounding questions of process, patronage, craft, identity and cultural memory. The Global Art Circuit: She provides extensive coverage of major events like the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Serendipity Arts Festival, and high-profile international auctions. Artist Spotlights: She writes in-depth features on modern masters (like M.F. Husain) and contemporary performance artists (like Marina Abramović). Art and Labor: A recurring theme in her writing is how art reflects the lives of the marginalized, including migrants, farmers, and labourers. Recent Notable Articles (Late 2025) Her recent portfolio is dominated by the coverage of the 2025 art season in India: 1. Kochi-Muziris Biennale & Serendipity Arts Festival "At Serendipity Arts Festival, a 'Shark Tank' of sorts for art and crafts startups" (Dec 20, 2025): On how a new incubator is helping artisans pitch products to investors. "Artist Birender Yadav's work gives voice to the migrant self" (Dec 17, 2025): A profile of an artist whose decade-long practice focuses on brick kiln workers. "At Kochi-Muziris Biennale, a farmer’s son from Patiala uses his art to draw attention to Delhi’s polluted air" (Dec 16, 2025). "Kochi Biennale showstopper Marina Abramović, a pioneer in performance art" (Dec 7, 2025): An interview with the world-renowned artist on the power of reinvention. 2. M.F. Husain & Modernism "Inside the new MF Husain Museum in Qatar" (Nov 29, 2025): A three-part series on the opening of Lawh Wa Qalam in Doha, exploring how a 2008 sketch became the architectural core of the museum. "Doha opens Lawh Wa Qalam: Celebrating the modernist's global legacy" (Nov 29, 2025). 3. Art Market & Records "Frida Kahlo sets record for the most expensive work by a female artist" (Nov 21, 2025): On Kahlo's canvas The Dream (The Bed) selling for $54.7 million. "All you need to know about Klimt’s canvas that is now the most expensive modern artwork" (Nov 19, 2025). "What’s special about a $12.1 million gold toilet?" (Nov 19, 2025): A quirky look at a flushable 18-karat gold artwork. 4. Art Education & History "Art as play: How process-driven activities are changing the way children learn art in India" (Nov 23, 2025). "A glimpse of Goa's layered history at Serendipity Arts Festival" (Dec 9, 2025): Exploring historical landmarks as venues for contemporary art. Signature Beats Vandana is known for her investigative approach to the art economy, having recently written about "Who funds the Kochi-Muziris Biennale?" (Dec 11, 2025), detailing the role of "Platinum Benefactors." She also explores the spiritual and geometric aspects of art, as seen in her retrospective on artist Akkitham Narayanan and the history of the Cholamandal Artists' Village (Nov 22, 2025). ... Read More

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