Chandni Jeswani

I am Chandni Jeswani, an architectural historian working on sacred urbanism, genius loci theory, and diasporic spatial memory. My research begins with that single question. I trace how meaning persists across contested and historically ruptured geographies; through ritual practice, collective memory, and the architectural forms that survive, absorb, or resist erasure. My cases run from the Gulf's industrial districts and the Sindhi diaspora, where sacred identity persists without its originating geography, to Renaissance Florence, where patronage institutionalized it, to Varanasi, where fifty field sites ground the theoretical work.

The framework I began with, Christian Norberg-Schulz's genius loci, the spirit of place, now bends, fractures, and expands through my work, especially when tested against Indian ritual space, diasporic memory, and sites scarred by erasure. I am particularly interested in sites where institutional narratives struggle to account for lived, ritual, or affective uses of space. My approach crosses architectural history, material religion, urban studies, and digital ethnography, always asking: how is meaning produced, transmitted, and experienced in the places we inhabit? The frameworks this work has produced, fractal genius loci, paper sovereignty, the documentation paradox, and others, are collected in the Lexicon.

I trained in History of Art with Curating at Birkbeck, University of London, graduating with Distinction, following a BA (Hons.) in Architectural Design at Heriot-Watt University. My work is published or forthcoming with Taylor and Francis, Routledge, Springer Nature, Colnaghi, Palacký University Olomouc, and the RAIS Journal of Social Sciences, and has been presented at the Association for Art History annual conference at Cambridge, ENSA Paris-Malaquais, and the Werner Oechslin Library Foundation colloquium in Mendrisio. I am currently completing a PhD by publication in sacred urbanism and institutional memory.

I am Manager of Commissions at Alserkal Arts Foundation in Dubai, where I lead commissioning for site-responsive installations and public art frameworks in collaboration with artists, curators, and institutional partners including the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority. Previously I curated and convened flagship public programmes for Art Dubai and Dubai Design Week, and practiced as an architect across concept development, competition entries, and projects delivered to completion.