Indian architect Anupama Kundoo is challenging conventional construction methods by reviving traditional building techniques and sustainable materials in her groundbreaking approach to architecture. The Vienna Architecture Center (AzW) is showcasing her innovative work through February in an exhibition titled "Wealth Instead of Capital," where visitors can experience her pioneering construction methods firsthand.

Kundoo operates under the principle of "research first, then build," questioning standard construction practices that have dominated the industry. The architect and construction pioneer challenges whether reinforced concrete is always necessary, explores whether traditional working methods might be better suited to respond to changing climate conditions, and questions whether standardization has truly made everything better and cheaper.

At the heart of Kundoo's philosophy is the preservation of disappearing knowledge for future generations. "Until now, each generation knew more than the one before it," Kundoo explains. "That is no longer the case: Today, knowledge is disappearing before our eyes." She points to clay construction as a prime example – a technique that was standard for centuries but is now mastered by hardly anyone, resulting in the daily loss of valuable knowledge.

Research always takes first priority in Kundoo's building approach. She tests brick forms, experiments with shapes, colors, and materials, seeking holistic solutions that are tailored to residents' needs, energy-efficient, and locally sustainable in resource use. In her Wall House in South India, she developed a naturally ventilated vaulted ceiling made locally from terracotta cones and entirely without steel. For social housing in Auroville, she installed load-bearing walls made of rammed earth.

One of her most innovative projects involved creating a home for homeless children in Puducherry using in-situ fired clay houses. After construction, the houses were filled with wood and fired from the inside, with the house itself serving as the kiln. Her Wall House features cassette ceilings with clay bowls that not only look attractive but primarily save material. Other projects include permeable walls made of terracotta modules that enable natural cross-ventilation in residential projects.

Born in Pune, India in 1967, Kundoo is an internationally active architect and professor who operates offices in Berlin, Mumbai, and Puducherry. She was recently considered for the prestigious Pritzker Prize, architecture's highest honor. The current exhibition at the Vienna Architecture Center, curated by AzW director Angelika Fitz and Elke Krasny together with Kundoo, showcases projects from three decades of her work.

Kundoo's approach isn't about nostalgic longing for a supposedly better past, but rather a return to human scale and common sense in construction. "Regulations are a good thing," she notes. "We just need to ask ourselves who benefits from them today – people or big companies?" In her projects, wealth doesn't lie in expensive surfaces and perfect industrial products, but in the innovative use of materials that are locally abundant.

The Vienna Architecture Center exhibition allows visitors to spatially experience Kundoo's constructions through rooms from the architect's houses that have been reconstructed in the exhibition hall at the Museumsquartier. This immersive approach enables visitors to sensually experience Kundoo's working methods and architectural philosophy.

While the findings and approaches of the construction researcher born in 1967 cannot be directly transferred to Austrian projects due to different climatic conditions and degrees of standardization, the exhibition succeeds in encouraging reflection and questioning of common practices in the construction industry. Through this new simplicity, it offers hope that solutions to current challenges in construction and housing are already available – they just require the courage to embrace them once again.