Draft:George Michell

George Michell
Born	Australia
Occupation	Architectural Historian Art Historian Writer
Alma mater	University of Melbourne, SOAS University of London
Period	1979–present
Subject	South Asian Architecture, Art and Architecture of the Deccan and South India, Hindu Temple Architecture, Brick Temples of Bengal
Notable works	The Hindu Temple Hampi The Brick Temples of Bengal Islamic Architecture of the Deccan

George Michell is a world authority on South Asian architecture.. He is amongst the most distinguished architectural historians alive today .

Michell’s research is focused on the Deccan, Bengal, Gujarat, and Southern India. His projects and writings have varied from surveys of town planning and religious buildings to detailed studies of temple architecture and sculpture.

For more than twenty years in the 1980s and 1990s, Michell and John Fritz co-directed a reconnaissance of the vast mediaeval Hindu ruins of Vijayanagara at Hampi, now a UNESCO World Heritage site. This was done in close collaboration with the Archaeology Department of the Government of Karnataka. Their work has significantly influenced our understanding of the art, architecture, and political history of this important Indian empire.

Michell lives in London and splits his time between research trips to the Deccan and writing about its ancient architecture, at home.

Early Life and Education

Born in Australia, he received a Bachelor of Architecture degree from The University of Melbourne in 1968. He received his PhD from SOAS University of London, publishing his thesis on the architecture of Early Chalukya temples around Badami in Karnataka. He made the study of the architecture and archaeology of the Deccan his life’s work.

Brick Temples of Bengal

In 1977, on the suggestion of Robert Skelton and Porter McCray, Michell took on a project to work on the archives of David McCutchion at the V&A Museum, consisting of photographs and notes from David's lifetime of travel and study of the brick monuments of Bengal. Michell spent three years (1977-1980) travelling to many villages in West Bengal and Bangladesh and collaborating with scholars in Kolkata and Dhaka and local historians in the rural districts, to produce The Brick Temples of Bengal, a book that remains the most important and comprehensive work in this field.

In 2024, the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta in collaboration with the British Library completed a Wikimedia project to digitise the more than 500 photographs of brick temples and Islamic monuments that Michell took in Bengal while researching for the book.

Vijayanagara Research Project

From 1980 to 2002, Michell and the American archaeologist John Fritz co-directed a project to map and document the mediaeval ruins of vast capital of the Vijayanagara empire mainly in the town of Hampi and in surrounding towns such as Anegundi.

The work was supported by the Government of Karnataka Archaeology Department who provided the team with a camp in the middle of the ruins which housed more 200 young students as well as visiting historians and other scholars. This research was supported by grants from the British Academy, the JDR 3rd Fund, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Smithsonian Institution.

The mission of the project was to map and measure the ruins of mediaeval Vijayanagara. During these years, a huge amount of data was amassed, much of which was published in reports, articles in scholarly journals and a series of monographs that were sponsored under the Vijayanagara Research Project. All the pencil and ink drawings, photographs, and notebooks were donated to the Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections, British Library in London.

Deccan Heritage Foundation

In 2011, Michell co-founded the Deccan Heritage Foundation (DHF) along with architectural historians Helen Philon and Stephane Bloch Saloz. This organisation brings together scholars, philanthropists and heritage workers from around the world who are united by a common purpose: to restore, maintain and inform the public about the Deccan’s built heritage

To this end, the DHF works with local heritage groups and communities on the restoration and rehabilitation of significant historical monuments in the region and also commissions the publication of guidebooks and books, authored by highly regarded professionals in the field.

Scholarship and Teaching

Michell has written more than forty books and edited several academic journals and volumes on a range of topics related to the art and architecture of South Asia.

He has also played a pivotal role in organising several important exhibitions on South Asian art and architecture such as the Arts of Islam exhibition at the Hayward Gallery (1978), the Image of Man: 5,000 Years of Indian Art at the Hayward Gallery (1982), and Living Wood: Sculptural Traditions of Southern India at Whitechapel Art Gallery (1992).

During the 1970s Michell directed courses on Asian architecture at the Architectural Association and coedited the Art and Archaeology Research Papers (AARP), an important journal specialising in architecture and art of the Islamic and Indian worlds. In 1988-89 he was visiting Rockefeller Research Fellow at the Arthur M Sackler Gallery of Asian Art.

Michell has lectured at universities and museums throughout the USA, Europe, India and Australia. He is currently a visiting professor at several institutes including the Department of History of Art and Archaeology in SOAS University of London and the School of Architecture in the University of Melbourne. In 1984 he and John Fritz were Eleanor Edna Norris Research Fellows in the Faculty of Architecture, University of Melbourne.

Michell has received mulitple honours and awards for his research work, including the Nadoja Award (Honorary Doctor of Letters), from Kannada University in 1999.

Selected bibliography

• The Islamic heritage of Bengal (UNESCO, 1984)
• Where Kings and Gods Meet: The Royal Centre at Vijayanagara (with John M. Fritz and M. S. Nagaraja Rao, The University of Arizona Press, 1985)
• The Hindu Temple: An Introduction to Its Meaning and Form (University of Chicago Press, 1988)
• The Penguin Guide to the Monuments of India, volume 1 (Penguin, 1990)
• City of Victory: Vijayanagara: The Medieval Hindu Captial of Southern India (with John M. Fritz, Aperture, 1990)
• Brick Temples of Bengal – From the Archives of David Mccutchion (Princeton University Press, 1992)
• Living Wood: Sculptural Traditions of Southern India (South Asia Books, 1992)
• Architecture and Art of Southern India: Vijayanagara and the Successor States 1350–1750 (The New Cambridge History of India, 1995)
• Southern India (Blue Guides) (Blue Guides, 1997)
• India: Yesterday and Today (Swan Hill Press, 1998)
• The Royal Palaces of India (Thames and Hudson, 1999)
• Human and Divine: 2000 Years of Indian Sculpture (With Balraj Khanna, Hayward Gallery, 1999)
• Architecture and Art of the Deccan Sultanates (The New Cambridge History of India, 1999)
• Hindu Art and Architecture (World of Art) (Thames and Hudson, 2000)
• Elephanta (India) (India Book House, 2002)
• Pattadakal (Monumental Legacy Series) (OUP India, 2002)
• Palaces and Mansions of Rajasthan (India Book House, 2004)
• Palaces of Rajasthan (Frances Lincoln, 2005)
• The Majesty of Mughal Decoration: The Art and Architecture of Islamic India (Thames and Hudson, 2007)
• Vijayanagara: Splendour in Ruins (Mapin, 2008)
• Mughal Style: The Art and Architecture of Islamic India (India Book House, 2008)
• The Great Temple at Thanjavur: One Thousand Years, 1010-2010 (With Indira Viswanathan Peterson, Marg Publications, 2010)
• Mughal Architecture and Gardens (ACC Art Books, 2011)
• Temple Architecture And Art Of The Early Chalukyas: Badami, Mahakuta, Aihole, Pattadakal (Niyogi Books, 2014)
• Badami, Aihole, Pattadakal (Jaico/Deccan Heritage Foundation Guidebook, 2014)
• Late Temple Architecture of India, 15th to 19th Centuries: Continuities, Revivals, Appropriations, and Innovations (OUP India, 2015)
• Buddhist Rock-Cut Monasteries of the Western Ghats (Jaico/Deccan Heritage Foundation Guidebook, 2017)
• Islamic Architecture of Deccan India (With Helen Philon, ACC Art Books, 2018)
• The Hoysala Legacy Belur, Halebidu, Somanathapura (Jaico/Deccan Heritage Foundation Guidebook, 2019)
• Temples of Deccan India: Hindu and Jain, 7th to 13th Centuries (ACC Art Books, 2021)