‘I hope the craft outlasts my name’: Ashiesh Shah’s global vision for India’s living handmade traditions

Ashiesh Shah has long been a formidable presence in India’s design landscape. An architect, designer, artist and collector, he works across residences, retail interiors and collectible objects, with a practice shaped by restraint and a deep commitment to India’s craft traditions. One of India’s most influential creative figures, Shah has also curated design exhibitions across the country, while his own work has been presented at institutions including the National Museum in New Delhi. In 2022, Shah became the first Indian designer represented by collectible design gallery The Invisible Collection. And more recently, he opened his first solo exhibition in the UK, Taamr at Carpenters Workshop Gallery, on show till 20 September 2026.

Discover the work of Ashiesh Shah

Art, design and an appreciation for beauty have always come instinctively to Shah. At the age of ten, he persuaded his mother to purchase a work by Manjit Bawa, the celebrated Indian modernist; the painting would go on to become one of the family’s most prized possessions, as well as a significant collector’s piece. 'What pulled me in was the restraint in his work – how much he left unsaid on the canvas, how a single figure could hold that much space without needing anything around it to justify its presence,' Shah recalls.

He moved to New York to study Interior Architecture at Parsons in the early 2000s, and on returning to Mumbai, established his eponymous studio in 2008, grounding the practice in the principles of wabi-sabi. Those who recognised the subtlety of this language were quickly drawn to Shah’s work. Yet communicating its quiet power was not always straightforward. 'Quiet design does not sell well on paper; it can read as empty on a mood board, so I would just bring the material into the room,' he says. 'A slab of stone, a sample of plaster, something they could touch.'

Much of Shah’s early work was residential, though some retail projects that have stayed with him include the first Le Mill store in Mumbai, an Indian multi-brand concept housed within a former warehouse. Rather than rely on the artificial lighting typical of retail interiors at the time, Shah opened up the roof and introduced glazing, allowing daylight to travel through the building.

There’s also a space for Raw Mango, the celebrated Indian handwoven textile label. Stripped of wallpaper, pattern and overt colour, the space is defined, instead, by custom furniture, brass counters and fixtures, rendered in a restrained palette of natural textures.

The Indiabulls apartment in Mumbai is a richly curated home layered with art, handcrafted elements and contemporary interventions, and the Kolla penthouse in Hyderabad is defined by control rather than ostentation, revealing Shah’s preference for quiet materiality and considered detail.

All the while, Shah’s fascination with objects was taking shape alongside his architectural practice. 'I have always wanted to be an artist and, more than that, a sculptor. That instinct has been with me from very early on,' he says. 'Architecture became a natural way into it because it allowed me to sculpt with light itself, shaping how it moves through a space rather than simply designing walls around it. Product design grew from that same impulse, only at a more intimate scale.'

The ‘Liminal’ bench was the first object Shah released into the world, followed by several others, including the ‘Naga’ chair, cast in aluminium with a dark bronze finish and paired with an elephant-grass coat, and his ‘Channapatna’ furniture and lighting collection, a contemporary interpretation of Karnataka’s traditional wooden toy-making craft, composed of carefully turned, naturally lacquered beads. The ‘Channapatna’ light was created in collaboration with master craftswoman Noor Salma.

Sustained artisan collaborations are at the heart of his practice. 'We are not simply working within the boundaries of their craft; we are redefining it alongside them, pushing a technique somewhere it has not been asked to go before,' he says. 'That is when they stop waiting for instruction and begin bringing me ideas of their own. It is built the hard way, through failure, experimentation and years of trust.'

Now, ‘Taamr’, Shah’s first solo show in the UK, marks a significant moment in his long engagement with collectible design. 'Through materials such as copper, handcrafted mirrors, rudraksha and reclaimed objects, the exhibition explores how familiar forms can be reimagined without losing their cultural memory.'

Looking ahead, Shah is working on several significant residences across India, alongside a collaboration with Spanish designer and sculptor Nacho Carbonell. Craft, he says, will remain central to his practice. Reflecting on the decades to come, he adds: 'I hope the craft outlasts my name. If someone standing before a piece 50 years from now can still read the hand that made it, the material it came from and the tradition it drew upon, then it has done its job.'

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