In this episode, we speak with Dr. George Michell, an architectural historian whose work has shaped how the field understands sacred architecture across the Deccan, from the sixth-century rock-cut and structural temples of the Early Chalukyas at Badami, Aihole, and Pattadakal to the imperial ruins of Vijayanagara at Hampi and beyond. 

The conversation traces Michell's path from his first encounter with India as an architecture student in the mid-1960s, through his doctoral fieldwork surveying and measuring the Chalukya temples of Badami in the early 1970s, to his decades-long partnership with Dr. John Fritz at Vijayanagara, where their Smithsonian-funded survey work mapped and documented the standing remains of one of South India's largest and most complex medieval cities. 

The episode closes with a discussion of Michell's new course, YS 140 | Sacred Architecture of the Deccan, which moves across four defining moments in the region's religious architecture: the Buddhist rock-cut monasteries of Karla, Bhaja, and Kanheri; the early Chalukya temples of Badami, Aihole, and Pattadakal; the Jain pilgrimage sanctuaries of Shravanabelagola, Mudabidri, and Karkala; and the temples of the Vijayanagara emperors at Hampi. 

Speaker Bio

Dr. George Michell is one of the world's most foremost authorities on the art and architecture of South Asia. Trained as an architect at the University of Melbourne, he subsequently pursued advanced study at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, receiving his doctorate in 1974 for a dissertation on Early Chalukya temple architecture. 

Michell has devoted more than five decades to the study, documentation, and interpretation of India's sacred monuments. From 1981 and for over twenty years, he co-directed the Hampi Vijayanagara Research Project alongside the American archaeologist Dr. John M. Fritz: a comprehensive architectural and archaeological survey of the Vijayanagara capital, supported in part by the Smithsonian Institution, Washington. He is a co-founder of the Deccan Heritage Foundation and has produced more than a dozen guidebooks to Deccan sites. He currently oversees the completion of the Vijayanagara Archaeological Atlas, documenting some 25 square kilometers of the historical site.

Among his most recent publications are Temples of Deccan India (Woodbridge, 2023), Islamic Architecture of Deccan India (with Helen Philon, 2018), and City of Victory, Hampi Vijayanagara (with John M. Fritz, Mumbai, 2025). He divides his year between London, Goa, and Melbourne.

Links

• YS 140 | Sacred Architecture of the Deccan
• George Michell, Temple Architecture and Art of the Early Chalukyas: Badami, Mahakuta, Aihole, Pattadakal (Niyogi Books, 2014)
• John M. Fritz and George Michell, Hampi Vijayanagara (Jaico / Deccan Heritage Foundation)
• Deccan Heritage Foundation