This is not a debate on Vaastu. It is a reflection on how belief, design, and cultural shifts have quietly shaped modern Indian housing. And how, in doing so, they may have already begun to define the future of Indian architecture — not through monuments, but through memory.
If They Studied Our Homes 100 Years From Now
If architects, historians, or archaeologists were to study our homes a hundred years from now — not just for how they were built, but for what they reveal — what might they find?
They would examine floor plans the way we now study ancient site maps or temple layouts. They’d compare them across regions, timelines, and housing typologies. They’d try to decode what these structures say about our culture, our priorities, and our way of living.
At first, they might observe the obvious. Violations of building codes. Deviations from sanctioned master plans. Fire stairs that don’t align. Offsets that vanish. Ducts squeezed into places that barely work.
But then, quietly, another pattern would begin to emerge.
A strange resemblance. Unrelated projects — in different states, from different decades — sharing a silent coordination.
Entrances facing similar directions. Toilets pushed to one corner. Kitchens carefully turned. Rooms arranged not around views, or light, or wind — but something else.
Something not mentioned in the National Building Code. Something not taught in the planning syllabus. And yet, remarkably consistent.
It might start to feel like there was an invisible compass, guiding hundreds of plans across thousands of homes. And they would trace that compass back, city by city. Across Bangalore, Chennai, Pune. Back further, to Hyderabad.
And that’s where the pattern would begin to clarify.
Because from this region — quietly, and without formal recognition — emerged a design force more influential than any regulation.
Vaastu.
The Unwritten Code That Everyone Followed
It wasn’t part of the sanctioned guidelines. There was no clause in the building bylaws mandating it.
No municipal body enforced it. And yet, it showed up — quietly, persistently — in plan after plan.
Across cities and projects, across economic segments and scales, this invisible alignment held its ground.
Entrances faced east or north — not always, but often enough to matter. Master bedrooms occupied the southwest. Pooja rooms, when included, gently settled into the northeast corner. Toilets avoided the northeast like an unspoken rule.
This wasn’t coincidence. It wasn’t good luck. It was belief — woven into the blueprint.
Vaastu.
But what surprised our imagined researchers was not just its presence. It was its spread — across time and space — with a kind of architectural authority that no national regulation ever achieved.
Where the Shift Began
The deeper they looked, the more the trail pointed to one place. Hyderabad.
It wasn’t the first city to build apartments. Mumbai and Delhi had decades of head start. Bangalore and Chennai had already seen modern housing emerge. But in Hyderabad, the movement took a different turn.
In the backdrop of an IT boom, global exposure, and growing affluence, a new kind of buyer emerged — modern in occupation, but deeply rooted in tradition.
And these buyers brought with them a quiet, non-negotiable condition: "Vaastu compliance".
Not as a decorative detail, but as a filter. A deciding factor. A deal breaker.
Developers responded. Architects adjusted. Layouts were realigned. Sales brochures proudly carried compass directions and “Vaastu-approved” stamps.
What began as belief turned into behavior. And behavior became a template. And from Hyderabad, it spread — steadily — across South India, into Western India, and finally North. (Though this spread didn’t happen all at once. It appeared in different cities at different times, with varying degrees of influence in different phases). In the earlier phases of apartment development, especially among middle-income groups, Vaastu was applied with less rigidity. But over time, even these segments began conforming more strictly — until eventually, standardisation took over across all economic tiers.
A belief that had once been interpreted flexibly in traditional homes became a rigid framework in modern apartments. (Interestingly, this flexibility continues even today in many individually constructed homes, where Vaastu is interpreted more contextually and with personal adaptation.)
Not through force. Not through regulation. But through repetition. Through trust. Through fear. And through the quiet power of culture.
Design Meets Belief — And the Tension Begins
As Vaastu spread, it began to quietly alter the role of the architect. Drawings once shaped by site, sun, and space now bent to align with unseen forces — sometimes reluctantly, sometimes without question.
Architects started to feel it. The tension.
The frustration of being overridden. Of clients trusting Vaastu consultants more than the very professionals they hired. Of layouts being rotated. Rooms reassigned. Pooja rooms moved. Toilets rejected.
Some saw it as interference. Some saw it as a challenge to their training. Some saw it as superstition dressed up as specification.
But the real conflict wasn’t with Vaastu itself. It was with authorship. With control. With the quiet shift from “I designed this” to “I adjusted it.”
And yet, the belief persisted — not because architects failed, but because people cared. Because belief, for many, wasn’t an option. It was reassurance. Identity. Safety.
The architect wasn’t being replaced. They were being asked to listen.
The Silence of Institutions
Through all this, one might expect architecture schools and professional bodies to step in — not to judge, but to study.
To say: This is shaping our cities, our apartments, our market — what is it really about?
But the silence remained.
Vaastu was rarely taught. Rarely debated. Rarely observed in any systematic way. It was dismissed — not after research, but in place of it.
In classrooms, students studied Mies van der Rohe and the Modulor Man. They learned passive solar design, energy codes, and site planning. But they were not taught why a client might reject a perfectly good plan because the entrance “faced the wrong direction.”
There was no vocabulary to deal with belief. Only resistance. Or quiet accommodation.
And that’s where something was lost — not just in knowledge, but in empathy.
Not Every Architect Believes. But Every Architect Designs for Someone Who Does.
This isn’t an appeal for architects to become Vaastu consultants. It’s a call to recognise belief as a valid part of the design brief — just like climate, budget, or bylaws.
You don’t have to believe in Vaastu to respect it. Just as you don’t need to believe in God to design a pooja room. Just as you don’t need to agree with someone’s politics or lifestyle to create a space where they feel at home.
Even if we don’t understand Vaastu, even if we don’t know whether we believe in it — people do.
And until we study it, until we observe how it actually works in lived homes, the least we can do is not dismiss it.
Because belief — whether in light, alignment, or divine geometry — is still belief. And design, at its best, is the translation of belief into space.
What We Dismiss Today May Be Studied Tomorrow
One of my professors and also my thesis guide, prof. Ravi Anand Kamal once said, almost in passing, “A hundred years from now, science, architecture, and psychology will all return to study the things we ignored — the beliefs, rituals, and patterns that seemed irrational, but kept people grounded.”
Maybe Vaastu is one of those.
Not because it’s magic. Not because it’s always right. But because it has lasted. It has traveled across generations and geographies, not by enforcement — but by choice.
And when something that intangible continues to shape something as tangible as housing, it deserves more than a passing opinion. It deserves curiosity. Observation. Research.
Every architecture college teaches materials, codes, ergonomics, design theory. We study site context, cultural context, sometimes even psychological context. But we don’t study Vaastu — even when it’s clearly influencing residential design across the country.
Why isn’t there a department, or at least a conversation, around how belief systems affect space planning? Why don’t we have case studies of apartments designed with and without Vaastu — and how they’re perceived, lived in, and remembered?
Maybe we don’t need to teach it as doctrine. But we do need to acknowledge its influence, and study its evolution. Because whether we like it or not, it’s already in our drawings.
Bad Design is Not Vaastu’s Fault
Let’s be clear: Vaastu is not the reason design suffers.
Design suffers when architects stop thinking. When they give up the moment they hear: “the entrance must be east-facing.” When they use belief as a reason to not engage further.
Constraints are not the enemy. Architects work with constraints all the time — awkward sites, tight budgets, strange regulations. We find joy in solving within them.
So why should Vaastu be different?
The entrance direction may be fixed. But the journey to that entrance is still yours to imagine. The bedroom might need to be in the southwest. But how it feels, breathes, connects — that’s still design.
Vaastu doesn’t limit creativity. Giving up does.
It Began Here. Let the Responsibility Begin Here Too.
Good or bad, rigid or wise — this movement, this silent spread of Vaastu-driven planning in apartments — began here. In Hyderabad.
Not by policy. Not by theory. But by a collective cultural will that found its way into drawings, sales pitches, and eventually, construction. In Hyderabad today, it is nearly impossible to sell an apartment that does not comply with Vaastu — even if it has excellent light, ventilation, and functionality. The belief system has, in many cases, overtaken spatial quality as the primary filter for home-buying decisions.
And if it began here, maybe it is our responsibility to bring clarity to it.
Not by rejecting it. Not by blindly following it. But by studying it, questioning it, refining it, and reconnecting it with design wisdom.
Maybe Hyderabad needs to lead the way again — not in spreading belief, but in giving it the space to be understood.
Let architects and institutions here create the models. Let students begin the research. Let this city — where belief turned into blueprint — also be the one to ensure that belief and design walk together, not in conflict, but in conversation.
And If They Study Us 100 Years From Now...
They may find that we bent rules. That we violated master plans. That fire stairs were missing, and ducts were misaligned. They may find the National Building Code cited in reports — but not always in built form.
But they may also find something else. A quiet consistency. A hidden compass. A belief system that shaped more homes than any official guideline ever did.
They may find that across states, cities, and cultures, we followed Vaastu. Not out of enforcement — but out of trust. Out of fear, perhaps. Out of longing for balance. Or simply because it was what made a house feel like a home.
And they may ask: Did we understand what we were doing? Or were we simply repeating what we were told?
Defining, Redefining, and Remembering Who We Are
If Indian architecture is to be remembered only through its temples, forts, and palaces — then we’ve missed the point.
Because Indian architecture is not just stone and scale. It’s the invisible patterns. The rituals that shaped our courtyards. The silence between rooms. The direction of a door. The placement of light.
It’s in our homes. Our apartments. Our borrowed balconies and compact kitchens. Our aspirations, fears, and beliefs — all mapped in the way we live.
We must stop waiting for history to define Indian architecture for us. We must define it. And then, with time and care, redefine it.
Not by erasing tradition. But by engaging with it — fully, honestly, and intelligently.
So when they study us a hundred years from now, let them see more than conformity. Let them see curiosity. Let them see courage. Let them see that we didn’t just draw floor plans — we listened, we questioned, and we designed with empathy.
That’s how belief becomes wisdom. That’s how memory becomes architecture.
Note: Vaastu in Practice and Academia
While Vaastu remains absent from formal architectural curricula in most institutions, it has not been completely ignored in public or academic discourse. There are a significant number of publications on Vaastu — in Hindi, English, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, and other Indian languages — reflecting its wide cultural reach and regional adaptations.
In a few architecture schools, Vaastu has been offered as an elective, providing some students an opportunity to explore its application and significance. Additionally, a few professors in India have attempted to introduce Vaastu as a subject of research and documentation — but such efforts have rarely continued over time, often due to institutional resistance, lack of frameworks, or being viewed as unaligned with modern academic standards.
Despite this, its influence continues to grow in the real estate sector, making it an important — and perhaps overdue — subject of study for the profession.
Dear Readers,
I’m not an expert in Vaastu. I don’t claim to believe or disbelieve in it. But as an architect, I’ve seen how deeply it influences what we design — and more importantly, what people live by. This piece is not about rules. It’s about respect. And a reminder that what we choose to study — or ignore — will shape how architecture in India is remembered. —Srinivas Valluri