An origami sculpted roof is not amiss. Not even in the middle of Kasauli, mirroring the Himalayan range. Not when Rajiv Saini’s design aesthete is behind it. Formally untrained, he is one of the most sought after interior designers and architects today. Little wonder when past projects boast the interiors of the Devigarh hotel in Udaipur and the interiors of Gallery Chemould Prescott Road.

He’s also a conceptual artist having showed at the Art Basel in Miami last year. It wouldn’t be totally presumptuous of us to expect him to bridge the gap between art and design in our country. “There is little if any distinction between the two abroad, but here even a difference between interior decoration and designing is confusing,” he says. “Interior designing is about details – usage, functionality. It’s not a shopping spree and putting up artefacts.”

Originally a computer science graduate a chance encounter managed to help him follow a hobby, now soon to evolve into an art show by the end of 2007. “That’ll include similar conceptually strong pieces as the table at Basel.” The table called LOC, Line out of control, was a comment on the boom of construction in our cities.

He has perfected the ‘glocal’ outlook —local inspiration from trains and bazaars to create a global design. “I cannot be inspired by something that’s happening anywhere else in the world. But however local, it has to be packaged globally.”

Part of that translates into his collaboration with artists — from the renowned (his sister Reena Kallat is an accomplished artist married to the equally talented Jitish Kallat) to the obscure. “The art boom hasn’t helped me. I recommend artists, but even the richest wouldn’t be able to afford paintings worth 60-70 lakhs in each room.” However, it has led to a number of interesting collaborations – two in fact with Sudarshan Shetty.

If anything, we’re happy we aren’t subjected to gilded furniture and laminated floors as heights of decadence. Now they might have a Rajiv Saini touch. “I wouldn’t want to leave a mark intentionally,” he insists. But as he claims he’s a collector of old Indian antiquities and loves juxtaposing them with stark modern interiors – we can’t help thinking that’s what the mark is all about. And no one’s complaining.

Rituparna Som source : dnaindia.com