Dear readers,

In September, Dubai formed a committee to draft policies to encourage positive practices in preserving the architectural and urban identity of the Emirate, recognising the importance of urban aesthetics and visual identity. No doubt, a city’s visual delight lies in its architecture, spaces, cultures, and landscapes — all blended together to form a defining aesthetic. A city’s appeal is in its people-centric design, human experiences, visually attractive surroundings and preservation of its rich culture and history. This edition of Question of Cities looks at the aesthetic beauty of cities, and what makes them attractive and interesting.

The edition opens with an in-depth essay by architecture theorist and critic; academic and author Kaiwan Mehta. Urban aesthetics has been either historically inspired or drawn from the post-industrial city’s grand geometry of imperial worlds, mercantile splendour, and cruising pathways. But the way a city looks is shaped by people in the everyday rituals of living, cultural and urban festivals, their creative expressions from theatre to music to the visual arts. The aesthetics of a city are embedded in this exchange between the facades of buildings and the unfolding motions of life. It lies in the spatio-visual kinesis, a creative state of being, not a one-point view, and only if it has respect for human dignity, he writes. Read it here.

Cities become beautiful not only because of the quality of architecture but how it intermingles with nature, other life forms, and visual expressions of different communities. Advanced engineering and technology seen in flyovers, underpasses, and skyscrapers do not regard the environment, the context, the history, the sociology. This and the utilitarian greed of exploiting land for profit become the ground for a city’s development and aesthetics, but aesthetics come from the arts, linguistics, music, philosophy, and in the space between doing and thinking, says veteran architect, academic and author Narendra Dengle in this reflective interview to Question of Cities. A Pune-based practitioner with award-winning projects, Dengle has exhibited at international venues, taught in Delhi and Mumbai, and collaborated with practitioners across the arts. Read it here.

Without an aesthetic vision, the visual quality of the built environment deteriorates. Mumbai and Delhi present two approaches to aesthetics, writes urban designer, architect and author Harshad Bhatia. While the Mumbai Heritage Conservation Committee treats only the past as sacrosanct, the Delhi Urban Arts Commission intervenes in all aspects to control the scale and architectural aesthetics of today’s buildings. Mumbai needs a single entity that oversees the aesthetics of architecture and arts with sensitivity to the surviving past and sensibility for future. The Urban Design Cell, recently set up, is an opportunity. Read it here.

QoC’s illustrator-writer Nikeita Saraf and multimedia journalist Jashvitha Dhagey take a walk in Moolji Jaitha Market’s maze of lanes and gullies that culminates in small chowks; a grid of entrances and intersecting lanes at right angles to the main road; open spaces for worship, rest and recreation – a layout that was welcoming, customer-friendly, and allowed easy interactions. The market, a fusion of the Art Deco with motifs drawn from the trading community’s origins in Kachchh, is on the verge of redevelopment whose contours are still in the making. Read it here.

Heritage buildings bathed in thoughtful lighting are a visual delight and also lend character to a city’s night-time aesthetic. Lighting, done correctly, can bring them alive and change the way people see their buildings while shoddily lit-up structures mar the aesthetics. Kolkata and Mumbai, both rich in colonial-era architecture, present two starkly different sides of lighting public buildings and spaces. The lighting of nearly 100 buildings in Kolkata shows what a citizen-led movement can achieve while Mumbai’s ill-planned lighting of trees shows utter lack of imagination, writes Team QoC. Read it here.

In our regular section, News Digest, read about Mumbai launching its own air monitoring platform; Delhi ranks fourth in the most polluted city in India; toll in Indonesia floods crosses 900; and new traffic signal timing in US aims at safer roads.

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Thank you,
Smruti
December 12, 2025