Pushkar Sohoni is an architect, and an architectural and cultural historian. He is a Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune. He was chair of the department from 2019 to 2024.
Education
Pushkar Sohoni attended Loyola High School (Pune). After graduating with a Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch.) degree from the University of Pune in 1999, he attended the University of Pennsylvania School of Design (then known as the Graduate School of Fine Arts) to get a Master of Science (M.S.) in Historic Preservation. In 2002, he wrote a Master's Thesis under the guidance of Prof. Frank Matero on preservation policy for the city walls of Cairo. From 2002, he was in the Department of History of Art of the University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences while being a Graduate Advisor in Fisher-Hassenfeld College House. In 2010, he received his doctoral degree (Ph.D.) from the University of Pennsylvania for his dissertation on the architecture of the Nizam Shahi dynasty. He worked under the supervision of Prof. Michael W. Meister and Prof. Renata Holod. Pushkar Sohoni was the post-doctoral fellow for Indo-Persian Studies in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia in 2010–2011, where he was a resident of Green College.
Experience In October 2016, Pushkar Sohoni joined the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune as an assistant professor, and became an associate professor in 2019, and a professor in 2025. Before that, he worked as the South Asia Bibliographer and Librarian at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, and a lecturer in the Department of South Asian Studies from 2011 to 2016. In this period, Pushkar Sohoni was in charge of the South Asia Collection at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, and wrote a "widely circulated blog post" on collecting practices for libraries. He was on the advisory board of the Title VI South Asia Center. Pushkar Sohoni also served as a member of the Committee on South Asian Libraries and Documentation (CONSALD), and was on the executive board of the South Asia Materials Project (SAMP) from 2013 to 2015. In 2017–18, he was a visiting associate professor at Anant National University. His work on the palaces of the Nizam Shahs has been cited in several popular and scholarly articles and essays. He has also written about language, scripts, numismatics, and material culture. Pushkar Sohoni often speaks at public events, and has led heritage walks. He often speaks on the local history of Pune. Dr. Sohoni has lectured extensively on the architecture of the Deccan. He has lectured on several occasions at Jnanapravaha in Mumbai. He has also appeared in several documentary films, such as Revelations Monumentales: Taj Mahal, and Tales of Ahmednagar. In January 2020, he was on a panel at the Kerala Literature Festival to discuss Tony Joseph's book Early Indians. Dr. Sohoni has also been a moderator at several conferences, including the History Literature Festival. He has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of the Arts (Philadelphia), the University of British Columbia, and Comenius University in Bratislava, in addition to the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune. He has been a visiting critic at KRVIA.
Pushkar Sohoni worked on conservation projects in Mesa Verde National Park and in the Saint Louis Cemetery in New Orleans, as part of the Centre for Architectural Conservation (then known as the Architectural Conservation Laboratory) at the University of Pennsylvania. He was a member of the archaeological expedition to Iran in 2004, to excavate sites of the Jiroft culture. In 2005, he worked for the Architectural Heritage division of INTACH, New Delhi, working on the documentation of Durbar Hall in Qila Mubarak, Patiala. Since 2015, he is an Associate Editor of South Asian Studies (Journal of the British Association for South Asian Studies (BASAS)). He is on the advisory board of the Law, Humanities and Social Sciences Journal. Pushkar Sohoni is on the Board of Studies for Architecture (Department of Science and Technology), Savitribai Phule Pune University since 2018 and the Board of Studies for Architecture at Vishwakarma University since 2019. Dr Sohoni is also a member of the Academic Council of the Kamala Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute of Architecture and Planning (KRVIA) since 2026.
In 2025, along with Sarah Melsens and Maya Dodd, Pushkar Sohoni launched the Pune Architectural History Archive. The archive has been receiving good reviews from various news sources.
Awards
The American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) awarded Pushkar Sohoni a Junior Research Fellowship in 2007–08. He was a member of the project Art Space and Mobility in the Early Ages of Globalization, organized by the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz. While in residence at Green College, University of British Columbia, Pushkar Sohoni served on the executive board of the Dining Committee, Residents' Council, and the Membership Committee. He was a Guest Fellow at the Wolf Humanities Center at the University of Pennsylvania is 2012–13. Along with Lisa Mitchell and Raili Roy, he won a Penn Global Engagement Fund Award for the academic year 2013–14, for undergraduate research and cultural immersion experiences in India for students. In 2013, he was a sub-reviewer for projects that had received the Aga Khan Architectural Award. He is interested in numismatics, and has lent coins to exhibitions, including the show Sultans of Deccan India, 1500–1700: Opulence and Fantasy at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. In 2016–17, he and C. Ryan Perkins won an award from the American Institute of Pakistan Studies (AIPS) to conduct workshops for the cataloging and preservation of the Anjuman-i Taraqqi-i Urdu library in Karachi. Pushkar Sohoni was a non-residential visiting scholar of the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania in the year 2016–17. He has received research grants from the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, the Indian Council of Historical Research, and the Indian Council of Social Science Research. Pushkar Sohoni received a British Library Endangered Archives Programme grant for digitising Public Works Department (PWD) records.
Publications In 2015, he authored the book, Aurangabad, with Daulatabad, Khuldabad, and Ahmadnagar, focused on the sultanate architecture in the region. The book was quoted in a Bombay High Court order in 2018. In 2017, he co-authored with Kenneth X. Robbins, a book on the Jewish heritage in the western Deccan, titled Jewish Heritage of the Deccan: Mumbai, the Northern Konkan and Pune. In 2018, his book on the Nizam Shahs of Ahmadnagar and their architectural legacy in 2018, called The Architecture of a Deccan Sultanate: Courtly Practice and Royal Authority in Late Medieval India, was published. In 2021, he co-edited a book (with Torsten Tschacher) on the practices of Muharram across the world among South Asian communities: Non-Shia Practices of Muḥarram in South Asia and the Diaspora: Beyond Mourning. Along with Riyaz Latif, he wrote Sultanate Ahmadabad and its Monuments, published by Primus in 2022. His research on the colonial market halls of India was published in 2023 as Taming the Oriental Bazaar: Architecture of the Market-halls of Colonial India. In the same year, along with Pika Ghosh, he co-edited the festschrift to Michael W. Meister, titled Chakshudana or Opening the Eyes: Seeing South Asian Art Anew.
In 2024, the Maharashtra State Board for Literature and Culture published a two-volume set, in Marathi and in English, called महाराष्ट्रातील वास्तुकला : परंपरा आणि वाटचाल (Maharashtratil Vastukala: parampara ani vatachala) and Architecture in Maharashtra: tradition and journey respectively. It was edited by Narendra Dengle, with Pushkar Sohoni, Chetan Sahasrabuddhe, and Minal Sagare as co-editors.
He has written extensively on the history of architecture, the Deccan sultanates, numismatics, socio-linguistics, and aspects of material culture.
In 2017–2018, he wrote a fortnightly column called 'By the Wayside' for the Pune Mirror. He has been a consultant for the Sahapedia project on culturally mapping the city of Pune, and has contributed to My City My Heritage by InterGlobe Foundation.
Research bibliography
Books (authored) Taming the Oriental Bazaar: Architecture of the Market-Halls of Colonial India (New York; Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2023). (with Riyaz Latif) Sultanate Ahmadabad and its Monuments: The City of the Muzaffarids (Ahmad Shahis) (New Delhi: Primus Books, 2022). The Architecture of a Deccan Sultanate: Courtly Practice and Royal Authority in Late Medieval India (London: I.B. Tauris, 2018). (with Kenneth X. Robbins) Jewish Heritage of the Deccan: Mumbai, the Northern Konkan, Pune (Mumbai: Jaico; Deccan Heritage Foundation, 2017). Aurangabad with Daulatabad, Khuldabad, Ahmadnagar (Mumbai: Jaico; Deccan Heritage Foundation, 2015).
Books (edited)
(with Narendra Dengle, Minal Sagare, Chetan Sahasrabuddhe), महाराष्ट्रातील वास्तुकला : परंपरा आणि वाटचाल, 2 volumes (मुंबई: महाराष्ट्र राज्य साहित्य आणि संस्कृती मंडळ, २०२४). (with Narendra Dengle, Minal Sagare, Chetan Sahasrabuddhe), Architecture in Maharashtra: Tradition and Journey, 2 volumes (Mumbai: Maharashtra State Board for Literature and Culture, 2024). (with Pika Ghosh) Chakshudana or Opening the Eyes: Seeing South Asian Art Anew (New York; Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2023). (with Torsten Tschacher) Non-Shia Practices of Muḥarram in South Asia and the Diaspora Beyond Mourning (New York; Oxon: Routledge, 2021).
Edited Journal Issue
(with Carmen Brandt) Languages and Scripts of South Asia: Special Issue of South Asian History and Culture, (2018), vol. 9, no. 1. ISSN 1947-2501.
Research Essays and Articles
‘Kannauj: A Capital in Soft Focus’ in INTACH Journal of Heritage Studies, vol. 7 no. 1 (2026), Kannauj: Traditions, Innovations and Legacies, pp. 1-12. (with Aparna Andhare) ‘Kalavati of Kannauj: A Century of Candy’ in INTACH Journal of Heritage Studies, vol. 7 no. 1 (2026), Kannauj: Traditions, Innovations and Legacies, pp. 43-56. ‘Beyond Iconoclasm: Temple Construction under the Sultanates’ in Sam Dalrymple (ed.), Marg, vol. 77 no. 3 (2026), The Temple, Mughalised: 16th–19th Centuries, North India, pp. 34–47. (with Tejashree Lakras) ‘A Critical Analysis of an Architectural Heritage Site as a Filming Location Through Heritage Impact Assessments: The Case of Amber Palace, Rajasthan, India’ in Journal of Heritage Management, vol. 10 no. 2 (Dec 2025), pp. 207–224. 'Maritime Fortifications: Defending Land and Sea' in Amarendra Kumar (ed.), Tides of Triumph: the Maratha Navy Saga (Mumbai: Harper Vantage, 2025), pp. 97–116. 'Paṭṭā: The Maratha Sword' in Journal of Arms and Armour, vol. 22 no. 1 (Spring 2025), pp. 131–144. 'Janjira Fort and Rajapuri Port: Connected Histories in a Coastal Complex' in Shefali Balsari-Shah and Sunita Nair (eds.), Gateways to the Sea: Historic Ports and Docks of Mumbai Region (New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 2024), pp. 174–182. 'Creating an Ecumene: Cultural, Economic, Social Boundaries of the Deccan Sultanates' in South Asian Studies vol. 39 no. 2, (2023), pp. 146–159. (with Pika Ghosh) 'Introduction: Reading Monuments and Seeing Texts: Michael W. Meister and the Opening of Eyes' in Pika Ghosh and Pushkar Sohoni (eds.), Chakshudana (Opening the Eyes): Seeing South Asian Art Anew (New York; Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2023), pp. 1–17. 'Squaring a Circle: Design and Construction in the Temple of Anwa' in Pika Ghosh and Pushkar Sohoni (eds.), Chakshudana (Opening the Eyes): Seeing South Asian Art Anew (New York; Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2023), pp. 74–90.