Adam Hardy

Who is Adam Hardy?

Adam Hardy is an architect and architectural historian, and Professor of Asian Architecture at Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University. He is Director of PRASADA, a centre bringing together research and practice in South Asian art and architecture.

His research is largely in the history of architecture in South Asia, particularly Indian temple architecture. Going against a prevailing tendency to focus narrowly, his work has embraced most of the subcontinent, and a very long time span, while at the same time involving detailed formal analysis. He has tried to bring to light a meaningful way of looking at what at first sight seem bewilderingly complex structures. The work has revealed striking structural homologies between architecture and other branches of culture, and shown how, within a number of regional traditions, forms evolve in a characteristic way, notwithstanding conspicuous artistic inventiveness. Drawings have played an important role in his research, not only for explanation but also as a means of analysis.