Metal takes on a more organic language in Vikram Goyal’s Bagh collection, where the geometry of historic Indian gardens is reimagined through freeform casting and sheet metal. Presented at Homo Faber 2026 in Venice, the collection explores the tension between permanence and movement, structure and nature, and tradition and contemporary design. For Vikram, the process is as important as the finished object, particularly the knowledge and skill of the artisans who bring his ideas to life. We caught up with the designer to talk about Bagh, the possibilities of metal and why Indian craft needs to evolve rather than simply be preserved.
“Bagh began with my longstanding interest in gardens and landscapes and especially in the relationship between nature, architecture and space that you find in historic Indian gardens,” says Vikram, who is often drawn to something quite simple, and then spends time distilling what it is about that reference that interests him. “With Bagh, I wanted to take some of those organic forms and explore them through a material that has almost the opposite quality: metal, which is solid and permanent.”
So what is it about Mughal gardens that continues to fascinate him? “There is something very evocative about the way Mughal gardens balance structure with nature. The relationship between order and organic growth has always fascinated me. There is a clear geometry and sense of order, but within that you have water, plants, light and growth, all of which are constantly changing,” he says.
Rather than reproducing vines, leaves or branches literally, Vikram observed the way these forms grow, move and come together in a garden and interpreted them through metal. “The broader thinking here is that freeform casting isn’t simply a means to achieve the branching forms in Bagh. One of the reasons for presenting this collection at Homo Faber was to bring this technique into a wider conversation around craft and to consider it a discipline in its own right, rather than simply as a decorative process.”
Metal can often feel hard and architectural, but Bagh has a sense of softness and movement. This contrast was central to his approach. As a product designer, Vikram doesn’t think about the object in a particular interior and then leave it to the client to see how it works in their space. “The object has to work on its own,” he says. “It should have its own character, but it should also be able to live comfortably in different environments.”
Presenting Bagh at Homo Faber in Venice gives the Studio, an opportunity to place Indian craft within a broader international conversation. “I don’t see tradition as something fixed; every tradition we have inherited was once an innovation in its own time. What interests me is understanding the knowledge within those traditions and finding ways for it to respond to how we live and design today. And that has to involve the artisans themselves. For craft to remain relevant, it needs contemporary applications and audiences, but it also needs to remain a living practice, with the knowledge continuing to evolve through the people who carry it forward,” he adds.
—manuvipin@newindianexpress.com
@ManuVipin
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