
My mentor, architect Bruno Dias Souza passed away on March 2, 2025. He was 99. Goa has lost one of the finest architects throughout its history. And India has lost one of the last architectural stalwarts from its first generation of Western-trained, post-independence cohort. It is truly the end of an era.
My association with this brilliant architect was both serendipitous and conscious. I was a second-year architecture student when I chanced to visit his house with a senior. I can still recall stepping into that voluminous living room for the first time. I had not seen anything like it. Every architectural move was simple yet masterful. I knew in that instance that I was in the presence of a great architect.
I cannot recall what compelled me to return to the house the following afternoon, but I do remember that it felt intimidating. What would my meeting with this master architect be like? Would he even talk to me without a prior appointment? I introduced myself with a nervous voice and told him that I wanted to work with him. “I do not have any work right now” he said. There was a long pause. But then, I think he sensed that it was not work I was looking for, because his next words were quite unexpected. “I cannot pay you, but if you stick with me, you will learn a lot!” It was as simple as this. This is how it began.
And what a journey it was for both! Four years as a mentor and mentee. Four years in which we packed as many designs, discussions and conversations as we could have in forty! In the Altinho House and the Nizari Bhavan office of Bruno Dias Souza, I received a parallel education to the one in architecture school. I designed office buildings, houses, furniture, and even urban design schemes with him. None of them came to fruition, but in the process of sitting with him, watching him think, draw, redraw, rethink and redraw again, the art and science of architecture began to reveal itself to my naive mind.
Our fondest time together was often the late evening hours, when Bruno would tell me about his United Nations missions in Africa and Europe, of his student experiences at Columbia and Harvard, and of the day he met Le Corbusier. We would analyse the work of Modern masters such as Oscar Neimeyer, Walter Gropius and Joseph Luis Sert. We would discuss the work of his close friends Raj Rewal, Ranjit Sabikhi and Charles Correa. We would talk about the power the urban design, and the importance of heritage conservation. Through these conversations, I got to see sides of Bruno that very few know about. I got to understand the visions and ideas that lay behind many of his large unrealized schemes and works – the national competition winning Goa High Court Complex, the Goa Assembly Complex, the Goa College of Architecture Campus, and the Bikaji Cama Complex in Delhi.
Every few days, I would draw immense pleasure in foraging through his office shelves and reading through numerous architecture documents and drawings that he had prepared during his UN days. Back then, everything for me centered around Bruno. I wanted to think like him, draw like him, be like him. He was the center of my world. The privilege of being in the presence of an individual with his architectural caliber was second to none. The precision of his insights and teachings was second to none. To the world, Bruno Dias Souza was not an easy man to please, but for me, he was everything I could have asked for as a mentor and guide.
It was upon Bruno’s encouragement that I left Goa for graduate studies to the United States. On each visit to Goa, there would at least one “Edna & Bruno Day” with lunch and laughs. He was the guest of honour at my wedding reception at the Mandovi Reviera, and soon after, Edna and Bruno stayed with the young couple for a week in our small Santa Monica beach apartment.
Over the years, on many an occasion, Bruno would anxiously text me - “need to talk to you.” In these calls, he would lament about Goa, about what it was becoming and what it could have been. In these calls, I sensed a tone of helplessness. In August 2017, when the Indian Institute of Architects invited me to speak on my work at Kala Academy, I felt it would only be appropriate to do so under the shadow of my teacher. I requested them to change the event to “A Conversation between Mentor and Mentee.” In the packed black box, Bruno presented his work beginning with the following words. “I want to first of all thank my friend, Bobby, because though I have been in Goa for so many years, this is the first time I have been invited to show my work.”
Not many know that Bruno had refused an offer to become the Dean of a prestigious architecture school in Portugal and chosen instead to return and retire in his beloved Goa. He had arrived with dreams, ideas and ambitions. But none of them came to fruition. I wonder if Goa let him down. I wonder why Goa let him down. I wonder what Goa might have been had the buildings and visions of this master architect been realized.
I knew Bruno for over three decades – as a mentor, and over the years, as someone I would consider nothing less than family. Perhaps I should not hesitate to be as bold as to say that of all the students that came into his life, I might be the one that got to know him the most; that remained the closest to him. It is hard to explain this: Back then, I know I was seeking a mentor. But who knows? Maybe Bruno too was waiting for a mentee? How else can I rationalize the depth of our thirty-four-year relationship?
I saw Bruno for the last time in December 2025. He was confined to his bedroom and was hard of hearing, but his mind was as sharp as always. We spoke about this and that, and by the time I returned to the bedroom after lunch, he was fast asleep. I took it all in for a quiet moment and touched Bruno’s feet. This was my last physical gesture to him.
Why do we cross paths with certain individuals? What deeper meanings and purposes underlie such associations and relationships? Perhaps this what living the beautiful mystery of life is all about?
Till we meet again Bruno….my mentor, my teacher, my reference point. You have taught me about architecture, only as much as you have taught me about integrity. And I am a better man for it. It was a true honour. I will carry you in me no matter where I go. You are with me – always.
(Vinayak Bharne lives in Los Angeles, USA. He is the recipient of the John Chase Visionary Award from the American Planning Association for excellence in city design, and the Allied Professional Appreciation Award from the Indian Society of Landscape Architects for significant contributions to the profession of landscape architecture.)