Though old, this Eastern tradition has also incorporated modern values as India became a modern nation state. As the country became more integrated with the world's economy, traditional Vastu Shastra remains influential in India's architecture during the contemporary era.

The Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) was a Bronze Age civilization (3300–1300 BCE; mature period 2600–1900 BCE) that was located in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, consisting of what is now mainly modern-day Pakistan and northwest India. Flourishing around the Indus River basin, the civilization primarily centred along the Indus and the Punjab region, extending into the Ghaggar-Hakra River valley and the Ganges-Yamuna Doab. Geographically, the civilization was spread over an area of some 1,260,000 km², making it the largest ancient civilization in the world.

The Indus Valley is one of the world's earliest urban civilizations, along with its contemporaries, Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. At its peak, the Indus Civilization may have had a population of well over five million. Inhabitants of the ancient Indus river valley developed new techniques in metallurgy and handicraft (carneol products, seal carving) and produced copper, bronze, lead, and tin. The civilization is noted for its cities built of brick, roadside drainage system, and multistoried houses. The baths and toilets system the cities had is acknowledged as one of the most advanced in the ancient world. The grid layout planning of the cities with roads at exact right angles is a modern system that was implemented in the cities of this particular civilization. The urban agglomeration and production scale of this particular civilization was unsurpassed at the time and for many future centuries.

Laurence Wilfred "Laurie" Baker (2 March 1917 – 1 April 2007) was an award-winning British-born Indian architect, renowned for his initiatives in cost-effective energy-efficient architecture and for his unique space utilisation and simple but beautiful aesthetic sensibility. In time he made a name for himself both in sustainable architecture as well as in organic architecture.

He went to India in 1945 in part as a missionary and since then lived and worked in India for over 50 years. He obtained Indian citizenship in 1989 and resided in Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum), Kerala, since 1970, where he later set up an organization called COSTFORD (Centre of Science and Technology for Rural Development), for spreading awareness for low cost housing.

In 1990, the Government of India awarded him with the Padma Shri in recognition of his meritorious service in the field of architecture.

Baker was born into a staunch Methodist family, the youngest son of Birmingham Gas Department's chief accountant, Wilfred Baker and Emily. His elder brothers, Leonard and Norman, were both studying law, and he had a married sister, Edna. In his teens Baker began to question what religion meant to him and decided to become a Quaker, since it was closer to what he believed in. Baker studied architecture at Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, Birmingham and graduated in 1937, aged 20, in a period of political unrest in Europe.

Rahul Mehrotra is principal of architecture firm Rahul Mehrotra Associates of Mumbai, India and is Professor of Urban Design and Planning and Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) in Cambridge, Mass., USA.

Rahul Mehrotra designed some prominent buildings like Hewlette Packard in Bangalore, restored the Chowmahalla Palace.

He has been the force behind the Kala Ghoda area rejuvenation movement in Mumbai.

His co-authored Bombay: The Cities Within, which covers the city’s urban history from the 1600s to the present; Banganga: Sacred Tank; Public Places Bombay; Anchoring a City Line; and Bombay to Mumbai: Changing Perspectives. He has also co-authored Conserving an Image Center:The Fort Precinct in Bombay; based on this study and its recommendations, the historic Fort area was declared a conservation precinct in 1995.

Rahul Mehrotra moderated the workshop Informal Urbanism: between sanctioned and shadow orders at the Holcim Forum 2007 in Shanghai and is on the jury of the global Holcim Awards 2012.