Mustansir Dalvi was born in Bombay.
He teaches architecture in Mumbai.
He is currently a trustee of Art Deco Mumbai. He was formerly a member of the Academic Council, University of Mumbai. He is on the Board of Governors of the MMR Heritage Conservation Society. He was formerly Chairperson, Board of Studies in Architecture, University of Mumbai. He is an Alumnus of IIT-Bombay, where he completed his doctoral studies and of Sir JJ College of Architecture, where he received undergraduate and post graduate education. He has a post-graduate diploma in Indian Aesthetics from the Department of Philosophy, University of Mumbai.
Mustansir Dalvi was Professor of Architecture at Sir JJ College of Architecture, University of Mumbai, from 2003 until his retirement in January 2024. He has been part of syllabus formation committees for nearly three decades, most currently he designed the Graduate Syllabus for Metropolitan Architecture (de-novo). He is part of the core group that set up the vision for the Sir JJ School of Art Architecture and Design (de-novo, deemed to be university). He was a long-time archivist at Sir JJ College of Architecture where he curated several successful exhibitions.
He considers himself a Hope Street Poet. His blogs on Muhammad Iqbal and Faiz Ahmed Faiz are widely quoted and have been the subject of academic research. He translates from Urdu and Marathi into English and from English into Marathi. He has three published books of poetry in English, brouhahas of cocks (2013), Cosmopolitician (2018) and Walk (2022). His poems have been translated into French, Croatian, Marathi, Hindi and Gujarati. He is widely anthologized. His books include Citizen Charles: A Biography of Charles Correa (2024), The Past as Present: Pedagogical Practices in Architecture at the Bombay School of Art (2016) and The Romance of Red Stone: An Appreciation of Ornament on Islamic Architecture in India (2010). He is the editor of 20th Century Compulsions: Modern Indian Architecture from the MARG Archives (2016). He writes regularly for the National Herald, the Hindu, The Wire and Scroll.com, where he casts a critical gaze on Mumbai in its current post-planning avatar. He has lectured on architecture, culture and urbanism at various venues like the Red Fort, Delhi, The Darbar Hall of the Asiatic Society of India, Mumbai, The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Teen Murti Bhavan, Delhi, The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts & Sciences, Amsterdam, for the Columbia University, City of New York and the Miami Design Preservation League.
