Déjà Vu
Déjà Vu
Déjà Vu
Déjà Vu
Culture · Conceptual · Experimental · Museum
Culture · Conceptual · Experimental · Museum
Culture · Conceptual · Experimental · Museum
Program
Conceptual architectural project developed from a close reading of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo.
The task was to translate cinematic techniques of repetition, rotation, perception, and psychological disorientation into architectural space. Beginning with a cubic grid, three-point surfaces, and a central axis of rotation, the project explores how simple spatial rules can mutate into a complex architectural experience.
Location
Mumbai, India
Project Status
Conceptual
Architecture/Design
By Aayush Jindal
Role
Design and Concept Architect
Concept
Concept
“A theory is therefore called for, one which would transcend representational space on the one hand and representations of space on the other, and which would be able properly to articulate contradictions (and in the first place the contradiction between two aspects of representation).” - Henry Lefebvre
Déjà Vu is proposed as an art installation in Mumbai, exploring architecture as a condition between physical, mental, and social space.
The project takes its name from the French phrase meaning “already seen” — a familiar psychological phenomenon where the present appears to echo a memory that cannot be clearly located. This sensation becomes the conceptual basis for the installation.
Through repetition, rotation, altered surfaces, and shifting spatial references, the project creates an environment that feels both recognisable and unstable. Visitors move through spaces that appear to return, but never in exactly the same way.
Rather than representing déjà vu as an image, the project attempts to produce it as an experience — a spatial puzzle where memory, perception, movement, and disorientation overlap.
“A theory is therefore called for, one which would transcend representational space on the one hand and representations of space on the other, and which would be able properly to articulate contradictions (and in the first place the contradiction between two aspects of representation).” - Henry Lefebvre
Déjà Vu is proposed as an art installation in Mumbai, exploring architecture as a condition between physical, mental, and social space.
The project takes its name from the French phrase meaning “already seen” — a familiar psychological phenomenon where the present appears to echo a memory that cannot be clearly located. This sensation becomes the conceptual basis for the installation.
Through repetition, rotation, altered surfaces, and shifting spatial references, the project creates an environment that feels both recognisable and unstable. Visitors move through spaces that appear to return, but never in exactly the same way.
Rather than representing déjà vu as an image, the project attempts to produce it as an experience — a spatial puzzle where memory, perception, movement, and disorientation overlap.
Image:Kim Novak at Ernie's Restaurant in Alfred Hitchcock's ‘Vertigo.’ (Paramount Pictures)
Cinematic Trigger
Cinematic Trigger
Cinematic Trigger
The preview image from Ernie’s Restaurant in Vertigo becomes the project’s first trigger — a cinematic moment charged with gaze, colour, memory, and psychological suspension.
Hitchcock’s manipulation of depth, especially through the vertigo zoom, suggests a space that is not simply seen but felt: stretched, unstable, and mentally reconstructed.
The sketch follows as the first architectural translation. A figure stands inside a distorted cubic frame, where surfaces tilt, depth lines shift, and the room begins to behave like a cinematic device — familiar, yet impossible to fully resolve.
The preview image from Ernie’s Restaurant in Vertigo becomes the project’s first trigger — a cinematic moment charged with gaze, colour, memory, and psychological suspension.
Hitchcock’s manipulation of depth, especially through the vertigo zoom, suggests a space that is not simply seen but felt: stretched, unstable, and mentally reconstructed.
The sketch follows as the first architectural translation. A figure stands inside a distorted cubic frame, where surfaces tilt, depth lines shift, and the room begins to behave like a cinematic device — familiar, yet impossible to fully resolve.
The preview image from Ernie’s Restaurant in Vertigo becomes the project’s first trigger — a cinematic moment charged with gaze, colour, memory, and psychological suspension.
Hitchcock’s manipulation of depth, especially through the vertigo zoom, suggests a space that is not simply seen but felt: stretched, unstable, and mentally reconstructed.
The sketch follows as the first architectural translation. A figure stands inside a distorted cubic frame, where surfaces tilt, depth lines shift, and the room begins to behave like a cinematic device — familiar, yet impossible to fully resolve.
Form & Spatial Investigation
Form & Spatial Investigation
Form & Spatial Investigation
The model translates the cinematic trigger into a physical spatial system. A simple cube becomes the frame, but its interior is unsettled by tilted planes, diagonal cuts, suspended surfaces, and spiralling circulation.
From the outside, the cube reads as a veiled object — controlled, almost symmetrical, yet visually unstable. From within, the structure opens into a sequence of atrium, stairs, balconies, and fragmented views, where each surface redirects the body and the gaze.
The model becomes a spatial apparatus: part building, part cinematic device, part puzzle. It holds the visitor between orientation and disorientation, repetition and difference, memory and immediate experience.
The model translates the cinematic trigger into a physical spatial system. A simple cube becomes the frame, but its interior is unsettled by tilted planes, diagonal cuts, suspended surfaces, and spiralling circulation.
From the outside, the cube reads as a veiled object — controlled, almost symmetrical, yet visually unstable. From within, the structure opens into a sequence of atrium, stairs, balconies, and fragmented views, where each surface redirects the body and the gaze.
The model becomes a spatial apparatus: part building, part cinematic device, part puzzle. It holds the visitor between orientation and disorientation, repetition and difference, memory and immediate experience.
The model translates the cinematic trigger into a physical spatial system. A simple cube becomes the frame, but its interior is unsettled by tilted planes, diagonal cuts, suspended surfaces, and spiralling circulation.
From the outside, the cube reads as a veiled object — controlled, almost symmetrical, yet visually unstable. From within, the structure opens into a sequence of atrium, stairs, balconies, and fragmented views, where each surface redirects the body and the gaze.
The model becomes a spatial apparatus: part building, part cinematic device, part puzzle. It holds the visitor between orientation and disorientation, repetition and difference, memory and immediate experience.
Formal Mutations
The project develops from a set of simple spatial constraints: a cubic grid, three-point surfaces, and a central axis of rotation. Each floor begins as part of the same order, but the surfaces are gradually rotated, cut, and displaced to produce a sequence of nearly identical yet never fully repeated spaces.
This repetition creates a condition of remembrance. The visitor recognises proportions, alignments, and spatial echoes from one level to the next. At the same time, deliberate disruptions — the central void, diagonal cuts, outer views, and breaks in circulation — disturb that memory before it can become stable.
The cube therefore evolves as a system of spatial déjà vu: familiar rooms returning in altered form, where architecture holds memory and forgetting in the same movement.
The project develops from a set of simple spatial constraints: a cubic grid, three-point surfaces, and a central axis of rotation. Each floor begins as part of the same order, but the surfaces are gradually rotated, cut, and displaced to produce a sequence of nearly identical yet never fully repeated spaces.
This repetition creates a condition of remembrance. The visitor recognises proportions, alignments, and spatial echoes from one level to the next. At the same time, deliberate disruptions — the central void, diagonal cuts, outer views, and breaks in circulation — disturb that memory before it can become stable.
The cube therefore evolves as a system of spatial déjà vu: familiar rooms returning in altered form, where architecture holds memory and forgetting in the same movement.
Photo Gallery
+3
+3
+3
Architecture, design and spatial investigations
across built, unbuilt and collaborative work.
Based in Nuremberg, Germany
Works across Europe, US, India and beyond
CONTACT
2026 Aayush Jindal/ Spatial Sketchbook
Project and media rights remain with their respective authors and rights
holders. Unless otherwise credited, original content independently created
by Aayush Jindal is copyright of Aayush Jindal / Spatial Sketchbook.
Architecture, design and spatial investigations
across built, unbuilt and collaborative work.
Based in Nuremberg, Germany
Works across Europe, US, India and beyond
CONTACT
2026 Aayush Jindal/ Spatial Sketchbook
Project and media rights remain with their respective authors and rights
holders. Unless otherwise credited, original content independently created
by Aayush Jindal is copyright of Aayush Jindal / Spatial Sketchbook.
Architecture, design and spatial investigations
across built, unbuilt and collaborative work.
Based in Nuremberg, Germany
Works across Europe, US, India and beyond
CONTACT
2026 Aayush Jindal/ Spatial Sketchbook
Project and media rights remain with their respective authors and rights
holders. Unless otherwise credited, original content independently created
by Aayush Jindal is copyright of Aayush Jindal / Spatial Sketchbook.
Architecture, design and spatial investigations
across built, unbuilt and collaborative work.
Based in Nuremberg, Germany
Works across Europe, US, India and beyond
CONTACT
2026 Aayush Jindal/ Spatial Sketchbook
Project and media rights remain with their respective authors and rights
holders. Unless otherwise credited, original content independently created
by Aayush Jindal is copyright of Aayush Jindal / Spatial Sketchbook.
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