Kerala Traditional Architecture

Kerala architecture is the distinctive building tradition of India's Kerala state and the neighboring Tulu Nadu and Kodagu regions of Karnataka, encompassing a religious sanctuary architecture that developed in southwestern India and differs in several respects from the Dravidian architecture found elsewhere in South India. The tradition draws on Vedic architectural principles and on Dravidian precedent, codified in texts including the Tantrasamuchaya, Thachu Sastra, Manushyalaya Chandrika and Silparatna, and along the Malabar Coast its Hindu forms sit alongside Islamic and Christian architecture that developed in the same region through centuries of maritime trade. Kerala's architecture is shaped directly by its geography, a narrow coastal strip pressed between the Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea, and by a climate of heavy monsoon rainfall, high humidity and tropical heat that traditional builders addressed through steeply sloped roofs and other rain shedding design choices. Construction relies on wooden joinery rather than nails, with carpenters known as taccans using traditional joints and wooden wedges, called kila, to create airtight and watertight connections that can, when necessary, be disassembled.