Heritage is synonymous to 'old' and 'antique'. These words are often pooled under the same spectrum commonly categorised as “religious santrums, decades old stone monuments, built surfaces adored with wall paintings or sculptures”. In simple terms structures which are old, which seem old and which should be old. When, such a presumptuous assumption is already made, we unknowingly eliminate modern architecture from the process of conservation and inclusion as heritage.
The structures which are sleek lined, made of R.C.C, painted surfaces or any thing remotely modern are always excluded in terms of heritage even though they have an outstanding value. Modern architecture is often seemed as ‘less important’ as it is commonly seen. The value of these models is always blindsided under the curtain of being common. Most of the modern buildings are not conserved and some are sadly taken down just on the point that it is a modern construction and can always be replicated. But these buildings have many other values like related to a significant person or a textbook example of a style of architecture or is an important piece of the history. However, all these values pale off just because they seem modern and next door. This has been undermining the importance of these structures and unfortunately their death.
Many modern heritage buildings are recently listed in international and national listings. For instance;
The German Art School – Bauhaus
Bauhaus is like any other university we see with its concrete walls, sleek corners, ribbon glass windows and modern features. However, this is what they call “the school of modernism”. The aesthetic value of the school may be common in today’s circumstances, but its importance in the evolution of modernism has greater value.
In Indian context, we do have an extravagant list of modern buildings which are of immense heritage importance. Here are a few:
The British Council – Delhi
The very attractive educational and administrative building managed by The British Council. It is designed by the father of Indian modernism, “Charles correa”. The design is textbook modern where the façade became the canvas for Hodgkin’s who designed a mural with black Kadappa stone and Makrana marble of a banyan tree spreading its branches across the walls.
The Pali Hill House – Mumbai
This modern house is every man’s dream. Walking along the rich neighbourhoods of Indian metropolitan cities these typologies of houses are often seen. This House on Pali Hill which was designed by Studio Mumbai Architects is a small sanctuary in the urban setting of Bandra, Maharashtra, India. Surrounded by trees, the multilevel home consists of floating stairs cases and long windows that encourage natural light to brighten the interior of the home.
Modern Heritage on the Fringe –
While we take time to celebrate this modernism, it is also important to acknowledge the impending doom this style of structures is facing every day. In the recent years, especially these buildings are facing demolition due to sheer negligence or the higher land and market values. There are many buildings which we have lost over time and the voice to protect these structures are also very bleak. This negligence towards our heritage has been leading to the loss many such structures without any guilt. Here are a few instances to commemorate our losses.
The Hall of Nations at Pragati Maidan, Delhi
The Hall of Nations, the world’s first and largest-span space-frame structure built in reinforced concrete, holds special significance in India’s post-colonial history. A masterpiece of architect Raj Rewal and structural engineer Mahendra Raj, the building was a winning entry in the 1970s Indira Gandhi announced competition to design a large exhibition complex at the Pragati Maidan in New Delhi to commemorate 25 years of India's independence. It was inaugurated in 1972. The design was evolved to meet the constraints of time, availability of materials and labour, but above all, to reflect symbolically and technologically, India's intermediate technology in the 25th year of its independence.
Forty -five years later in 2017, the Hall of Nations was pulled down by half a dozen bulldozers that worked overnight to demolish this masterpiece of post-independence architecture in India making way for a "new state-of-the-art convention centre and exhibition centre." Raj Rewal, called it “an act of outrage” since the matter was sub-judice in the Delhi High Court at the time, with hearings scheduled for April 27, 2017, and May 1, 2017, on a writ petition filed by The Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH). The demolition was met with widespread national and international condemnation by museums, cultural institutes, architects and historians alike, not just because of the loss of an important piece of Delhi's heritage, but also for the clandestine manner in which the demolition was conducted.
Indian Institute of Management dormitories – Louis I khan
The design process started on the IIM Ahmedabad campus in 1962 and when the Institute appointed American architect Louis Kahn and Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi to work on the project, Louis Kahn were able to work on the project from 1962 until his death in 1974.
Known as one of Louis Kahn's most prominent architectural works, the iconic Louis Kahn-designed campus consist of library, faculty wing, eighteen dormitories, tower lawn and Louis Kahn Plaza.
Many view these buildings as the last vestiges of this significant time, and believe that demolishing them would be tantamount to erasing the values and the memories that they are associated with. This begs a larger question: why is there an attitude of indifference towards these buildings, despite their apparent importance?
The building is saved in the nick of the time due to the outrage of former students, architects and heritage enthusiasts. Lucky for us, they listened …
Central Vista Project – Delhi
The Nation's Pride project has costed us a lot more and this case many important and heritage structures that are bulldozed mercilessly, namely: National Museum, National Archives and Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA).
There is a new precinct awarded to the demolished buildings. However, it boil down to this:
1.There is no conservation management plan to the said demolished buildings.
2. The archival materials, artefacts, art materials and national treasure are to be stored and then shifted to a new facility and there is no plan of process.
3. The intangible setting of the buildings is lost as the value of the buildings is compromised with shifting them to new surroundings.
Presently, India lacks a robust legal framework protecting modern buildings deemed to be of heritage value. Current provisions only consider buildings that are sixty years or older under the ambit of heritage – a severely restrictive definition that excludes several buildings of significance. However, experts say that age is not the sole criterion that determines the heritage value of a building.
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