Keeping buildings alive: Conservation architects on continuity, repair, and responsibility

Buildings property the mode cultures do: unevenly, politically, selectively. And cultures bash not endure by clinging to form, but by carrying guardant the spirit. Few practices marque this favoritism arsenic tangible arsenic conservation architecture. At its best, conservation is not astir embalming buildings oregon sealing them disconnected arsenic relics. It is astir keeping structures live — socially, materially, and culturally — portion acknowledging that clip leaves marks, and that those marks matter.

In India, wherever cities turn arsenic overmuch by erasure arsenic by expansion, conservation architecture sits astatine an uneasy crossroads. It is often reduced to sentiment, nostalgia, oregon elite indulgence. But talk to practitioners moving successful this field, and a antithetic representation emerges: conservation arsenic a mode of reasoning astir continuity, repair, labour, and responsibility. Less astir freezing history, much astir negotiating with it.

Abha Narain Lambah, Mumbai

‘Buildings cannot past arsenic static objects’

Recent project: Completed the restoration of the long-shuttered Victoria Public Hall successful Chennai, reimagining the 19th-century landmark arsenic a nationalist depository and taste space. For her, specified projects are not endpoints but catalysts. “What makes it meaningful,” she notes, “is erstwhile radical statesman to ideate what other could beryllium restored.”

Some structures are celebrated, restored; others are near to crumble quietly. Lambah, who has worked crossed monumental practice and dense municipality precincts for implicit 3 decades, recalls that erstwhile she began her signifier successful the mid-1990s, conservation successful India was narrowly focused connected a small, authoritative database of monuments protected nether the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act. Streets, markets, neighbourhoods, vernacular buildings — the mundane cloth of cities — simply did not count.

That lack shaped her attack aboriginal on. “Conservation,” she argues, “cannot beryllium constricted to isolated buildings lasting isolated from societal life. It indispensable beryllium understood arsenic an urban, lived, and corporate practice.” One of her earliest projects connected Dadabhai Naoroji Road successful Mumbai illustrates this ethos. Rather than treating the historical arterial thoroughfare arsenic a government-led beautification exercise, she worked straight with shopkeepers and residents, showing up week aft week, talking done facades, materials, and identity. Over time, spot replaced suspicion. Eventually, 75 shopkeepers contributed from their ain pockets towards restoring cobblestones, signage, and thoroughfare character. It was conservation built not done authority, but done speech — implicit galore cups of chai.

“Most buildings cannot past arsenic static objects,” explains Lambah. “They request use.” Locked buildings deteriorate faster than inhabited ones: tiny cracks spell unnoticed, h2o seeps in, roofs sag, pigeons and bats instrumentality over, and neglect compounds quietly. Occupied buildings, whether taste centres oregon homes — are observed, maintained, and repaired. Their relevance extends their life.

Needs intervention: She often receives unsolicited messages from citizens suggesting aboriginal sites — “buildings waiting to beryllium restored,” arsenic 1 connection enactment it, pointing to the Bharat Insurance Building connected Mount Road. For Lambah, this quiescent nationalist yearning is the existent measurement of conservation’s success.

Aishwarya Tipnis, New Delhi

‘Family homes transportation taste value, too’

Recent project: Currently engaged successful a conservation-led maestro program for The Lawrence School, Sanawar, a historical hill-campus wherever practice buildings, landscapes, and mundane pupil beingness are being treated arsenic a continuous surviving system.

Once conservation moves beyond monuments, uncomfortable questions surface. Whose past is deemed worthy of protection? Who has entree to conserved spaces? Who pays for upkeep — and who benefits from a building’s renewed visibility?

Tipnis, whose enactment often focuses connected home and mundane heritage, argues that “heritage should not beryllium restricted to royal lineages” oregon expansive narratives. “Everyone has heritage,” she insists. “A middle-class household home, altered implicit generations, carries taste value, too.” The occupation is not deficiency of attachment — astir radical privation to support what they inherit — but deficiency of resources, time, and guidance.

Her attack emphasises attraction astatine an intimate scale. In projects specified arsenic the cautious repair of a humble location successful Old Delhi, moving wrong choky budgets and with fragile Mughal-era bricks, Tipnis’ involution is deliberately restrained. Cracks are stabilised, materials respected, and modern needs accommodated without ocular drama. “When my plan is invisible, conservation has succeeded,” she says. It is dilatory work: spending clip with residents, knowing however radical unrecorded now, and allowing the gathering to respond without pretending it belongs to different class, different century, oregon different imagination.

This ethos stands successful opposition to some demolition-driven redevelopment and cosmetic practice makeovers. It besides foregrounds labour — trade knowledge, section skill, and semipermanent attraction — arsenic cardinal to conservation’s ethics.

Needs intervention: Siliguri Town Station that’s a starting constituent for the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway. “It’s dilapidated and abandoned, and really a UNESCO World Heritage Site.”

Benny Kuriakose, Chennai

‘Tap into India’s surviving trade tradition’

Recent project: An implicit 200-year-old spot successful Ayyavandlapalle village, Andhra Pradesh. “It’s an absorbing lawsuit study. The idiosyncratic restoring the jointly owned ancestral location has ‘first close to buy’ if 1 of the household members wants to merchantability their share. It’s a bully exemplary for practice houses successful places similar Chettinad.”

For Kuriakose, whose signifier draws profoundly from vernacular traditions and the bequest of designer Laurie Baker, conservation is inseparable from surviving systems. Vernacular buildings were ne'er meant to past untouched for centuries; they were designed to beryllium repaired, altered, and rebuilt. That cyclical knowing of clip challenges modern obsessions with permanence and novelty.

“India inactive has a surviving trade contented — masons, carpenters, tile-makers — whose cognition is embodied alternatively than codified,” helium says. “Conservation that relies solely connected imported materials oregon technological fixes sidelines this intelligence.” Kuriakose’s enactment prioritises principles implicit style: clime responsiveness, section materials, skilled labour, and quality comfort, portion remaining pragmatic astir modern needs. This is evident successful projects specified arsenic The Bird astatine Your Window successful Coimbatore, a residential improvement that draws from vernacular ideas of light, ventilation, verandahs, and scenery to make homes that trim vigor dependence.

This besides reframes sustainability, and justice. Paying craftspeople fairly, valuing however enactment is done alternatively than however rapidly it is completed, and designing buildings that trim semipermanent vigor dependence are governmental choices — adjacent erstwhile they look modest.

Needs intervention: “I’d similar to spot mean aged buildings being conserved for the future. I person seen truthful galore vanish successful Mylapore and George Town successful Chennai.”

Raya Shankhwalker, Goa

‘See modern practice arsenic meaningful’

Recent project: “In Puducherry, we completed the conservation and adaptive reuse of a Franco-Tamil villa [into a café-garden bar]. By re-establishing its narration with the street, it sets a precedent that could promote neighbouring owners to travel suit.”

Urban conservation seldom advances connected expertise alone. It requires nationalist pressure. Shankhwalker, known for his enactment successful Goa and his relation successful practice advocacy, emphasises that authorities often follows activism, not the different mode around. Cities similar Panjim benefited from aboriginal designation of conservation zones, but galore Indian towns inactive deficiency basal frameworks to support adjacent important modern heritage.

“The designation of Mumbai’s Art Deco precinct arsenic a UNESCO World Heritage Site marked a displacement not due to the fact that the buildings were ancient, but due to the fact that they forced a rethinking of value,” helium says. “Modern practice — cinemas, flat blocks, civic buildings — does not deterioration the aura of antiquity. Its endurance depends connected radical learning to spot it arsenic meaningful.”

Small interventions tin person disproportionate impact. A restored atom mill successful Morjim, completed successful 2024, exemplifies this approach. Originally built successful the 1950s, the mill was adaptively reused arsenic a café-bar, with its architectural elements cautiously restored. Glass inserts successful the Mangalore-tiled extortion let earthy airy to filter in; mundane objects from the mill’s past were repurposed arsenic elements of décor. Now functioning arsenic a café and jazz venue, it demonstrates however a humble operation tin clasp its spatial essence portion becoming a modern gathering place.

In Puducherry, his cautious undoing of insensitive renovations successful a Franco-Tamil villa — specified arsenic restoring the diagnostic pillars integral to the architectural benignant — re-established its narration with the street, mounting a precedent that encouraged neighbouring owners to travel suit. Conservation present works contagiously: 1 repaired gathering changes however others are perceived.

Needs intervention: “The Massano De Amorim gathering successful Panjim. Built astir a ample unfastened ground, it needs urgent restoration arsenic overmuch for its architectural quality arsenic for its value to the streetscape.”

The essayist-educator writes connected culture, and is founding exertion of Proseterity — a literate arts magazine.