An INTACH (Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage) report submitted to the government has said that work on two buildings of Government Central High School, Attakulangara, cannot be accepted as restoration work.
The report to Minister for Education C. Ravindranath says documentation of the heritage building on the campus was not done before the work was taken up.
The restoration is currently at a stop after INTACH submitted a memorandum to the Minister in August expressing concern over the work not being suited to preserving a heritage structure. It had called for the restoration being taken up with assistance from conservation experts.
The report was prepared by conservation architect Pankaj Modi who had been entrusted by the Thiruvananthapuram chapter of INTACH to study the buildings on the school campus.
Mr. Modi, director of the Bengaluru-based Centre for Heritage Initiatives, was accompanied by Hemachandran Pillai, former Director of the Department of Archaeology here, and school heritage cell member Asha Gopinathan on his visit to the school.
The report said that flat arches in the heritage building could collapse over time as doors and windows had been removed without supporting the arches. Reasons for removal of pillars and front verandah in the heritage building could not be ascertained owing to lack of documentation before the work was started.
In the other two buildings, ornamentation was introduced in the pillars and replastering done using cement mortar. The report did not find a problem with the load bearing walls of the heritage building. The truss system was fine except in places where the tiles were broken or where these had been removed at the southern end.
The report makes seven recommendations for restoration of the buildings, including documentation of the buildings in their present stage, restoration of the roof and replacement of broken tiles, and reconstruction of verandahs.
INTACH convener Shaji Krishnan said that with the rain coming down, the heritage building could suffer as there was not much overhead protection. The technology and worksmanship used in heritage buildings were different from that in modern buildings, and the government should continue the work by roping in a conservation architect. “A lot of money is being spent on the school, and we hope this report is made the basis of any future work by the government.”
