Model of urban renewal

Noted writer Akash Kapur introduces The Hindu’s special series on Puducherry, which brings to light some of the most important aspects of the battle for the city’s architectural conservation.

December 17, 2014 08:11 pm | Updated April 07, 2016 05:12 am IST

> When Puducherry’s >144-year-old Mairie Building collapsed a few weeks ago, I felt as if I had lost a friend. I grew up in Pondicherry. I have walked-and cycled, and run-past that building since I was a child. Puducherry has changed over the years: become more crowded, more polluted, more prosperous and modern. But aspects of the town had remained virtually unchanged, seemingly impervious to the passage of time. I suppose that I took the town’s architecture — its pillared villas, its sun-baked streetscapes — for granted. Like many others, I assumed that buildings like the Mairie would always be there.

Now we know better, and the rubble that piled up on the seaside promenade that November afternoon, growing wet in a monsoon downpour, has come as a rude awakening. The Mairie’s collapse is a reminder that this town’s architectural heritage needs to be defended, that, like everything else in our rapidly transforming nation, history needs to be protected. If there is one small consolation to take from the death of the Mairie, it is in a growing civic awareness among Pondicherry’s population, and a new determination to conserve and fight for that which makes this town so distinctive.

> The articles in this series bring to light some of the most important aspects of the battle for Puducherry’s architectural conservation. They feature the buildings in biggest danger of collapse (among which are included some of the most impressive buildings of the town), and they outline key steps that must be taken to save them. The articles also discuss the impressive efforts already underway, from the groundbreaking work done by Puducherry’s chapter of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), to some of the hopeful collaborations that may yet emerge among civil society, the private sector and government.

Perhaps most importantly, the articles situate the struggle to protect Pondicherry’s buildings upon a wider canvas. Architectural conservation is but one manifestation of a more general set of issues concerning civic, environmental and social awareness. Due to its cosmopolitan population and relatively enlightened, effective administration, Puducherry is uniquely positioned to serve as a model of urban renewal for the rest of the country. The effort to save Puducherry’s buildings is really a test of whether the town can seize this much larger opportunity.

Akash Kapur is the author of India Becoming: A Journey Through a Changing Landscape

Photograph of Akash Kapur by Sebastian Cortes

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