+921HeritageTalks: Situating Historical Bungalows in the South Asian Urban

Pakistan Community Chowk Centre

+921HeritageTalks, a project of Pakistan Chowk Community Center (PCCC), is a series of discussions with panelists on heritage preservation.

+921HeritageTalks

+921HeritageTalks, a project of Pakistan Chowk Community Center (PCCC), founded by Arch. Marvi Mazhar, is a series of discussions with panelists related to their field of expertise on the topic of heritage and its preservation.

What is the history we wish to protect? In contemporary preservatory practice, “Adaptive Reuse” is seen as a beneficial compromise in protecting our heritage. In this practice, buildings that have lived past their original use are renewed such that they carry their character while adapting to uses in different situations. The advantage of this process includes breathing life into buildings that were left behind. However, in practice, these processes might be employed for the sake of preserving heritage but to increase profitability of a piece of land. In the worst case scenarios, sometimes Adaptive Reuse ends up damaging the building to the extent that it is completely destroyed. 

There are prevalent examples in our local context that have seen the destruction of heritage sites due to loopholes in The Sindh Cultural Heritage Act of 1994. Due to the inability to properly define which parts of a building require preservation, the Homi Katrak Mansion (refer to the Sindh Cultural Heritage Act of 1994) in Karachi was sold to developers who took to hollowing it out, while stating that they were preserving the structure.

This raises the question, what is the “soul” of a structure? Ornamental and structural details of heritage buildings carry with it a unique cultural legacy of the past. They are living embodiments of past lifestyles. Private residences, like historical bungalows, preserve the socio-economic understanding, culture and sensibilities of its owners (old and new), as well as the architectural norms and aesthetics of the time periods in which they were built and then further renovated. As such, the documentation and preservation of these structures that embody a unique space in the public imagination reflects the heritage values of the community. These residencies represent the values of an era that did not have to worry about the constraints placed due to urbanization. The current architecture, however, has a focus on extracting the greatest use from the smallest piece of land which ends up overlooking the importance of grandeur that is a part of South Asian aesthetic heritage. In urban cities, in an attempt to increase efficiency of the space used, historical residences are adapted in a way that completely alters its insides.

Even if Adaptive Reuse allowed the outside of a building to stay intact while its inside functioned like any other corporate office, would we say that the heritage has been successfully preserved? The hollowing out of the internal ornamentations, leads to a discardment of the soul of our heritage, an exorcism of the past. Are the cosmetics of our heritage, just the skin of our history, enough for us to pass onto future generations? What is the place of historical residences, like bungalows, in South Asian urban centers?

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+921HeritageTalks: Situating Historical Bungalows in the South Asian Urban

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+921HeritageTalks: Situating Historical Bungalows in the South Asian Urban

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