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ON THE ARCHITECTURAL TRAILS...
Destination Gujarat
YATIN PANDYA*
Mohen-jo-daro and Lothal to modernism and Le Corbusier, the architectural legacy of Gujarat spans across the civilizations. Millennia apart, they stand in testimony of their progressive outlook and avant garde attitude. Evoking socio-cultural and political ethos of the place, the emerging architecture has always remained a fruitful fusion of the old and new idioms. Maintaining the deep rooted values of traditions, the element of contemporary has always been effectively introduced to evolve a new syntax for the progressive architecture. Not remaining the dead ruins of the bygone era buried under the debris of time, the architecture artifacts in Gujarat has sustained as the living organisms fulfilling the aspirations of changing times.
Plethora of architecture edifices such as temples, mosques, mausoleums, forts, gatways, palaces, residential precincts, step-well or the civic institutions manifest this dynamic process of style updationg-of blending traditional wisdom with contemporary knowhow. May it be an ideological fusion of Jain and Hindu idioms in temple architecture, or form transformations of wooden technology into stone architecture, or a synthesis of hindu craftsmanship with islamic forms in Indo-saracenic architecture, or the combination of european space conceptions with Indian elements in colonial architecture, the eclecticism was inevitable but it was mature and pleasing as emulation and assimilation of newer thoughts were creatively regionalized.
The subterranean architecture for water, such as step-well at Adalaj, Ranki vav at Patan or 'Dada hari ni vav' at Ahmedabad, are uniquely exclusive to Gujarat
* Associate Director Vastu-Shilpa Foundation for Studies and Research in Enviromental Design
Ahmedabad.
