Invisible Origins: Reconnecting Urban Identity with the Forgotten Systems that Shaped it

Author: Anshika Agarwal
Site Location: Ahmedabad
Institute: Sri Venkateshwara College of Architecture
Advisor: Prof. Krishna Priya

Description

Cities are shaped not only by their visible architecture, but by the systems of labour, industry, craft, culture and technology that produce them. As these systems disappear from public memory, urban identity becomes increasingly disconnected from its origins. This thesis explores how architecture can make these invisible foundations legible again.

Ahmedabad provides a layered narrative of this transformation, evolving through Sultanate, Vernacular, Industrial, Modern and Contemporary eras. The former Calico Mills site, once central to the city’s industrial identity, now remains largely as fragments, with its chimney standing as a physical trace of its past.

However, remembering a city cannot be limited to preserving its past. If urban identity is collectively created, the spaces that represent it must also remain accessible to the communities that created it. The project therefore extends beyond the museum into a civic landscape of cultural spaces, markets, festivals, workshops and everyday gathering, creating a gradient of access between the institution and the surrounding neighbourhood.

The project asks how architecture can make forgotten systems visible while creating equitable spaces for collective life.