“Half a million people arriving every morning … nobody leaving”
With this line, Charles Correa’s film, ‘City on the Water’1, sets the stage for a city that is reaching its limits and builds a case for its solution. Correa made this film exactly 50 years ago, in 1975, as part of a larger effort to bring out the urgent need for expansion to the city’s authorities. The proposal was for a new city across the harbour, designed to relieve the intense pressure on Mumbai, to be called Navi Mumbai. But the questions the film highlights go far beyond the proposal. How long can a city keep absorbing people without confronting who has the right to the land resource and dignity?
The aerial shots present throughout the films show a city squeezed between water and demand. Correa points out that the real edges of the city are not drawn by nature, they are drawn by policy, power and money. Mumbai or Bombay in the 60s, was the ‘nerve centre of the Indian economy’, an attraction point for new technology for India, generating nearly half of the entire revenue of the government of India.
A city born out of migration, Bombay’s growth showed no signs of slowing down. As a city, Bombay was a place where, every day, tens of thousands arrived with hopes in their pockets, only to find that the city was both generous and cruel, a contrast that is represented through the film. This brings forth important questions: Are our cities physically capable of absorbing endless demand? Or are we merely redistributing scarcity by squeezing more people into less space, eroding both the environment and the quality of life? A recurring image in the film shows trains spilling out waves of people into the city. These are not just commuters; many are migrants searching for work, shelter and survival. Where does this endless tide of people live?
Result of an overcrowded city with people occupying the streets and pavements.
The camera moves towards the overcrowded pavements, congested chawls, and temporary shelters folded into the city’s cracks and margins. Through this, Correa questions “what is worse, the temporary slums or the permanent ones?” This wasn’t just about Bombay. This is yet the defining crisis of every rapidly urbanising city today.
Long after Navi Mumbai has been built, the core tensions that he outlines – between migration and exclusion, between geography and inequality – still remain unresolved. One of the film’s sharpest insights is how building heights are directly linked to land prices. As land gets scarcer, buildings grow taller, and rather than solving the problem, this ends up raising the price of the land. To address this, he proposed to add more land to the residential pool by decentralising Bombay and expanding to New Bombay.
Graphical representation for the expansion of residential areas by showing two cases: increasing building height vs increasing land area.
Land in the city is not neutral. It is hoarded, speculated on and made into a commodity. It makes it less about living on it and more about trading, leverage and wealth expansion. The URDPFI (Urban and Regional Development Plans Formulation and Implementation) has set a target of 10 to 12 sqm of open space per person in India. However, according to the survey conducted by Project Mumbai in 2021, Mumbai currently has 1 sqm of open space per person23. Planning decisions about zoning, density and infrastructure are not just technical; they are deeply political acts that determine who gets to belong and who gets pushed to the edge. Are we building cities for people, or as a commodity? In his book, “The New Landscape”, Correa argues that failure is not technical; it is political4. When more than half of the city’s population lives without formal access to land, basic services, or security, can we still call it a “good” city?
Behind the words “density,” “growth,” and “development” are real and lived experiences of the people. When a city can not offer any more shelter, it does not stop people from migrating to the city; it redistributes them into scarcity. A child growing up on the pavement, a family living in a one-room rental without water or light, and workers commuting 3 hours each way just because the city does not have space to accommodate people near their workspaces. These are not normal circumstances, even if we have learned to cope with them. It is just part of a system that accepts exclusion as a byproduct of urban success. If survival itself becomes the primary occupation of so many, what does it even mean for a city to be “functional”?
Rough proposal plan for New Bombay.
City on the Water leaves us with the thought that cities will continue to grow. But the growth itself is not the crisis. The crisis lies in whether that growth is inclusive or whether it survives by pushing more people into the margins. When a city floats between hope and neglect, whose responsibility is it to keep it from drowning?
“The city is a product of a state of war between political and economic forces that shape and re-shape the urban landscape.” – Mike Davis1
Cities are often perceived as consequences of planning, geography and economy. We perpetually criticise our cities, in search of more inclusive spaces, but rarely do we acknowledge the powerful role of ‘political ideologies’ in shaping them. To substantiate this statement, we will take two contrasting cities – Kolkata (an old metropolis politically rooted in communist values) and Bengaluru (an emerging metropolis driven by neo-liberal growth), to depict how political worldviews manifest in the urban fabric.
The CPI(M)’s (Communist Party of India-Marxism-Leninism) thirty-two-year rule in Bengal created lasting impacts on the city’s core ideologies. A few of the positive core beliefs which people of Kolkata grew into were ‘sensitivity towards class issues’, ‘preaching for equality’, and ‘active civic participation’. On the other hand, Bengaluru’s neo-liberal transformation started with Sir M. Visvesvaraya’s address to the Bangalore Literary Union in 1953, where he said:
“What makes Americans long-lived, progressive and prosperous”, he continued, “is the planned, disciplined lives they lead. Our activities on the other hand are unplanned, and our behaviour unplanned and inactive.”2
This comparative statement, along with his appeal to the citizens to see themselves as ‘stockholders of the city corporation’ 3 in every municipal engagement, sowed the seeds of the present neo-liberal growth of Bengaluru, inspired by the West.
The Left Front in Kolkata actively resisted the privatisation of urban land, enabling the survival of expansive green spaces like the Maidan, accessible at all times. Its porous edges were a result of ‘proletarian power’, dismantling boundaries and ensuring equal spaces for all.
In contrast, Bengaluru experienced a surge of rapid, unregulated urbanisation, unlike Kolkata’s slow-paced growth. To manage this, the city adopted quick fixes which included – gated parks, walled/fenced green spaces and controlled access points with regulated timings and activities.
Left Photo Credit: S. K. Dinesh Lalbagh’s Boundary Wall- Non-porous and greenery unseen to the public
Right Photo Credit: Google Earth
Urbanisation brings unique challenges for the city’s residents. In response, residents engage, express, and reclaim space to shape and survive the city. Thus, protest becomes a huge outlet for people in voicing and asserting their rights. Protest needs to be witnessed so that every citizen can comprehend and hold hands in the process of justice.
The strong Marxist-Leninist influence is the sole reason why protest is inscribed into Kolkata’s urban fabric. Protest and dissent is viewed as a ‘civic responsibility’.The R.G Kar Protest stands as a testament to this city-wide procession for women’s rights, driven not by propaganda but by a shared sense of justice.
On the other hand, Bengaluru’s Town Hall, once home to powerful public gatherings echoing with resistance songs, has moved towards restraining dissent. After the city-wide protest of Anganwadi Workers and Devanhalli Farmers 4, the Bengaluru Police Commissioner issued an order strictly containing all protests at Freedom Park, in a designated parking lot far from the public sight. Outside this zone, protest is classified as ‘civil disobedience’, drawing swift police response. Shaped by the priorities of neo-liberal governance, a city once with a vibrant political voice now struggles with a silenced public sphere.
Left Photo Credit: Bhanu S Citizens of Bengaluru protesting against confining protests to Freedom Park
Right Photo Credit: The Hindu R.G Kar ‘Reclaim the Night’ city-wide protests for women’s safety and rights
Though a riverine city, Kolkata never initially prioritised greenery due to its early urbanisation. Instead, its communist egalitarianism helped make the old streets the citizens’ ‘third space’ 5. Every space available in the exterior capable of holding people (footpath, steps of an old house, underneath a flyover, etc) becomes a place of social exchange. In Correa’s words:
“They have raised disintegration to the level of high art.” 6
The larger question which currently arises is: To what extent can you romanticise the past? This is the dilemma Kolkata is facing in shaping its public spaces for future generations. Spaces once celebrated require thoughtful revival.
In contrast, Bengaluru has been the ‘City of Lakes’ adorned with greenery, formed by encompassing two hundred villages, whose reminiscence is still present in its place names ending with ‘halli’ (village in Kannada, eg., Marathahalli, Baiyyapanahalli, etc). The rapid shift from a low-rise settlement to a high-density urban sprawl, along with the diminishing greens and lakes, makes the future of free public spaces extremely uncertain.
Left Photo Credit: X/@sahana_srik Bizarre restrictions in Public Parks of Bengaluru
Right Photo Credit: Sanat Kr Sinha Hawkers occupy the entire stretch of the footpath – no pedestrian pathways in College Street, Kolkata
A shift in political ideology exposes huge vulnerabilities in its civic spaces. The ongoing tension of the Left versus Right creates a state of duality with disjointed experiences in the city of Kolkata. Whereas, unchecked rapid neo-liberal expansion is eroding equity in Bengaluru’s public spaces.
Thus, the design of our cities cannot remain apolitical. Political indulgences are necessary to create rooted spaces which are inclusive, honouring the past, responding to the present, and accommodating the future of our cities.
“The street is a room of agreement.”1 Kahn’s quip at his AIA Gold Medal acceptance speech holds as true today as it did in 1971.
The quintessential Indian street is methodical madness personified. Heisenberg’s (1927) ‘Atomic Uncertainty Principle’ largely extends, in hypothesis, to the moving elements of the streetscape – we cannot accurately predict, at any one given moment in time, its exact nature. The street itself is occupied and claimed by numerous other independent actors and self-made processes.2
Unlike the European street model with crystal cut demarcations for motorists, cyclists, pedestrians, HMVs, etc., the Indian street also accounts for variables that cannot be monitored so closely. Livestock, street performers, street vendors, rickshaws, automobiles, pedestrians, and the like, all exist in harmonious disarray, moving at mismatched paces. Their coordination is unpractised and indeterminate, yet unanimous and accommodating.
“….there is nothing simple about that order itself, or the bewildering number of components that go into it. Most of those components are specialized in one way or another. They unite in their joint effect upon the sidewalk, which is not specialized in the least. That is its strength.” 3
Herein lies the unspoken agreements of the spaces they intend to occupy to perform their individual process. In this context it’s important to recognise that rules need not be written, nor do they result from formal legal procedures (with respect to informal interactions and space usage).4 When you enter a street, you are inevitably a part of this agreement. Fractional decisions – to swerve, to avoid, to give way, or to participate, exist in the background, and the result of these instantaneous decisions, culminate in the foreground.
The entropy of this “room of agreement” can also be observed over a larger timeline. For instance, over the course of a year, the Indian street transforms from a place of congregation, to annual festival celebrations, mourning, religious processions, etc., on a cyclical timeline.
Man in any civilization, age old, has been either actively or passively contesting for space with his neighbor. Streets are not “public goods” but “rivalrous goods.” Everyone is competing for their own space. This has transformed the Indian street into spatial slices with multiple users at any given moment in time.
How do we account for these known unknowns? The very concept is a paradox! Do we consider these minute interactions on the drawing board when we plan our cities, structure our roads and build our private homes? Are you able to recognise the unspoken agreements that you are a part of?
Fontainhas is a unique case where boundaries between private and public are blurred due to various spatial and social factors. Accredited as a UNESCO Heritage Zone in 1984, the area is known for its colourful Indo-Portuguese houses, narrow lanes, and pedestrian-friendly scale that evoke a ‘slice of European charm in India’. Fontainhas’ charm lies not only in its architectural quality but also in its scale and rhythm of everyday life. What used to be a quaint residential area with 4-5 tourists strolling reflectively is now crowded with 25-40 people at once. Tourists have increased significantly in recent years, transforming the everyday spatial interactions of the area. This contrast of everyday lived-in experience with a curated heritage image for tourism is transforming the area’s public and private boundaries.
Whether privately or publicly owned, spaces tied to heritage hold public significance, but scholars such as Kohn (2004) and Madanipour (2003) challenge this rigid binary of public and private space, suggesting instead a spectrum, where quasi-public spaces emerge1. This is defined as a privately owned area that is designed and managed to function like a public space. Streets and pathways are open and publicly accessible, yet deeply embedded in the private lives of residents. The hidden layers – stepped pathways, sloping alleys, and informal routes known only to residents add to the space’s charm. Small hawkers selling fruits and ice cream crowd the touristy lanes as residents walk to their everyday tasks. This shared use adds to the complexity of the space. According to MoHUA, in a heritage precinct, the legal status of private property can be transformed by designation, effectively making private spaces accessible to the public or subject to public oversight and regulations2.
Tourists in Fontainhas do not engage with private homes directly but through visual means by photographing thresholds and facades, and spatially by loitering outside Balcãos and doorways. The ‘public’ and ‘private’ here become extremely hard to define, but at its core, it’s different user groups’ demand for inclusion in the same space. It becomes necessary to regulate heritage areas towards harmonious and sustainable development3. What is everyday spatial interaction for residents becomes a tourist attraction through its shared but distinct use, transforming private facades into public spectacles. The everyday practices of some residents, like maintaining outdoor gardens and pathways, become an integral part that adds to the publicness of the area. While the public enjoys the aesthetic of the space, the burden of upkeep and inconveniences, such as blocked roads or loss of privacy, falls solely on residents. No incentives are provided to the owners of the heritage houses for maintenance and repairs4. This poses a larger question of who benefits from the heritage. If private spaces are put to public use without public rights and freedom, is it still a public space?
As heritage increasingly narrows its focus on tourism, space risks being frozen in time. This raises critical questions: Who is this heritage for? How does heritage blur the boundary between public and private spaces? The case of Fontainhas highlights the complex interplay of public and private realms. As urban heritage continues to expand, the balance between preservation, public enjoyment, and private life demands thoughtful governance. One that responds both to the rights of residents while acknowledging the cultural value these spaces offer to the wider public. What we need is people-first, adaptive heritage thinking5. We must advocate against freezing places in time. This means recognising that heritage values and contemporary needs are not in conflict, and in the blurring of public and private, it’s the people who make the space.
– Written by Ashmita Gupta, Senior Fellow
Footnotes:
Li, Juan, et al. “Defining the Ideal Public Space: A Perspective from the Publicness.” Journal of Urban Management, vol. 11, no. 4, Sept. 2022, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jum.2022.08.005. ↩︎
Chapter-8 Conservation of heritage sites including heritage buildings, heritage precincts and natural feature areas. ↩︎
Conservation of Heritage Areas in the City of Panaji: A Case Study of Fontainhas Area by Shaikh Ali Ahmed, Dr. B. Shankar, IJMER, vol. 2, no. 2, Apr 2012 pp-442-446 ↩︎
The Goa (Regulation of Land Development and Building Construction) Act, and The Goa Land Development and Building Construction Regulation, 2010 ↩︎
Conservation and the Indian city: Bridging the Gap, edited by Poonam V. Mascarenhas & Vinayak Bharne ↩︎
“Today, our nation is gradually beginning to realise that the process of urbanisation is much more than just the breakdown of Calcutta, or the overcrowding of Kanpur, or the traffic problems of Bombay—it is a phenomenon of unique scope and dimension, one which is going to change fundamentally the nature of our lives. From it will emerge the central, political, human and moral issues of our times, precipitated by the rising expectations of the millions upon millions of our people who want to find a better future.“
-National Commission on Urbanisation, 1988
The growing urban population, especially in medium-size cities! Image source : A New Landscape (1985) page 18.
Nearly 40 years later the report by the National Commission on Urbanisation (1985-1988) exists as a mere reflection of itself. It now lingers as faint murmurs within the syllabus for future IAS officers with fragments finding their way into Indian policy but failing to make a significant enough impact, as its vision remains unfulfilled.
“This is a story of re-habilitation — one of the most urgent needs in our cities and towns today.”
Drawing from the condition of Bostonian neighborhoods in the 1950s, Charles Correa made a 10 minute animated film titled “You and Your Neighborhood: The Story of Urban Rehabilitation”. Using hand drawn images and diagrams, he presented this film along with a 30-page report as his final Master’s thesis at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1955.
A photo essay exploring Correa’s collaborative projects with artists, highlighting how murals integrate with his architecture.
As a contemporary architect, Correa’s architecture is infused with various forms of art. One such relationship is between his architecture and mural paintings. “It started first when we moved into CCA office. We didn’t know what to do with a protruding column. The usual thing is to hide it in a cupboard or perhaps make a false ceiling, but then we thought it seemed like a tree so why not celebrate it and paint it like a tree? That is what we did and this experience we carried over to other projects.” Correa always believed that architecture must address issues beyond the purely empirical and functional, and instead tackle meaning and symbolism in new and profound ways.
Charles Correa overseeing the Mural by Bhiwandkar at IUCAA, Pune Photo: copyright, Charles Correa Associates, courtesy Charles Correa Foundation
With the rise in transport infrastructure projects, in the name of nation-building, the informal economies continue to bear the brunt of ‘public purpose’ projects.
“Internal displacement is the great tragedy of our time. The internally displaced people are among the most vulnerable of the human family” – Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary General
For decades, India has been experiencing immense pressure on its transport infrastructure to meet the growing demand of its population. The aggressive approach to transport infrastructure development coupled with a lack of sustainable urbanisation policies has resulted in issues such as congestion pollution, overcrowding and accidents while also excluding accessibility for the economically weaker sections, women and disabled people. One of the major consequences of the rather disorderly and haphazard construction of such transport infrastructures, and which is the subject of discussion here, is the displacement of communities, particularly of the informal economies.
The flight and plight of Gender and Mobility in Urban India
Why are footpaths, a mandatory infrastructure, designed as an afterthought to vehicles and commercial establishments? Photo by The Hindu
The intersection of gender and movement in urban India reveals a complex and often overlooked aspect of city life, shaping experiences and opportunities for individuals across the spectrum. Transportation forms the backbone of daily life, enabling access to work, education, healthcare and social activities. However, the reality is that transportation systems often fail to address the diverse needs of women, men, and gender minorities equally. In this exploration of gender and movement in Urban India, we delve into the significance of transportation as not just a means of getting from point A to point B, but as a reflection of societal norms and a crucial factor in ensuring the freedom of movement and well being of all individuals.
A commentary on the approach to designing/building mobility infrastructure in urban India with a focus on the neglected spaces below the flyovers.
The solution to traffic congestion woes — Flyovers! Photo: Suyashi Paliwal
In Indian cities, flyovers define ‘modernity’. Over the past four decades, our cities have evolved to revolve around automobiles with their prime focus on how to cater to the demands of vehicular movement and decrease congestion on roads. Planning and development agencies have fetishised the construction of flyovers for years — in reality however, they are only a temporary respite from traffic woes. Constructed at great speed, flyovers are still looked at as engineering projects, rather than holistic urban interventions that effectively alter not just the movement of vehicles, but the urban fabric permanently. The ‘negative’ space created underneath these structures is something that is seldom thought about or at best put an afterthought to.
Mobility in urban India can be defined as the capability to move from one location to another influenced by the push ( i.e. outflux of people) and the pull ( i.e. influx of people) factor. The need for a better livelihood and an elevated socio-economic environment often supervises these factors of pull whereas the scarcity of basic domestic services and employment viability provide the push for the city’s inhabitants. The public transportation system often serves as the performative nerve connecting people from their houses to the areas of employment in the city and also formulates a kinetic perception of its morphology.
“An equally important facet of the right to life is the right to livelihood because no person can live without the means of livelihood.” — Excerpt from the unanimous judgement of The Supreme Court of India in Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation.
Nagari 2021 addresses the subject of people and livelihoods in Indian cities in an attempt not only to use film as a medium to narrate the issues, but really to expand an understanding of the subject and extend its representation and relevance.
Film as a medium has played an important role in generating awareness on social issues. This blog lists films that draw parallels to this years’ subject of scrutiny. The list of course is not exhaustive, but is a collection of films – suggestions made by the mentors of Nagari Short Film Competition 2021 and the Charles Correa Foundation.
Film as a medium has played an important role in generating awareness on social issues. This blog is a list of films that address housing and issues related to housing infrastructure in India. It is not an exhaustive list but a short collection of films available in the public domain.
An under-construction, large scale housing project, similar to the kind found in Gurgaon. Photograph: Gurinder Osan/Associated Press
I am Gurgaon. The new Urban India (2009) – Directed by Marije Meerman
Gurgaon is a satellite city of New Delhi, situated in the neighbouring state of Haryana. Strict controls on ownership and land-use in Delhi, coupled with Gurgaon’s proximity and connectivity to the capital, has led to large global investment.
This film is an insight into the aspirations of Gurgaon’s urban elite and their idea of an ideal lifestyle, particularly that of a ‘dream home’ — one that promises security, exclusivity and portrays a specific social identity among homogeneous members of this strata of society. This aspiration is represented through a distinct architectural typology — the ‘gated community’.
A ‘gated community’ by definition is a housing project that is independent from the rest of the urban grain by a compound wall and gate, with many amenities normally present within a conventional neighbourhood available to residents inside the wall.
Through the film Meerman develops a nuanced narrative on how in a developer-driven urban context, the city of Gurgaon, has favoured infrastructure for a fragment of its society. It highlights how citizens of the same socio-economic strata invest in creating walled residential housing. This form of development has led to vast disparity, where a minority of the society has benefited from opulent living conditions, and at the same time, uninhabitable conditions for the household help, nannies, security, etc.
In this 48 minute film, the director tries to highlight how, privatisation of the city creates unfortunate divides between the private and public domain, this process eradicates the sense of community and inculcates divisions that lead to inequality.
A still from the film ‘State of Housing’ showing the vast disparity in the landscape of urban housing in India
State of Housing in India (2018) – Directed by Sanjiv Shah
The 40 minute film reviews the current housing crisis in India and makes apparent that a large proportion of India’s population is homeless, displaced, or resides in inadequate housing. It stresses on the major factors that lead to displacement, using statistical data to create a concise, yet comprehensive understanding of the situation.
The ‘State of Housing’ exhibition for which this film was made, was the first major exhibition focused on housing as policy. Through a series of interviews, Shah attempts to shed light on the plight of poor and displaced citizens who migrate to cities to find temporary relief, with a hope for better and more sustainable living conditions.
An interview that touched us is of social activist Manoranjan Byapari, a former Bangladeshi refugee who now resides in Kolkata. Byapari’s perspective of a home is that of ownership, to him living in a flat or living as an immigrant does not quantify a home. A plot of his own — one where the land, people, the environment and culture all connect is one where he can feel secure and safe and call his own.
Shah’s film is interesting because it not only situates the problem, but also presents the work of a few architects, designers and social workers from diverse parts of India, who are working to improve the state of housing in their cities.
Vertical City (2011) – Directed and filmed by Avijit Mukul Kishore
This 34 minute film attempts to provide a visual narrative of an architectural typology which has emerged as the ideal housing model for slum rehabilitation in India.
The narrative is told through the story of a community who find themselves “rehabilitated” from a slum, out to a high rise housing project far away, accompanied by assurances of better living conditions. Most members of this community live in joint families and earn around ₹4,000 a month, they are unable to make ends meet and the infrastructure of the “rehabilitation apartment” begins to deteriorate.
Through interviews, Kishore presents the voices of experts, activists, architects and authorities. Each give their opinion on slum rehabilitation, government policies and the ground reality. There is a specific focus on the apathy of the state, when it comes to providing adequate living conditions to its poor and vulnerable. These voices are narrated as the camera flies over the abysmal living condition in the slum rehabilitation apartments, the infrastructure is incomplete, with dingy corridors, facilities that do not work, unplanned services and a dearth of spaces for social and community interaction.
Stills from the film highlighting the characteristic elements slum rehabilitation housing
“Adequate housing was recognized as part of the right to an adequate standard of living in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.”1
Housing as a concept is not limited to shelter, or having a roof over your head. And it’s not a matter of affordability either. Housing is one of the most important life components giving shelter, safety and warmth, as well as providing a place to rest with dignity and security. The right to housing adequacy attempts to holistically develop the concept of housing such that it moves beyond the number game of space and affordability to present a list of key elements that need to be considered to make housing adequate.
Photo: Rajesh Vora
Adequate housing is universally viewed as one of the most basic human needs. The right to adequate housing is one of the economic, social and cultural rights to have gained increasing attention and promotion, not only from the human rights bodies but also from the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements. The United Nations Declaration on Social Progress and Development (1969) and the United Nations Vancouver Declaration on Human Settlements (1976) recognize a universal right to adequate housing. The right to adequate housing includes ensuring access to adequate services, extending but not limited to seven important elements: legal security of tenure, availability of services, materials, facilities and infrastructure, affordability, habitability, accessibility, location and cultural adequacy.
What do these terms mean? Consider “security of tenure”, a major obstacle to ensuring this facet of adequate housing is eviction. “Protection against forced evictions is a key element of the right to adequate housing and is closely linked to security of tenure.”1According to the 2011 Census, there are 1.77 million homeless people in India which make up around 0.15% of the population. A report published by the Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN), estimates that about 190,000 Indian people get evicted from their homes every year. and as many as 14.9 million face a threat of eviction and displacement. To counter this extreme condition of urbanity, the right to housing adequacy insists that Nations take responsibility to ensure that evictions are only permitted in exceptional circumstances, and adhere to the UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on Development-based Evictions and Displacement, the International policy along with reinforcement through National and State level law and governance intends to provide protection to vulnerable persons and affected groups.
The right to adequate housing attempts to establish the connection between health and dwelling, it recognizes that secure shelter and basic sanitation are essential for living a healthy and stable life. Key elements to recognize housing adequacy include the availability of services, materials, facilities and infrastructure. “In India it is estimated that 17 percent of the urban population currently has no access to any sanitary facilities at all, while 50–80 percent of wastewater is disposed of without any treatment.”2 Furthermore, a WaterAid report in 2016 ranked India among the worst countries in the world for the number of people without safe water. An estimated 76 million people in India have no access to a safe water supply, and the situation is only getting more serious. The right to adequate housing ensures that housing encompasses sustainable access to natural and common resources, clean drinking water, energy for cooking, heating and lighting, sanitation and washing facilities, site drainage and emergency services.
Source: 2013_State of Housing in India_A Statistical Compendium_MHUPA; 2011_Report of the Technical Group on Urban Housing Shortage(TG-12)
Housing has always been closely associated with affordability. The case of India is particularly lacking in this regard. The Urban Housing Shortage (households) in 2012 was 18.78 Million, 56% of this total came from the economically weaker section with a monthly income of up to ₹5000, 40% from the lower income group with a monthly income between ₹5000 to ₹10000 and the remaining 4% comes from the middle income group with a monthly income of above ₹10000. The right to adequate housing establishes the need to develop affordable housing for all income groups by providing the citizens a greater expanse of policies and fiscal benefits to buy/build a house. “The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) and the Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY) that precluded it, are initiatives of the Government of India which aim to provide affordable housing to the urban poor by the year 2022. The RAY scheme was launched in 2011, and amended into the PMAY in 2015. The interest rate for the PMAY scheme starts at an interest subsidy of 6.5 percent on housing loans availed upto a tenure of 15 years”3, these government initiatives attempt to generate positive externalities of consumption through housing. PMAY aims to develop affordable housing in a public-private sector partnership and promote affordable housing for urban poor through credit linked subsidy. However the rollout has faced multiple hurdles. “At this rate, it will take 66 years to achieve a target of 10 million units, 120 years to build 18 million units”.4
Another key component of the right to adequate housing is habitability of housing. According to the WHO, habitable houses should comply with health and safety standards; including providing the inhabitants with adequate space, “protection against cold, damp, heat, rain, wind or other threats to health and structural hazards.”1 Habitability ensures inhabitants the needed space to live in dignity and peace, as well as protection from natural elements, structural hazards and disease vectors which threaten their physical well-being. Indian habitability standards are developed by respective National and State housing agencies and lack international applicability. The right to adequate housing understands that humans are the direct beneficiary of habitability and that there is a need to evolve habitability standards that reflect the perceptions, expectation, and satisfaction of humans in line with their unique multi-cultural residential landscape.
“Urban inequality is a blight experienced by many cities, even in the developed world. In developing countries like India, these social and economic inequalities become even more pronounced, with living conditions in certain populations crossing the line to the abysmal”5. The Indian society is highly stratified and hierarchical in character. The stratified and hierarchical nature of Indian society involves institutional processes that economically and socially exclude, discriminate, isolate and deprive some groups on the basis of characteristics like caste, ethnicity or religious background. The right to adequate housing promotes the development of housing that is free from discriminatory practices against the disadvantaged or the marginalized. It tries to establish housing as a practice that does not restrict accessibility in any way, shape or form.
The right to adequate housing has an important focus on ‘location’, this not only establishes the need for available employment opportunities, health-care services, schools, childcare centres and other social facilities but also ensures that housing is not displaced in zones of extreme pollution or conflict. According to the National Disaster Management Plan 2019 (NDMP), 68% of India’s land is prone to drought, 60% to earthquakes, 12% to floods and 8% to cyclones, this makesIndia one of the most disaster prone countries in the world, affecting 85% of Indian geography and more than 50 million people. Considering the influence of social, cultural, climatic and economical factors, location becomes a key aspect in determining whether the conditions of adequate housing are being met. Furthermore, the right to adequate housing ensures the expression of cultural identity. Since culture is not a constant, it keeps changing and also accommodates changes. People tend to have changes in their aspirations — and accordingly culture, due to the influence from neighbouring cultures, education, globalisation, economic empowerment or other parameters. The expression of culture and its identity is also enshrined as a key element in determining the adequacy of housing.
“Human rights are interdependent, indivisible and interrelated. In other words, the violation of the right to adequate housing may affect the enjoyment of a wide range of other human rights and vice versa.”1 The World Health Organization has asserted that housing is the single most important environmental factor associated with disease conditions and higher mortality and morbidity rates. Having access to adequate, safe and secure housing substantially strengthens the likelihood of people being able to enjoy certain additional rights. Housing is a foundation from which other legal entitlements can be achieved which makes the right to adequate housing a fundamental right that needs to be recognized and practiced in equal spirits.
In order to combat the rapid spread of COVID-19 in India, the government has extended the nationwide lockdown up to 3rd May 2020.
One of the biggest concerns in the country right now is the distribution of food supplies and essential commodities. In Indian cities, with large income inequalities, servicing these huge numbers equitably becomes a logistical impossibility. Last-mile door-to-door services have become essential systems to get supplies to every individual.
With commodities becoming scarce, people of privilege start to hoard, and consequently, prices rise. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy which affects the urban poor the most, many of whom work on a daily wage. This has resulted in a much-documented exodus of migrant workers from their workplace to their villages1. With inter-state movement seized, coupled with the lack of availability of labour — stocks of fresh food supplies are rapidly diminishing. Many local markets lie desolate — potential signs of an acute food shortage.
The lockdown has once again brought to the surface, the gross inequity in Indian cities. Millions of men, women and children are now dependent on the government or charitable trusts for every meal. Raghu Karnad writes in the New Yorker about how this time offers us an opportunity to rethink the way our cities work 2.
Temporary market that is set up every alternate morning (8-11 AM) at Nirmal lifestyle residency, Mulund, Mumbai.
This re-imagination of Indian cities has been coming for a long time and has to be addressed on several verticals. One avenue which can be explored is the way the lockdown has prompted ( at least for the upper and middle class in Indian metro cities) the opportunity of new supply chains. The supply of produce that was previously zoned, distributed and procured at the end by consumers is now available every alternate day at one’s doorstep.
SUPPLY CHAINS IN TIMES OF CORONAVIRUS
A temporary market observing social distancing rules at Vasant Oscar, Mulund, Mumbai
pre-packaged vegetable orders (₹700) delivered together at Runwal Greens, Mulund, Mumbai.
A temporary market observing social distancing rules at Vasant Oscar, Mulund, Mumbai and pre-packaged vegetable orders (₹700) delivered together at Runwal Greens, Mulund, Mumbai.
Our tryst with COVID-19 has promoted previously unprecedented networks of independent, un-aided, customised supply chains that bind several small scale, last-mile service operations with the large-scale cross border movement of essential commodities.
Last-mile delivery of supplies is not new to our cities. India has had a long-standing system of daily fresh milk delivery. Families have independent relationships with local dairies — milk is delivered as per their required quantity, schedules and choice. In Goa, we have the “poder”, a bread delivery man who goes door to door twice a day delivering fresh bread to every household.
The current lock-down situation has coerced daily commodities like bread, eggs, fruits, vegetables and oil to be delivered in a similar fashion. The mercurial rise of e-commerce and delivery apps like Swiggy and Zomato has now set up systems of local delivery boys, App-based ordering and WhatsApp savvy hawkers. Some enterprising businesses have created supply chains based on orders, locations and timetables, creating a direct link with the customer. The increased logistical demand for this system has given impetus on communities scheduling and acquiring essentials together. , reducing the need to move around within the city.
SUPPLY CHAINS IN SUBURBAN MUMBAI
In this context, let’s discuss the case of Mulund (West) a suburb of Mumbai. Mulund is primarily a residential suburb, on the foothills of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, it is dominated by large housing complexes that house the middle class, shopping complexes, fast food chains and recreational activities. A gridiron plan was designed by architects Crown & Carter in 1922, which extends from present-day Mulund railway station to Paanch Rasta road Junction in Mulund (West), housing the Mulund Market, the suburb is serviced by the Eastern Express Highway.
Mapping supply routes, Mulund, Mumbai
Due to the lockdown, the suburb has been cut-off from the highway — the supply chain which was previously centralized at the Mulund market has now been decentralised due to the collective efforts of the municipality, local police, retailers, vendors, society secretaries and residents. Internal circulation routes for supply trucks have been set, where every alternate day, residents receive essential supplies at a fixed time right outside their societies. The Mulund market has been declared a pedestrian zone, this decongests the route during essential supply hours. Local hawkers and temporary delivery services from pharmacies, supermarkets and grocery stores enable greater penetration of the supply chain. Moreover, these services enable the restriction of procurement-based mobility with great ease whilst maintaining social distancing. The police barricading combined with the efficiency of supply completely quarantined all mobility within smaller zones, and, till now, has succeeded in restricting the spread of the pandemic whilst producing avant-garde supply chains.
The following illustrations present new emerging delivery networks in Mulund, Mumbai. The red line illustrates the traditional method of procurement, propagating individual mobility, whereas the green line denotes the services that now coordinate the supply of essentials, focusing on groups of people based on their location.
Illustrating new supply chains, Marathon Galaxy Towers, Mulund, Mumbai
Not so long ago, the world was looking into the possibility of drone deliveries, these systems require greater expenditure in the form of capital than of labour. The ease of access and fast, high precision delivery service shall definitely create an entirely new ethos of supply chains for essential products, health care emergencies, war-zones and remote locations.
Holistically speaking, when it comes to the contextual cases of third world metropolises like Mumbai, we can learn a lot from these avant-garde adaptations our supply chains have made. The patterns observed under the current COVID-19 lockdown suggest that zonal iterations to our current supply chains with local integration of distribution shall serve to present a great model even post the pandemic has eclipsed.
The avant-garde supply chains produced as a byproduct of COVID-19 illustrate the evolution of supply chains as a naturally decentralised model within the developing world.
THE CCF CHALLENGE:
We want to understand the supply chain in your neighbourhood. We challenge individuals to map:
‘New’ Supply chains that have emerged in their immediate surroundings.
Your vision of the ‘Future Normal’ in commodity supply.
You can use any medium to represent — write, photograph, sketch, video, render or simply doodle! It would be great if you could accompany the mapping project with a brief write up that explains the context, your observations and predictions explaining the emergence of these avant-garde supply chains.
Use the hashtag #CCFSupplyChallenge and tag us @charlescorreafoundation on Instagram. We shall feature and discuss unique observations on our social media pages and website.
REFERENCES
1. Article on the problems faced by migrant labourers by Sahil Joshi for India Today:
A list of recommended readings from the CCF library to help you get through the lockdown.
’21 DAYS OF SOLITUDE’ is a project focusing on our present sequestration, and reflecting on our dependence on public space in urban areas. Undertaken by the Charles Correa Foundation Fellows to engage interests in the writings of urbanists, we are focusing on writings that we are familiar with — writings that cover a broad spectrum of topics like public space in cities, building urban communities and urban planning, spatial narratives, memoirs, architecture and visual theory, to whet your interest and concern, and to stimulate discussion.
“Analysis of Google Trends data shows that in the past one month, the search term ‘coronavirus’ was explored most frequently by people in Goa (more than any state in India). On Google Trends, Goa had a score of 100, which means that the percentage of people searching for information on the virus through Google was the highest in the country.”1
“Project for the new city of Goa to be built at the site of Panjim” executed and drawn by Joze de Morais Antas Machado, infantry sergeant-major and engineer, in March 1776, by order of the Ill. and Ex. Snr. D. Jozé Pedro da Camara Governor and Captain General of India”2
Goa is an interesting case — while being India’s smallest State, “populated by approximately 1.5 million people; it receives almost 8 million visitors annually”.3 According to the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Goa is also India’s most Urbanised State!
The countermeasures adopted began with an advisory from the Union health ministry, suggesting a postponement of all mass functions, including seminars and conferences, followed by the closure of all educational institutions including schools, colleges as well as casinos, spas, gymnasiums, swimming pools, cinema halls and pubs by the State Government followed by a nationwide curfew on 22nd of march declared by the Prime Minister and as of the midnight of 24th March, India has announced a 21-day lock-down to check the on-going spread of the novel Coronavirus (COVID – 19).
As India prepares its arsenal to combat Coronavirus, we look at the history of cities and the deeply rooted connection between urban planning and epidemics/pandemics.
The truth is that the developments in our urban infrastructure and planning are direct results of pandemics. Ian Klaus (2020) says that “Modern planning and civil engineering were born out of the mid-19th century development of sanitation in response to the spread of malaria and cholera in cities.”4Conversely, public health officials have been an integral part of upgrading our cities.
In the case of Goa, Celsa Pinto in her book ‘Colonial Panjim’ (2017) illustrates two incidents in the 19th century: The first, in 1822, a complaint was raised by residents Diogo de Costa Fernandes and Antonio de Souza expressing apprehensions over poor waste management leading to epidemics. The second in 1855-56 was a special effort by the Health Department to tackle sanitation problems as the debris and organic waste thrown by inhabitants gave rise to diseases like conjunctivitis, angina, tuberculosis, etc.
Scène de la peste de 1720 à la Tourette (Marseille) by Catalan-born French painter Michel Serre
As the great plague of Marseilles moved inexorably northward (1720), it approached the Papal territories around Avignon. In an effort to stop its spread, the Pope and the King of France agreed to build a two-meter-high stone wall from near Mt. Ventoux to the Durance River.
The great plague of Marseilles (1720), the cholera pandemic in Asia (1820), the Spanish Flu (1920) are examples of how medieval and industrial cities were forced to implement planning practices to aid in disease quarantine and how post-pandemic, management of water and waste helped remake cities. Moreover, in contemporary conditions of our globalised world, pandemics drastically reflect the shortcomings of our cities. The infrastructure needed to combat epidemics has almost always been an afterthought.
A major problem during the Ebola virus disease epidemic in Liberia was that the exact actions performed during these sacred rituals such as ‘Decoration Day’ also helped to cause further transmission of the disease. Strict regulations on handling the bodies of Ebola victims evolved in response to this problem.
We rethought our connectivity as a city building fundamental post-SARS pandemic. Ebola made us conscious of the coexistence of our cities and the impossibility of mass quarantine. As India begins to get conscious of the corona pandemic, waves of xenophobia sweep the tourist hotspot of Goa, moreover the bordering states, as well as the international connectivity, illustrate the amorphous nature of our cities and urban centres. It took the emergency response services and police around 45 days from the reports of the corona pandemic in India, 30 days from the initial corona infection reports, 15 days post the temporary shutting of some services and 2 days post a nationwide curfew to close the borders between Goa, and its neighbouring states of Karnataka and Maharashtra.
Large-scale cleaning operations were carried out at a number of housing estates badly affected by SARS photo: Martin Chan
Residents were only allowed to return to their homes in Amoy Gardens when the quarantine was lifted in the middle of April of 2003. Photo: Robert NG
In many ways the fundamental planning strategy that we need to factor is density. Rethinking density management is key for long-term survival in a pandemic-prone world. India is home to a large number of informal settlements. How do we manage density in such a scenario? How do we map an outbreak? How do we quarantine areas and cut off physical contact? One can potentially rely on using the democratic planning method — local mapping and using communities to source data. However, much like Wikipedia, decentralising information and data gathering bring with it credibility issues, with no way of sourcing primary information, all urban knowledge acquired shall present an inadequate picture of ground realities at best. Furthermore, India’s porous and informal borders coupled with shifting trends of internal migration within the state and country coupled with a steady inflow of tourists from around the world raise the larger planning-oriented question: is density even a controllable parameter in Indian cities?
The network of railways in India penetrates thousands of small villages, towns and developing rural landscapes. Multiple trade routes propagate and latency of mass transportation developing long supply chains and multiple access routes.
India needs higher standards in public health and planning. Contextual planning demands the decentralisation of essential services as a pragmatic response to pandemics. In cases of pandemics, Indian cities — with our inadequate planning, transportation systems and given the scale of our urban assemblies, have become hotbeds for mass infection. Amidst mass hysteria, and when our systems and responses fail, there has to be an inquiry into the shortcomings of our planning practices. “Singapore had to shut down its main hospitals during SARS. Many countries such as Italy are considering door-to-door testing. But we need to also rethink the ways, perhaps digital ones, we test and contain.”4 The door to door testing model would fail in Goa, with millions of mobile tourists, and in cities like Mumbai and Delhi with upwards of 10 million inhabitants, even temporary quarantine is a distant dream.
The Wuhan Tianhe International Airport is a large airport in China. It is an international airport and serves the area of Hubei, China. Wuhan Airport has non-stop passenger flights scheduled to 94 destinations in 19 countries. Usually, there are 65 domestic flights from Wuhan.5
The coronavirus first spread through a market at Wuhan. Wuhan is an extremely important transportation and international trade centre. The rapid urbanisation of Chinese cities has made them attractive destinations for Chinese workers; urbanisation enables higher densities as the planning process starts to strategize for public gatherings and mass transportation. The physical output of these strategies creates spaces that would enable the spread of infectious diseases at an exponential rate, moreover, the squatters created in developing countries are particularly susceptible to mass infections. Equally, with major transportation and trade routes now connecting India by land and air there is a blurring distinction between urban and rural in terms of the supply chain of products. Pandemics aren’t simply a by-product of globalisation; they are in fact a very stern reminder of connections, economics and participation of global cities with all other areas within a country. The story of Wuhan teaches us that rapid growth cannot be sustainable unless there is an investment in social and technical infrastructure that develops with the pace of urbanisation. Yes, there is a great monetary advantage in mobility and infrastructures that address to it but outbreaks like the coronavirus pandemic do denote that what we’ve been sold as desirable urbanisation is contrary with what makes sense from an infectious disease perspective, “quarantined mega-cities and cruise ships demonstrate what happens when our globalised urban lives come grinding to a halt.”4
A view of Mumbai’s Bandra-Worli sea link over the Arabian Sea as seen during a 14-hour lockdown to limit the spread of coronavirus. Photo: Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters
As the Indian lock-down progresses, citizens quarantine themselves and mobility is restricted, the deserted urban fabric starts to reveal itself onto the foreground. Infrastructure begins to support a non-existing assembly of people as vegetation reclaims space and nature thrives. Our cities as of this moment are denoting, with extreme precision, the presence, absence and shortcomings of planning and space management at micro and macro scales. As we immerse into a national quarantine, the infrastructure around us is truly tested. Cities are centres developed around mobility and connections, but what happens when these connections are methodically severed? What results would isolation create in a mobile world? Are we to increasingly adopt newer planning practices or are we to focus on planning for emergencies? The deserted reality of our urban fabric today presents us with opportunities for observation. A rare insight into discerning the elemental framework of our urban infrastructure under pandemic pressures and in the vast emptiness.
A view of Kolkata’s iconic Howrah Bridge during the 14-hour curfew to limit the spread of coronavirus. Photo: Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters
The larger point that the pandemics steer our focus towards is when the outbreak shall be halted and bans lifted and the world resumes as normal, there still needs to be a great degree of research and understanding into the relationship between the spread of infectious diseases and urbanisation. There are two aspects that we need to focus on. “One, we need to grasp where disease outbreaks occur and how they relate to the physical, spatial, economic, social and ecological changes brought on by urbanisation.”4There is a direct relationship between contemporary urbanisation and potential pandemic outbreaks. The coronavirus and its effects over our planet are streamlining our focus towards the evaluation of the present conditions of our cities and its infrastructure, raising planning and contextual inquiries, forcing us to introspect and question what we really learn from rapid urbanisation and more importantly, is there a need to catalogue and curate the exploration of emerging urban landscapes?
In the wake of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, the CCF team came across a collection of maps that spatially visualise outbreaks, and did a little research around the analytics that illustrate pandemic movements. As it turns out, there has been an effort to document pandemics since as early as the 1600s.
Marie Patino’s article, ‘Coronavirus Outbreak Maps Rooted in History’ shares these historic maps enabling us to understand the shift in data analytics and gathering from a more central approach towards radical democratisation of technology, catalysed through Internet access and data sharing.
This online dashboard was developed by Johns Hopkins University to track the 2019-20 COVID-19 outbreak. As of 31st January, it had racked up 52 million views, according to ESRI.1
‘Metabiota’ structures data from multiple health organisations to track on-going epidemics. It has also on-boarded and cleaned information about thousands of previous outbreaks.1
In the earliest documented disease map, Filippo Arrieta visualized the strategy for containing the spread of disease in the region of Bari, Italy 1690-92. (Controlling the geographical spread of infectious disease: plague in Italy, 1347-1851)1
Valentine Seaman, An Inquiry into the Cause of the Prevalence of the Yellow Fever in New York, in the Medical Repository, 1797. (Brian Altonen) 1
John Snow, Plan Showing the Ascertained Deaths from Cholera. The black bars represent deaths from the disease. (Wellcome Collection online archives) 1
Richard Grainger, Cholera Map of the Metropolis. 1849, 1850. Via the Wellcome Collection online archives. 1
Sections showing the relative intensity of the attack of cholera at the various levels along the lines marked on the cholera map. (Wellcome Collection online archives).1
Jay Hilotin’s photo essay, ‘Spanish flu 1918 v/s Covid-19′, shares interesting stills and glimpses depicting the on-ground reality of pandemics, within them is a map titled, ‘Worldwide Diffusion of Influenza’, which illustrates the second wave of the Spanish Influenza pandemic.
PATHS OF INFECTION: Map depicting the Spanish flu pandemic 1918, Patterson KD, Pyle GF, “The Geography and Mortality of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic.” Image Credit: Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 1991; 65(1): 4-21. 2
Historian Mark Osborne Humphries claims he had found “archival evidence” that a respiratory illness that struck northern China in November 1917. This illness was identified a year later by Chinese health officials as identical to the Spanish ‘flu. Humphries also found medical records which indicate that more than 3,000 of the 25,000 Chinese Labor Corps workers who were transported across Canada en route to Europe starting in 1917 ended up in medical quarantine, many with flu-like symptoms.
‘Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak’ in the New York Times, presents a constantly updating world map and illustrating the average number of new cases each day (for the last 7 days). It presents a great insight into how this strain of coronavirus propagates at a regional scale and presents an opportunity to document the global rise of the disease.
This is a screenshot of the New York Times coronavirus map, retrieved on 25 March 2020. Sources: Local Governments; The Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University; National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China; World Health Organization. 3
The map shows the known locations of coronavirus cases by US county. Circles are sized by the number of people there who have tested positive, which may differ from where they contracted the illness. Some people who travelled overseas were taken for treatment in California, Nebraska and Texas. Puerto Rico and the other U.S. territories are not shown. Sources: State and local health agencies, hospitals, C.D.C.3
Nikhil Rampal’s, the India Today Data Intelligence Unit (DIU), used Google Trends data, to try to measure the degree of curiosity around the deadly virus in India. This analysis denoted that, across India, the search term ‘coronavirus’ was explored most frequently by people in Goa. Goa had a score of 100, (which means that the percentage of people searching for information on the virus through Google was the highest in the country). According to Google Trends, values are calculated on a scale of 0 to 100, where 100 is the location with the most popularity as a fraction of total searches in that location, while a value of 50 indicates a location which is half as popular.
Graphic produced by India Today Data Intelligence Unit, based on Google Trends data.4
A further insight into the discourse on the situation and vision for Nossa Senhora Do Carmo, Chimbel.
Based on a talk at CCF by; Fernando Velho, Architect along with Erica De Mello, Student at Goa College of Architecture
This blog is the last in a series around the chapel of Mount Carmel, in Chimbel, a village in Goa. The context of Chimbel village can be understood from the blog ‘A Search for Commons in the Pressure of Growing Cities’ part 2 of the blog titled ‘Nossa Senhora Do Carmo’explains the role of this Chapel in the settlement and the steps a local architect, Fernando Velho has taken, in tandem with the villagers of Chimbel to breathe new life into the space.
Model of a design intervention overlayed with the ruins of Nossa Senhora Do Carmo Source: Erica De Mello / Goa College of Architecture
To stir up some imagination in the public consciousness, Fernando Velho invited Erica De Mello to present at the Charles Correa Foundation, Erica is a student of the Goa College of Architecture (GCA) who had recently proposed a design intervention in this very site. Erica’s design approach was guided by Mr. Sameep Padora who was a visiting professor at GCA, under the Charles Correa Chair. Erica’s proposal for the site was to turn it into an artists residency.
Artistic representation of how the proposed structure would look.
Source: Erica De Mello / Goa College of Architecture
Ruins with an Alternate Future
Erica spoke about approaching the existing structure through layers, in contrast to “follies” in English landscape, for example, the Capel Manor in England, where the designer constructed an artificial ruin, in contrast, here in Chimbel one can find an existing ruin. Erica tried to approach the structure and “to create within ruin”. Her proposal entailed:
Structural stabilization of the existing ruins.
Reconstruction, through a lightweight frame that gave the essence of the original space.
A public space which would have exhibition zones and facilities for the community.
Living and working spaces for the artists in residence.
Animation of the various design approaches, overlayed. Source: Erica De Mello / Goa College of Architecture
The proposed design would have various features which express reverence to the ruin while still creating conducive space for artists.
Representations of the spaces within the proposed design Source: Erica De Mello/ Goa College of Architecture
Discussions and Deliberations
The discussion after the talk was lively and interesting. Former Chief town planner of India Prof. Edgar Ribeiro commended the Chimbel Villagers for approaching the issue in a bottom-up approach and getting the support of the ward councillor (Pancha).
Edgar also clarified the terminology of an ‘archaeological park’. The Town and Country Planning Office, New Delhi envisioned this zone for places where there were a large number of important national monuments protected by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) in a fixed radius. Mehrauli was the first such archaeological park where Prof. Nalini Thakur from School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi oversaw the entire process. In the Regional Plan 2021, Old Goa is denoted as an Archaeological park because there are 14 ASI monuments in a close radius.
Prof. Edgar Ribeiro explaining the vision for an archaeological park. Source: Lester Silveira / The Balcaö
Arminio Ribeiro asked the Chimbel residents about their vision for the space. The residents discussed the possibility of preservation of the structure, and the amount of development they envisioned for this space.
The villagers recalled memories of feasts and christenings which used to happen at the site long after it was abandoned. A question arose as to why the church was eventually abandoned by the villagers.
Following the talk, a leader of the delegation of Chimbel residents, Mrs. Ana Gracias, asked Prof. Edgar Ribeiro and the CCF team if we could sit and discuss the issue in a private meeting. This meeting happened on the 29th of May. The meeting was attended by the leaders of the Mount Carmel Restoration Forum – a group formed from Chimbel residents, a priest from the Archdiocese of Goa, Edgar Ribeiro, Fernando Velho, and a few other architects.
In the meeting, The following steps were explored in regards to the way forward for the preservation of the structure. The ground reality is that the government does not see any site as heritage unless it finds mention in one of the State drawn plans, in this case, the site must reflect in the Goa Regional Plan 2031. There could be three possible approaches to get the site demarcated here.
Approaches towards conservation
1. As a National Protected Monument
It is extremely unlikely for this particular site to become a monument to be protected by the Central Act- ‘The Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act (or AMASR Act) , 1958’. It is not of national importance and the ASI presently protect over 3650 monuments.
2. As a State Protected Monument
There was discussion to list this site as a state protected monument and the villagers had already petitioned the Directorate of Archives and Archaeology (DAA) to take this case forward. The CCF team however feel that in listing the site as a state protected monument, the DAA becomes another important decision maker in any proposal for re-use of the site. This means any conservation effort would not only need permission from the owners of the site (Provedoria) but any maintenance or conservation done to the monument, would be subject to restrictive measures of ‘Restoration’ put forth in the ‘The Goa Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains (Amendment) Act, 2010’
3. Get the site on the list for Conservation.
The ‘Goa (Land Development and Building Construction) Act’. in section 6B.2.C has a section titled ‘List of Buildings and sites of Historic and Aesthetic Importance in State of Goa to be notified under these regulations’
There is merit in listing the site as conservation instead of preservation because the site can be developed out of the restrictive definitions within the ‘The Goa Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains (Amendment) Act, 2010’ , while still having to go through checks and balances put in place by the Conservation Study Committee of the Town and Country Planning Department, Goa.
Meeting between Prof. Edgar, Fernando, Clergy, and Chimbel residents on 29th May 2019 at the Charles Correa Foundation.
Vision for the site
The meeting concluded with the residents and architects contemplating a vision for the site in the near future. A consensus was reached to turning the 4000 square meters (that encompass the ruins and the access to them) into a park for Chimbel Village. Structural preservation would be implemented on the ruins and the rest of the space be notified as green space in the Regional Plan for Goa 2031.
In this regard the Charles Correa Foundation has written a letter in support of this initiative to the Minister of Town and Country Planning, Goa. On the 21st of June 2018, the Minister accepted the request of the Chimbel residents, citing the Charles Correa Foundation’s letter as documentation for significance of the site.
The Bigger Picture
Since 1984, in the state of Goa, no new structures have been listed for conservation. With the success of this initiative, the CCF team believes a precedent has been set. A successful listing and conservation of Nossa Senhora Do Carmo have illustrated that a building of heritage value deserves to be, and can be conserved through public demand.
In the context of Heritage sites in Goa, both ancient and relatively contemporary being threatened. And with certain elements in the State making a case for the demolition of one of the few equitable, civic buildings in the capital city of Goa, Panaji – Kala Academy, we believe, now more than ever it is important for us to be watchful and work to conserve our heritage spaces.
Do you know of a monument or site in your locality that deserves recognition? Write to us on connect@charlescorreafoundation.org and we can advise you on the way forward.
Animation of the various design approaches, overlayed.
