Across the country, and all too frequently, iconic modernist structures are slated for
demolitions. With few historic precedents to follow, conserving modernist architecture is a
highly contested terrain that has divided the architectural profession. Conserving and
adaptively reusing monuments of the near past requires new approaches far removed from
the goals of historic preservation.
There are few cities in the world with a comparable density of iconic modernist architecture as Ahmedabad. Created by larger than life practitioners many of these national projects tell the story of the initial decades of the nation. Yet today they stand threatened.
As nationalisms change, land values increase and cities expand in the era of global climate change these iconic modernist buildings became victims of their own rootlessness.
The studio proposes participants choose modernist monuments across
the city and adaptively reuse and refocus them as sites of urban transformation to create a
new civic urbanism for the post-industrial age.
The studio seeks to leverage architectural conservation as a means to not only conserve the
iconic sites of modernist architecture in Ahmadabad and but to integrate them further into
the local communities, use them as a means of urban transformation and thus secure their
historical legacies.
