Sustainability has been at the heart of every project handled by conservation architect Abha Narain Lambah: be it the restoration of heritage sites like the Ajanta Caves, Golconda Fort, Crawford Market, or the Lalbagh Palace in
Sustainability has been at the heart of every project handled by conservation architect Abha Narain Lambah: be it the restoration of heritage sites like the Ajanta Caves, Golconda Fort, Crawford Market, or the Lalbagh Palace in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. In an interview with Lounge, she looks back at key moments and people that have shaped India’s architectural heritage over 75 years and the transition from the ideology-driven practices of the 1960s-70s to the aspiration-driven ones of the 2000s. Will this shift to a climate-responsive, sustainability-forward approach 25 years from now? Lambah hopes so. Edited excerpts:
You have often said architecture is a political statement. Why?
It is reflective of the politics and vision of a leader or regime. In India, in the early phases of colonisation, we saw the emergence of neoclassical architecture as a tool, for the British colonists were trying to impress upon the natives the glory of European civilisation. Thus even though the Parthenon was not an English building, its Greek classicism inspired copies among early colonial structures such as the Asiatic Library. Things changed after the 1857 mutiny and the transfer of power to the British crown; the Indo-Saracenic style was adopted for p