A heritage structure is not always found in a village or a suburban city. If it’s a part of the city, it’s a part of the cityscape and hence gets a lot of eyes on it. These eyes may or may not like it, but it is important to protect it no matter how many eyes it sores. It is up to the conservationists to make it relevant to the society which brings us a step closer towards conserving it and the heritage.

Yorkshire Brewery Tower/LOVELL CHEN, Architects and Heritage Consultants ©Lateral Architecture Photography

Heritage Architecture

Heritage is what you call something that acts as an existing or functioning pointer to the area’s history and culture. These buildings, pavilions, arches, pillars do not necessarily have to be historic-looking such as temples and palaces, even the post offices or bus stands belonging to the historic era can be considered as heritage.  These structures speak volumes in terms of the lifestyle and technologies of their time. They’re efficient tools to know and understand how the society worked in early times.

Heritage can be classified into two broad categories: tangible and intangible. The above-spoken structures are all tangible in an obvious manner. The intangible heritage consists of songs, dances, folklore, traditions, etc. The article will focus on how important a heritage structure is to an urban landscape, implying to its importance and the opportunities it brings in involving the society in its upbringing.

Relevance and Opportunities

The presence of a heritage structure in an urban landscape would mean that the cityscape needs to evolve in a way that compliments the locality’s history. A Dravidian temple in the midst of an urbanized scape or a gothic church amidst skyscrapers would belittle the worth and the legacy it stands for.
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There are various ways to protect the monument’s relevance to modern appeal. This in turn helps to grab people’s attention and in ways improve the economy in terms of tourism, and income of the small businesses of that locality. The process of conserving these heritage buildings not only sustains them but also provides an opportunity for the local artisans to put their skills to use and also teach the present generation the techniques, thus creating more and more minds to put sustainable methods of architecture to use. It’ll start an uprising of more culturally and environmentally sensible buildings suiting the location.

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Shore Temple ©www.blogvirasatehind.com

Our ancestors constructed their buildings in ways that they did for particular reasons other than being aesthetic. The reasons why we have folklore and traditions is to learn from their mistakes and better our methods, the same applies to architecture. Adopting western methods to construct our buildings that act as the face of our country especially at the cost of our original style delivers a false sense of authenticity. The heritage buildings amongst our urban landscape becomes the key to solutions that can be put to use when sensitized. Take out the aesthetic factor and turn it into something relevant to the time but with the functional aspects intact, we can make more sensible and responsible buildings.

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Ushayqer Heritage Architecture of Najd region, Saudi Arabia ©www.archilovers.com
Author

Sruthi is an avid daydreamer who is currently an architecture student in VIT . She always finds a way to escape reality , be it in books , movies or in creating something new . Her mind is always wandering over new possibilities of making the world a better place one step at time.