One of the great things about heritage conservation is that it offers an opportunity to be creative, inventive and innovative. Imagine any one of our 3,700 cities and towns of India. Every building, road and structure that we put on the earth?s surface today will become part of our heritage. The whole of our past is our history and we are making history everyday. Therefore we need to consider very carefully what we add and where we insert buildings, roads and how we develop our cities ? for what we add today will become a layer of history representative of the 21st century in the future.

Consider the raison d?etre of any major city. Agra is what it is today because of the Taj Mahal. Since the Taj was built 350 years ago it has influenced the growth, development and even the evolution of the city. Today hotels vie with each other for a view of the Taj Mahal. The Oberoi hotel boasts in advertisements that in their new hotel even their bathrooms offer a view of the Taj.

What sort of hotels we build, how we enlarge our railway station and why a little village like Khajuraho has an airport are all because of the heritage sites in the region. These motivational causes are valid in themselves but we need to think what layer of history we are adding.

Are contemporary buildings of strong and stable quality, do they suit the climate, our present lifestyle, is our life- style sustainable, is the building appropriate for the seismic zone, do they serve their function and what will generations after us think about these structures?

A sense of history

Horrid, squalid Sixties? housing or council government blocks and residential box apartments are slowly being torn down as they add little value to the city, they are no longer appropriate for their function and better design and economic use of space demand that they are replaced by another layer of contemporary building. We need to ask ourselves have we, in India, built anything magnificent, truly worth preserving in the last 60 years?

Do we have in India today a contemporary building that is awe-inspiring or truly creative? Many cities around the world are vying with each other to make the most contemporary buildings, the tallest, the most efficient the most eco-friendly and there are prizes now for ?green architecture?. Will these buildings retain their significance in years to come? Do they add to the quality of life in our cities or are they eyesores that stick out in our already crowded landscape distracting our attention?

The new local assembly building, the new post office ? does it make you stop, does it take your breath away, is it new and contemporary and exciting, something you would show to your friends when they next visit your city?

There have been many wonderfully creative attempts to re-use and re-adapt old buildings by giving them new uses. There have been great contributions by modern architects who have built buildings with style and grace that add worth to an area. But for a country our size, most of us believe that things are not quite right and contemporary architecture leaves much to be desired.

For this we need to demand that our schools of architecture should meet exacting international standards and provide students with a strong understanding of Indian building practices, materials, sustainability, local vernacular architectural styles and craftspersons skilled in different allied crafts. We need from our schools of architecture creative architects who will add to our architectural wealth and build cities that are sympathetic to our heritage. As we have made an outstanding contribution in literature and filmmaking, we need to ensure that our contemporary architecture will make history and will be heritage in the making.