By Kunal DuttNew Delhi, Jan 13 (PTI) As a student of architecture, herfocus on restoration and adaptive reuse of historic buildingswas met with scepticism, but Aishwarya Tipnis still managed tocarve a niche for herself in the field of urban conservation.
Her conservation projects, including at a fort in MadhyaPradesh and at Doon School, Dehradun, earned her recognitionfrom UNESCO in 2016. And on Thursday, she was conferred thetop French cultural award - Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts etLettres.
The architect from Delhi appears poised for an evenbigger role. She considers urban planners and restorationprofessionals as a bridge between the past and the future.
But was her journey to the top easy?"While I was studying at the School of Planning andArchitecture (SPA) here, I chose to focus on conservation andreuse of historic structures, while all my classmates werebusy designing new, swanky buildings," Tipnis recalled.
"Needless to say, it was met with a lot of scepticism, asconservation architects were stereotyped more as 'activists'rather than professionals."At 37, she is one of the youngest conservation architectsin a field that is itself very young in India.
The French government said Tipnis was conferred the awardfor her "outstanding commitment" to preservation of the Frenchheritage in India.
Tipnis hopes her achievement and the honour will inspiremore architects to take up urban conservation, as so many oldbuildings in the country were in direct need of preservation.
Vikas Dilawari, a Mumbai-based conservation architect,said restoration and urban conservation were "alien terms"when he was in college pursuing education in architecture.
"Many government agencies and private owners still thinkdemolition and construction is the way forward. They don'teven think of the aesthetics at stake, let alone the richdividends restoration can pay off to them," he said.
Dilawari, now 52, said he fought off a similar imageproblem during his college days, about 30 years ago.
"I had drawn up a restoration plan for the iconicCrawford Market for my project while most of my colleagues'demolished' it to propose a new building. You can imagine,whose idea was received better," he said.
That, however, didn't discourage him.
After finishing his Masters in building conservation fromthe University of York, Dilawari has restored some of theiconic buildings in Mumbai in the past 20 years and picked upa number of awards along the way.
In November, his work on restoration of the more than180-year-old Christ Church in Byculla won him the Award ofMerit from UNESCO, while the conservation of the nearly 150-year-old Wellington Fountain and another fountain in Mumbaiearned him Honourable Mention in the reckoning.
But he's happy that the society is beginning to see themerit in conservation, unlike in the West, where restorationis more part of a legal framework and a larger cultural ethos.
"My own family thinks I do crazy things, tinker withruins of old buildings. Because, as a society we have not beentaught to respect built heritage or admire its value,sometimes not even when it has been lost to decay ordemolition," Dilawari rued.
Busting the myth about restoration, Tipnis said:"Heritage conservation isn't just about old buildings, it isabout the people who lived then and and who live now.""It is not only about rescuing historic structures, it isabout restoring and creating an entire ecosystem that isself-sustainable," she asserted. PTI KNDABH.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.