Conservation across cultures: An Indian Experience

New York city has more protected buildings than there are protected monuments under the Archaeological Survey of India. The heritage protection laws in India are either not fully understood or in some cases not fully enforced. With the fast and reckless pace of modern development and an exploding population in India, architectural conservation has taken on a different meaning.
The country has a continuous living tradition with crafts being passed down in an unbroken thread for several centuries. Employing these craftsmen not only upholds ancient traditions but creates employment and provides a building vocabulary that is both local and sustainable.
The presentation will focus on the approach to conservation work through case studies of projects in and around the southern city of Hyderabad. It is the story of how attempting to understand the context and local culture has guided my work over the past eight years.

Anuradha Naik is a conservation architect and has been based in Hyderabad since 2009.
She studied at the Edinburgh College of Art and returned to India after having worked for two years at Purcell Miller Tritton, Canterbury.
She has undertaken restoration at the Chowmahalla Palace in Hyderabad, a UNESCO award winning project. She has been involved in the restoration of the Domakonda Fort in the Nizamabad District for the past 7 years where she has revived traditional techniques and skills.
She has been associated with the WMF funded restoration of the erstwhile British Residency and the Agha Khan Trust for Culture for work on the Qutub Shahi tombs complex. She was appointed by the Nizam’s Jubilee Pavilion Trust to design the City Museum of Hyderabad.
She is a member of the Technical Committee, Department of Archaeology and Museums, Govt. of Telangana and is guest faculty at the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad. She is a founding director of the ICFAI School of Architecture, Hyderabad.