Heritage Conservation in Postcolonial India: Approaches and Challenges

Heritage Conservation in Postcolonial India seeks to position the conservation profession within historical, theoretical, and methodological frames to demonstrate how the field has evolved in the postcolonial decades and follow its various trajectories in research, education, advocacy, and practice.

Split into four sections, this book covers important themes of institutional and programmatic developments in the field of conservation; critical and contemporary challenges facing the profession; emerging trends in practice that seek to address contemporary challenges; and sustainable solutions to conservation issues.

The cases featured within the book elucidate the evolution of the heritage conservation profession, clarifying the role of key players at the central, state, and local level, and considering intangible, minority, colonial, modern, and vernacular heritages among others.

This book also showcases unique strands of conservation practice in the postcolonial decades to demonstrate the range, scope, and multiple avenues of development in the last seven decades. An ideal read for those interested in architecture, planning, historic preservation, urban studies, and South Asian studies.

Manish Chalana is an Associate Professor in the Department of Urban Design and Planning at the University of Washington with adjunct appointments in the Architecture and Landscape Architecture departments. He also serves on the faculty of the South Asia Studies program in the Jackson School of International Studies. Additionally, Dr Chalana served as the director of the Graduate Certificate in Historic Preservation and co-directs the Center for Preservation and Adaptive Reuse. His work focuses on historic preservation planning, planning history, and international planning and development, particularly in his native India, primarily through the lenses of social justice and equity.

Ashima Krishna is Associate Director at the Purdue Policy Research Institute and Assistant Professor of Practice in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies at Purdue University. She is an architect and historic preservation planner whose research spans the management of historic urban landscapes and adaptive reuse of historic religious structures and landscapes, with a particular focus on intersection with community development issues and resulting policy challenges. Dr. Krishna has examined issues related to historic preservation planning and urban conservation in the United States and India and continues to highlight the ways in which the historic built environment can be preserved, managed, and planned for.