MONUMENTS, MEMORY AND RUINS

Ahmedabad is a city with several monuments and ruins — medieval and modern — some standing out as objects in the fabric of the city while others are hidden within the fabric to be discovered. Extending the idea of heritage, this studio proposed to bring the ‘modern monument and ruins’ into the imagination of the student by understanding aspects of place, program, and people from an architectural perspective. The studio looked at the context of Sanskar Kendra, a modern monument as the site for reimagination by positioning itself to re-interpret and re-establish the need of museums in today’s world and connect the originally conceived city museum back to its city and inhabitants. Today, the modern monument, Sanskar Kendra, is hardly recognised for the purpose of its conception and lies in a state of disrepair. The city museum, when built, was envisioned as a powerful expression of civic aspiration and an identity for the city and its people. The idea of this studio was to revitalize the site 70 years after its inception while recognising the modern monuments and drawing the site into 21st-century relevance. The studio was not focused on heritage and conservation, but rather enabled the discovery of the potential of these monuments. On this premise, the re-imagination of student interventions was envisioned through the addition of a reinterpreted City Museum of about 3000 sq m. that responds to the needs of the city, children, and the community