Historic Urban Regeneration Concepts: a Rethought for Indian Context

Abstract

Two primary questions always arise whenever one thinks of conservation: why and for whom to conserve? As a trained conservation architect, one has always justified the projects of conservation and found answers to the ‘why’ and for ‘whom’, but with time and more exposure to live studies and primary surveys it was realized that the professional view may or may not match the common man’s view. In such cases of differences of opinion, is it right to impose our views on the public or is it time to re-think about the way conservation theories have been advocated and try to find a common ground of interest between the public and the professional ethics? In this paper, an attempt has been made to argue against certain standard theories of conservation from the Indian contextual ground and arrive at ‘Neo-Value’ Heritage conservation theories.