Small Cities play a significant role in India’s decentralised network of urban centers yet the discussions around them are few and far. The two-day symposium by The Nasik Project on India’s small cities began with understanding what constitutes a small city.
Symposium Day 1:
Shreyank Khemalapure presented various scales of small cities and what they entail, touching upon examples to elaborate the character of these cities. It was followed by an engaging conversation with Rajesh Advani.
In the second session, Pushkar Sohoni and Sonal Mithal discussed the histories of small cities. Pushkar traced the transformation of cities such as Solapur to project their changing characteristics over a timeline by uncovering factors contributing to the rise and decline of small cities. Sonal highlighted the history of Surat, a city on the cusp of transformation and growth. She positioned the history of Surat Castle in the context of the city’s past and detailed her work on its conservation.
Catherine and Purva’s observations and questions brought to light further nuances. Sonal’s perspective on contemporizing history to make it relevant today advocated to bridge the gap between the past and the present. Pushkar highlighted the need for a systems approach to our cities, focused on integrating interdisciplinary perspectives.
The last presentation of the day was on practicing in small cities, delivered by Bobby Desai of HCP Design, Planning and Management. He explained the detailed process and execution of planning the Kashi Vishwanath Dham Corridor in Varanasi. As he concluded his presentation, he asked if the project was a big project in a small city or a small project in a big city, before zooming out a satellite image of the city highlighting the scale of the project.
In the moderation session, Nitin Patel and Archis Kulkarni extended the question to the scale of impact of the project and how such projects can be seen as an opportunity to define or rather redefine the way we think about architecture of sacred and religious spaces.
Symposium Day 2:
The second day of the symposium began with two interesting presentations by Percy Pithawala and Praveen Bavadekar, exploring the theme of the city as an entity.
Percy discussed his practice based in Vadodara and the architecture competitions he and his students had participated in. He also touched upon architectural education in small cities, by citing his engagement as an academic in Vadodara.
Praveen unpacked the history of Belgaum and situated his practice alongside his personal identity. By showing projects that had contributed to the city of Belgaum, he explored the relation of architecture and the city.
Rahul Dabir and Pooja Khairnar extended the conversation with their questions.
Ruturaj Parekh presented the second session on Practicing in small cities. He began with talking about his personal journey and eventually shared his projects in Bihar and Goa. Ajay Sonar and Amol Suryavanshi moderated the talk.
The keynote speaker was Dr. Praveen Gedam, the divisional commissioner of Nasik. He emphasised the need for citizen participation in the growth of Nasik. His session was moderated by Bakir Zafar and Nitin Kute.
The session was followed by many questions from the audience. By answering the questions, Dr. Gedam spoke about the upcoming 2027 Kumbh Mela in the city and the proposed development of the city’s periphery.
The symposium attempted to generate focussed discussions on select small cities highlighting the research and practices that are meaningfully contributing towards such smaller yet significant urban centres. The discussions have ushered a heightened interest in the city and have initiated a much-needed discussion on our small cities.
Note: The recordings of all the sessions are available on YouTube.
Credits:
Curated by: Yakin Kinger, Swapnil Joshi, and Krushna Rathi.
Advisory panel: Sanjay Patil, Bakir Zafar, Nitin Patel, Ajay Sonar, and Chandrakant Dhamne.
Supported by: IIA Nashik Centre.
Media partner: ArchitectureLive!
Collaborators: INTACH Nashik Chapter, CREDAI Nashik Metro, and IIID Nashik Regional Chapter.
Feature Image: Patterns of Mylapore. © Vinoth Chandar
