Landmark Buildings as Vehicle for Cultural Sustainability: The Case of Kolkata

Abstract

Urban transformation is an inevitable process in today’s metropolises. In the past, transformations in urban landscape turned cities into harmonious and responsive spaces but today they only begat unfairness and instability along with social-cultural urban crisis .The reason for this is twofold; firstly majority of modern cities today are ‘living collages’ of ‘heterogeneous patches’ and are shaped by unpredictable addition, alterations and transformations .Secondly these cities are melting pots of differences , where by virtue of proximity, citizens are forced to confront, and reconcile with their differences. Under these circumstances, character and image of most cities especially ones embedded in historical layers are getting eroded leading to an identity crisis spread over the entire urbanistic domain. Though, in recent years, various sustainability discourses have been put forward to address these issues, but their utter neglect of socio-cultural and conceptual aspects of urbanscape have failed to make them effective .Therefore, a new approach to sustainability which puts socio-cultural cues and continuity in the forefront needs to be established. This paper fuels this thought by claiming that cultural sustainability is the most appropriate mediator of urban transformations and varied interpretation of ‘place’ is inherent to its understanding. ‘Physical Landmarks’ are then established as carriers of cultural codes as they connect the ‘memories and prophecies’ ,’structures and events’ as well as ‘participants and exhibits’ pertaining to a city and various attributes of landmarks are investigated to understand their roles as identity builders and retainers Next, the paper suggests the essential relationships between quality and attributes of landmarks and successful urban transformation considering a few case studies from the city of Kolkata, an urban metropolis of India with more than 300 years of historical legacy.