INDIAN HERITHGE (A Premise for Arguments) (Page 3)

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"Conservation Engineering' is another buzz-word. Ravindra Gundu Rao, a trained engineer and conservationist articulates, "Personally, in years of working, I couldn’t make a distinction between the terms "Architectural Conservation' and "Conservation Engineering in India. Perhaps it is different in countries where more time and efforts are invested in conservation of built environment. Here, normally a client who has real or perceived problems with their heritage building, more often than not related to roof leakage, plumbing, AC conduits, visual blight, etc, would look for a reputed (qualifications, experience, standing in the statutory authorities, Sympathetic approach to client's urgent needs) engineering or architectural firm to help.

The selected person would prepare drawings, specifications and estimates and float a tender with various conditions to ensure duality conservation work. The work is allotted according to the lowest quotation basis by normal civil contractors with minimum to nil understanding of the basics of building conservation. The conservation architect would have good understanding of the problems but less grip (due to relative inexperience) over writing specifications of work and would hire the services of an experienced civil engineer for the same. The engineer will in turn convert the document into an engineering document and process. Therein lies the problem."

In such complex operational structures, one then needs to articulate, address and comprehend the role of the conservation architect, the emergent protagonist of this newfound movement. He (or she) is a theorist, a researcher, a team leader, a site manager, an arbitrator and even a contractor; and a lot of times a polemicist, an activist and a policy-suggester. It is not only the multiple robes that the conservation architect dons; the increasing inter-discipline also renders complexity. The domain today takes in its ambit Conservation architects, architects, archaeologists, art conservators, historians, planners, landscape and urban practitioners, sociologists, structural and civil engineers, services consultants, surveyors, cartographers, contractors, geo-technical engineers, legal experts, professionals from government agencies, NGOs and also the communities.
(Continues...)

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