Of the people, by the people

Gargi Gupta reports on a unique project in Anegundi in rural Karnataka that shows how vernacular architecture can be redeemed and integrated into the modern context.

Unlike their Western counterparts, Indian villages are anything but picturesque. Visit a village in almost any part of the country and you'll see mainly two kinds of houses "" ramshackle mud-and-thatch huts, crude and shabby, and "grander" pucca structures built of cement and brick, their garish paint standing out like sore thumbs.

And yet this is a country with a rich and diverse heritage of vernacular architecture, one that has evolved over centuries to adapt to local needs, climate and topography.

But most of that has become invisible in villages today. It is as if in the city-centric India of today, where everything with even a whiff of village is looked down upon, rural India too has turned its back on its own values, language, architecture in favour of a homo-genous, more modern one.

It's an issue that Shama Pawar Shapiro, as the trustee of an NGO in a rural area, was only too aware of. "If only we could make the immediate environment of the villages clean, it would make it special for the villagers, give them a sense of ownership."

The Kishkinda Trust (TKT) began by organising rangoli competitions for girls in Anegundi, the small village on the banks of the Tungabhadra in Karnataka's Koppal district, north of Hampi, where it began work in 1997 trying to foster crafts using the locally available banana fibre. But the showpiece of how vernacular architecture can be redeemed, integrated into the modern village context, is a traditional house that it has restored, redesigned and rehabilitated.

What distinguishes the entire exercise is that its object was not a palace, or a temple, or a building with any "history", but the humble "" albeit old (around 100 years or so) "" dwelling of a woman artisan named Sahera. The project had financial assistance from UNESCO (it cost just Rs 5.5 lakh in all), and every care was taken to make it an example of best practices in restoration projects of its kind.

The typology of buildings in the village was studied, copious photographs taken of the building which was disassembled and the material sorted and carefully stored for reuse.

Its design objective took into account not just the need to retain the form, shape and features of traditional houses in the area and to strengthen them using the advances of modern science, but also its future use "" both for the years it would function as interpretation centre for the Hampi World Heritage Site (which meant modern sanitation, and electricity, computer, telephone cabling), and later, in the event the property needed to be divided.

It helped that the vernacular architecture, both the dead monuments and the living heritage that abounds in the Hampi region, have been extensively documented by a clutch of international scholars working under the "Vijayanagara Research Project".

In fact, Anegundi was the subject of Natalie Tobert's Architectural Ethnography of a Royal Village. Anegundi still abounds in old houses and ruins; Asit Devaraya, the "king", still lives here, although not in his crumbling palace.

In keeping with the tenets of vernacular architecture, says project conservation architect G S V Suryanarayana Murthy, only local materials were used "" cudappah black stone; cowdung; lime, jaggery and kattali, a locally available species of aloe vera, as mud stabiliser; neem, bamboo and other local trees.

The entrance has traditional kattas, a raised platform which is a common feature in homes in the Rayalseema region (in the bedroom it makes for a built-in bed); the entrance verandah has traditional wood columns; the wooden door is carved the age-old way; the floor in the bedroom is mud smeared with cowdung; there is a puja space with a sunken square to seat the deity, another commonly found feature in houses in this part.

Local masons were used throughout, and where skills were lacking, such as in making the composite masonry, they were trained. In fact, the composite masonry, hard stone on the exterior, mud and cowdung on the inside, is one of only two departures from traditional building practice "" the other being the use of bitumen to waterproof the flooring.

As Shama explains, the objective was to demonstrate to the villagers the beauty of their own traditions. And to that end, she has been successful, since the villagers now want their houses to be similarly remodelled.

The influx of tourists into Anegundi "" as many as 300-400 visit the small settlement of 3,000-4,000 people every day during the November-December peak season "" has helped too. Community kitchens serving local fare have been started, and the district commissioner has come up with a rural tourism project, involving home-stays for tourists who want an authentic local experience.

Which has turned the focus right back on the vernacular architecture, but on a much grander scale this time. Husband-and-wife architect duo Niket and Tapan Deshpande has been at work in these parts over the last few years, documenting, surveying, drawing up plans.

The plan involves the regeneration of a street running though the village, freeing up a visual corridor as it were, touching upon 30 or so homes, open spaces, shops, nodes even trees along it.

"It's come to the approval stage now," reports Niket, "and we hope to start the first phase of work on the houses that require minimal repair next month."