a blueprint for conserving the historic canal precinct of alappuzha town

Alappuzha – The Venice or the Leiden of the East? A Blueprint for Conservation

Dr. Binumol TomConservation Architect

Binumol Tom, Conservation Architect & Faculty, Department of Architecture,College of Engineering Trivandrum

Story of a verdant heart centre with light radiating all around!

What is the quintessence of Alappuzha?

Aspirations…..

• Urban fabric interwoven between two artificially laid out canals

• A microcosm of intensive mix of communities – from Kutch, Sind, Tamilnadu native christians & Muslims

• Distinguishable identity it offers – no symbolic values of religion

• Historical stamp – what mattered was trade and transport, canals and embankments become the virtual core and the symbol of the town

City without old buildings is like a man without memory

What is right and wrong about Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice?

Plan of Venice

Plan of Alappuzha

Venice – composed of 120 islands, separated by 200 canals and connected by 450 bridges.

May be the hustle and bustle of Alappuzha due to intense commercial and trading activity resonated with that of Venice during those days. Hence Alappuzha was called “Venice of the East”….

The tale of two citiesAlappuzha Leiden

Alappuzha – essentially a Dutch Town

DIKE TOWN - Rivers / backwaters were diked

Inland waterways taken from the sea or river into the interiors

Straight alignment of built fabric along the dikes

Dykes and canals provided a valuable central space and a setting for public buildings

Alappuzha canal stretch

Leiden canal stretch

Dutch Town Planning Principles of Alappuzha

• Waterway becomes the life line of the town

• Design criteria – Dutch lineal urban pattern of canal, road and building blocks

• Skillful location of public buildings – to save from monotonous building facades

Plan of canal stretch in Alappuzha

Canal stretch in Leiden


Larger buildings at prominent places – symbol of secular authority Landmarks – Church Towers

Church in Alappuzha

Leiden


• Alignment of building blocks parallel to the canal + placement of a landmark to terminate the vista

• Important crossings accentuated by citing a religious building along the canal front

BUILT-UP STREET and BUILT-UP WATERWAY were in direct spatial contrast

• a sense of spaciousness

• a sense of compactness as well as shade.


Leiden – a paradise of interwoven canals and built fabric

Schematic section through Alappuzha canal stretch

Streetscape - Leiden

Streetscape - Alappuzha

Section thru canal scape - Alappuzha

PRIMARY STREETSECONDARY STREETTERTIARY STREET

CONNECTORS

• Limiting the width of water way by techniques in stone and timber construction


Sea fronts – trade related activities, merchant offices, warehouses, ship builders repair yards and weighing halls


Alappuzha – the light house (photo taken about 1900 by the Government photographer Zacharias D'Cruz)


Higher degree of homogeneity in building style and street architecture

Alappuzha Leiden

Damming

Construction of alternative channels were required for the river water to reach the sea, the original down river (stream) water section served as an outer harbor and the up-river section acted as an inner harbor (Amsterdam)

Dutch Town Planning Principles

of Alappuzha

Damming at Alleppey

Damming at Amsterdam

Alappuzha – Venice or Leiden?For which town the bell tolls?

If any urban activity can be said to have reached that ideal, it was the making of Dutch Towns.

Alappuzha follows the Dutch Town Planning Principles.

Settlement Morphology of Alappuzha TownPORT AREA

GUJRATI CLUSTERAGRAHARAM CLUSTER

INDUSTRIAL CLUSTERGODOWN CLUSTER

Architectural Typologies

• RESIDENTIAL Gujrati Cluster –

Independent houses with work places,

Haveli type, Collective housing as a

single block, Collective housing as clusterAgraharams

• INDUSTRIALGodown / Factory

• RELIGIOUSMosque, Temple, Church

• FUNCTIONALGhats , Bridges

Why trouble with this historic town?• Towns with little/ no architectural heritage have to

invent their past.• For people in Alappuzha past is a living presence…..

Alappuzha – the light house (photo taken about 1900 by the Government photographer Zacharias D'Cruz)

Alappuzha suffers!Not because of the violence of bad actions, but

due the silence of good actions….

• Vandalism/ devastation by manmade factors – ecological death of the canals

• Old buildings – timber – deterioration/ fire

• We have learned to swallow concrete happily….

• Increased prosperity• Population pressures• Today, random demands

imposed by modern life

What are the threats to this historic canal

town?

• Public services• Private speculation• We expect a high

standard of living• ABOVE ALL Motor vehicle….

When wealth is lost nothing is lost, but when health is lost, something is lost…

• Is our town friendly for the elderly?

• Do we have a health plan for us as well as for the buildings?

• Is the air that we breathe in our town healthy?

• What is the quality of our green spaces and water bodies, the lifelines of the town?

When character is lost everything is lost…..

SAY “NO” TO ARCHITECTURAL MONSTERS

Should Jack the clever outsmart John the hones?

• Should structurally strong and aesthetically pleasing old buildings give way for new ugly concrete monsters?

• Should heritage give way for modern developments?

• Conservation – ‘Conservative’• Gentrification – social justice• Intangible heritage – by conserving the tangible

heritage, we conserve the cultural paradigm

Should we call the pied piper to fix things again??

• Integrated Conservation Programme in development policy through preparing a HDP for Alappuzha

• Leadership of Administrators – bringing together the efforts of conservation architects, Town planners historians, urban planners, ethnographers, archaeologists, geologists, sociologists, engineers, geographers, transportation engineers etc with public consenses.

• It is a conscious striving for the interdisciplinary collaboration between professionals and the end users the citizens of Alappuzha.

How to bell the cat?

• Historic stock – present condition & future capabilities• Growth forces in the economy of the city – analysed• Controlled developments to prevent large intrusive &

out of scale modern buildings in heritage precincts• Traffic issues – solved (ring roads)• Prevention of unwanted traffic flow of heavy goods

vehicles within the historic precincts – (vibration transmitted by road traffic)

• Issues of water supply & sewerage of the city, Reviving the canals


Establishing the mechanisms for operating area conservation programme within the urban development and sustainable tourism policy for Alappuzha

Advisory body Training planners, architects and urban administrators Listing, Grading of historic structures Designation of heritage areas, linkages Design guidelines and controls Upgrading infrastructural facilities Training building craftsmen – historic ways of building


• Financial and other incentives• Direct grant to the building owner • Grants for preservation• Tax relief• Taxing the beneficiaries – part of VAT collected can be

used for conservation activities• Aid in kind – labour and materials for the maintenance

of listed buildings by local authorities financed by municipal taxes

• TDR• Building owners – access to credit on easy terms• Cross subsidy

Development & Heritage ConservationMAN & WOMAN

• Heritage Conservation is not husbanding of resources, but a key tool for controlled urban development

• Development and Sustainable Tourism policy for Alappuzha with an addition of the ‘element of Heritage’??????????

• But instead Heritage Conservation oriented development policy for the sustainable development of Alappuzha (HDP for Alappuzha)

TEN COMMANDMENTS ON CONSERVATION OF THE CULTURAL HERITAGE OF ALAPPUZHA

• HERITAGE OF ALAPPUZHA IS AN ASSET AND NOT A BURDEN• IT IS A REPOSITORY OF KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS OF INTEGRATION OF WATER AND

LAND• IT IS ABOUT THE FUTURE AND NOT ABOUT THE PAST• IT’S CONSERVATION IS NOT ABOUT ‘MONUMENTS’ BUT ABOUT THE EVERYDAY

LIFE OF CITIZENS OF ALAPPUZHA• IT IS NOT ANTI-DEVELOPMENT BUT AN ALTERNATE MODEL OF DEVELOPMENT• IT SHOULD BE INNOVATIVE IN PRACTICE• ADAPTIVE REUSE OF UNUSED HISTORIC BUILDINGS TO GIVE NEW MEANINGS TO

HERITAGE (UNUSED GODOWNS, WAREHOUSES ETC.)• CONSERVATION TO BE DEMYSTIFIED AND INTEGRATED WITH CONTEMPORARY

LIVING• CONSERVATION IS AS MUCH ABOUT THE NEW AS THE OLD (NO MUSEUM PIECES)• IT IS SYNONYMOUS WITH INDIGENOUS MODERNISM

“Men need space, light and air just as he needs bread or a place to sleep”

(Le Corbusier)

Can man live by space, light and air alone?

Maybe he needs a dash of love, a touch of warmth and a sea of friendship, which only historic ambience can provide……..

T H A N K Y O U

Conserve the dying heritage of Alappuzha Town

References

• Burke L Gerald; The making of Dutch Towns; 1956; Cleaver Hume Press London

• Mann Roy; Rivers in the city; 1973; Pitman Press Bath Somerset

• Niermeyer, J.F; Delft en Delfland, Leiden; 1944• Adams. T; Culture of Town and City Planning; 1936• Shangunny Menon, History of Travancore, 1983, Kerala

Gazetteers, Thiruvananthapuram.• Hans Schenk, An exploration of Alleppey, 1979, Indo Dutch

Research project• Binumol Tom, Conservation of the canal precinct of

Alappuzha Town, 1996, Unpublished Thesis, Dept. of Architectural Conservation, SPA, New Delhi.

a blueprint for conserving the historic canal precinct of alappuzha town

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