Documenting Vernacular Heritage to preserve diversity and sustainability

During the last decades around the world many things have changed and sometimes lost in many historic centres. Residents want to update their own houses with the most modern features and, in many cases, there is the need to improve living standards. In Jodhpur, within the vibrant environment of its historic centre, inhabitants are trying to find more contemporary spaces for themselves by adapting the existing ones. While their love for these old settlements has not diminished, some of the residents have moved towards the new areas of the city in search of a modern lifestyle and more urban facilities such as schools, public transportation, etc. While the Jodhpur municipality wants to protect the vernacular heritage of the city, it is also clear that preservation policies must take into account that changes in the physical structure of old settlements are inevitable (and indeed have been continuing from ancient times). This, quite recently, has stressed the need to maintain control over these changes, driven not only by social inputs but also by economic activities. It’s always a matter of knowledge: on one hand preserving our vernacular heritage aims to conserve our cultural and social variety and transmit it to future generations, on the other hand we still have to fully understand the lessons that could be learnt from the study of these buildings and that can then be applied to contemporary settlements. It doesn’t have to be development versus conservation: the two issues should work together. It’s an uneasy path, full of economic and cultural obstacles, but still viable if we really want to preserve this important cultural heritage.