Demolition in Red






Alternate Histories of Nashik’s Core City through Erasures “Demolition in Red” raises a series of questions around the ongoing demolitions in the core city of Nashik. It looks at them to neither condemn, nor uphold demolition, but to critically unpack the causes, processes, and results of demolition. Nashik is an old city, finding mentions dating back to the epics, but the current fabric of what is considered the old city is largely from the late mediaeval period. Multiple factors such as changing development regulations, maintenance issues, and the desire to capitalize on the value of land have led to many old structures being demolished in the last few years in Nashik. Demolition in red is a visual project capturing sites undergoing transformation through five themes.

- Construction Systems: Demolition exposes structural elements, making evident the construction system used in the building. Many of these structural systems used in the past are not in use today, but demolition makes them evident.

- Material Impressions: Demolition also leaves back material impressions on the site. For instance, the texture of bricks is left embossed on the facade of the building adjacent to the site of demolition. Reading material impressions enables one to envisage the footprint of a building’s absence.

- Life in the remains: Signs of previous occupancy are often visible in the demolished sites. Objects of daily life such as leftover furniture and photo frames of gods and goddesses were also found. On visiting these sites, one is able to partially imagine the lives of its occupants.

- Overtaking the remains: This theme examines how forces of nature overtake the remains at a demolished site. One often sees growth of vegetation. The site becomes a place for multi species coexistence.

 - Old and New: As processes of change take place, new developments continuously take over the old. Site by site, the fabric of the city transforms. In this process, the old and the new almost always come face to face. It is interesting to look at these changes to draw a timeline of changes a city has undergone in the last few centuries.

By highlighting the demolitions in Nashik, we intend to extend this question to other Indian towns and cities. This complex phenomenon persists in all towns and cities as a part of continued processes of change and this opens a larger question to analyze the facets of demolition around us.






The exhibition was displayed at MET School of Architecture and Interior Design, Nashik and NMIMS’s Balwant Sheth School of Architecture (BSSA), Mumbai




Curator

Student participants Yakin Kinger 

Archana Gahivade, Nahush Mahale, Vishala Gaikwad, Sonu Chauhan, Umama Kokni, Yash Nandwani, Harshal Parolekar, Nidhi Pardeshi, Atharva Jathe, Aishwarya Kakde, Tanaya Avhad, Ishwar Hire. 

Note: This was undertaken as a part of the Architectural Journalism elective offered to third and fourth year students. The entire project can be accessed on Instagram at @thenasikproject