Equity in Heritage Conservation

Jigna Desai is an Associate Professor and is the Program Chair for Masters in Conservation and Regeneration at the Faculty of Architecture, CEPT University, India. Presently, her area of study is to arrive at frameworks, tools and methods, through which theoretical ideas of sustainability and conservation of living historic environments can be translated into practice, while addressing the challenges of (co)production of space and commodification of heritage. This area of interest was triggered through her involvement with preparing the World Heritage Nomination Dossier for the Historic City of Ahmedabad where she has closely observed the transformations within the historic city. She is also a director at a small, award-winning practice – JMA Design Co – that she co-founded with Mehul Bhatt in 1999. She has worked extensively on architecture projects and conservation research in different parts of India and carried out advocacy for community-based conservation in partnership with national and international institutions. She is an Associate Member of the International Scientific Committee for Historic Towns and Villages, International Council for Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and is an active member of ICOMOS, India. Jigna has been teaching since 2002 at various institutions in India before joining CEPT University in a full-time capacity in 2009. She brings to the institute her experience in working with traditional urban environments and framing how traditional architecture may be understood, studied and transformed.

Introduction 1. Decoding Equity in context of Heritage Conservation 2. Walled City of Ahmedabad, A World Heritage Site 3. Bhadra – from maidan to Plaza 4. The Heritage Street Project 5. Chowks as day-to-day meeting places 6. Interpretation of Equity and Way Forward