SHILLONG: The haphazard and unplanned building constructions in Shillong will be the centre of critical analysis as the Guwahati College of Architecture (GCA), the only architecture college in the North Eastern region, and the Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute of Architecture, Mumbai, will make a joint study trip to Shillong from October 17-24 with 105 students and 15 faculties.
The study trip would conduct a collective study of architectural design of heritage buildings and houses in Shillong such as, church, schools, colleges, hotels, residential houses and other institutes – anything that falls in the category of heritage building.
The Principal of GCA informed that the study trip would attempt to de-layer the history of contemporary Shillong through an analysis of its architectural objects as evidence.
“The presumption is that within the bodies of these objects there exist clues to many of the forces that have shaped and continue to shape Shillong today. We plan to draw out a history of programmatic and spatial decisions, along with material and tectonic choices of representative architectural objects within the town, with a hope that with an understanding of them we might get a few insights into that context,” he said.
“We plan to identify around 50 objects that could range from institutional government buildings to residential homes for our study. These objects would represent, as best as possible, different aspects of the city of Shillong – neighborhoods, community groups, historical moments, etc. We would then proceed to de-layer them into their component parts – in terms of space and structure and mode of production,” he added.