Enhancing the pilgrimage experience and sacred spatial value Case of Ayodhya

Abstract

All around the globe, cities are becoming truly multi-ethnic and multicultural. A city that adjusts to new massive migration inflow of cultural fabric are in the course of rapid transformation. These type of proposed foreign cultural fabric in India, are beneficial for economic growth of the cities as these places becomes attractions for pilgrims as well as for tourists, but in the Purview of economic benefit through intensifying international tourism and consequently commercialization sometimes lead to destroy the basic essence of the vibrancy and culture of the sacred geography of that place and can lead to rapid transformation of cultural and sacred fabric within the city, so we need to confront such transformation by moving towards a more unified concept of space. This transformation is accompanied by increasing intolerance of ethnic, racial, religious, and cultural differences. Hence it becomes, one of the greatest challenge’s in urban design, to integrate the existing cultural fabric of a town or a city with the proposed built fabric. The degree of integration would include parameters ranging from land-use, user groups and footfall to transportation, built-form and post-design effects. Thus, one should focus on incorporating “culture” as one of the primary parameters of consideration in the Indian context. The traditional spatial entities such as “chowks”, “Ghats” and religious structures along streets, and riverfront form an integral part of the culture (by cultural practice in the form of daily ritual, celebration of various festivals, community’s social norms including traditional social institution) and community lifestyle and has both, tangible and intangible values. These entities are the nuclei for cultural integration, which have been carried down through the ages and have adapted to the modern context. Intent is to by identify and evaluate the significance of these spatial entities, and provide an integrated solution for blending the existing cultural fabric with the proposed cultural fabric for upcoming cities in India, without losing its identity and without affecting the built environment as well as affecting the basic essence of the vibrancy of the existing culture and sacred geography of that place.