Reminiscing Life in an Indian Market: Redevelopment of Khan Market, New Delhi, India

Abstract

Khan Market, located in New Delhi, India was established in 1951 by a few traders migrated from North-West Frontier Province after partition of India. The market has evolved a lot since then. Located in the most posh locality of Delhi, today it is the most expensive retail in India. The market has experienced major changes since its establishment. Once a mix use with ground floor as commercial and first floor as residential, today as a result of commercialization the residences were converted to retail. There are several other transformations in the market that has led to a complete change of character of the place and loose its contextual identity of standing in India. Due to globalization the market has become a street mall, which can be defined as a market with no relation to its context. NDMC (New Delhi Municipal Council) has proposed redevelopment of Khan market to solve the parking issue persisting there and also manage the increased structural as well as service load on the building due to conversion of residences to retail. However I aim to solve a bit more than this in the market. The thesis aims to redevelop the existing Khan market in such a way that it regains its contextual identity. To achieve this, firstly I researched the intangible characteristics of a typical Indian marketplace by comparing two different typologies of market, one is obviously an Indian market and other is a mall. These are then verified through several case studies. After the characteristics are obtained these had to be converted to tangible form to implement them in my design. So, I transformed the intangible characters to their architecture interpretations. Finally I analyzed the existing situation of khan market, and all parameters are integrated to shape my redevelopment proposal.