A Living Heritage of Nalwa: where architecture finds community

The journey to Nalwa is a four-hour drive from New Delhi. So when Anne Feenstra told me about the completion of his four-year long new project in the village of Nalwa in Haryana, and offered the prospect of visiting the site with him, I was excited. Personally, I prefer projects that take this long to build. It usually translates to an abundance of stories—behind the creative process, the discussions, concepts and proposals that were worked on, the constraints presented post construction and the people who contributed to it. It’s stories like these that encapsulate the process that truly makes the structure a part of its context. There is something to be said of a building that takes its time to grow and flourish in the land it sits on.

Coming to buildings, there are different types of buildings: those which are a necessity, that take shape from a dream, which document, help and heal; those which are for a definite time period serving a distinct purpose. However, most often, there are buildings that grow within a context—they witness times pass, seasons change, people embrace and abandon it and see farmlands become cities— they tend to stay for longer, shapeshifting roles and faces. Essentially, that’s what time does to a building, it adds layers of intangible to rather tangible walls.

Sitting in these thoughts, I joined Feenstra on the long drive from the metro city of Delhi to the rural village of Haryana. We started before dawn, a little earlier than 6:30 am, with barely any sunlight, contrasted by roads that were bustling with life—trucks carrying containers, rickshaws shuttling workers to the metro, and school buses on their way to pick up children. After one hour of repeatedly seeing these visuals, we had left Delhi behind. Our view for the next three hours was set, it was the lush mustard fields, trucks carrying sugarcanes, farmlands of various winter crops, and picturesque roadside trees. We had entered Haryana. 

As we set course on the National Highway, Feenstra and I engaged in a conversation, he briefed me about what awaited us. The BC Jindal Community Centre was perceived in the location where the ancestral home of the Jindals stood. Two structures on the site— one aged almost 150 years and the other 90 —were the starting point of the project. When Feenstra first visited the site in September 2018, both the structures were in ruins, and while the client suggested demolishing the existing structures, Feenstra documented, researched and therefore insisted on keeping them, preserving them as much as possible and adding on to them. Feenstra’s understanding of the history that entailed the structures, guided him to revive what is left of the Jat havelis and transform them into a place for the local community.  

His approach primarily extended to understanding the architectural character of the buildings in the Jat community. Traditionally, Jats were an agricultural community in northern India and Pakistan, often referenced as examples of community and identity formation in the early modern Indian subcontinent. Due to their age-long relationship to agriculture and a strong sense of community, the architecture of Jat buildings also celebrated a sense of togetherness.

On our way to Nalwa, Feenstra pointed out different buildings on the sides of the road—mostly abandoned and in ruins—adorned with elements of Jat architecture. Arches inspired by Mughal architecture, large ornate doors, protruded seating on the front facade, courtyards, alcoves for diyas and built-in hooks for lanterns, were some elements that characterised the architectural style.

Feenstra then spoke about the four years of bringing the project to life, the stories I was most keen to hear about. In June 2019, Feenstra, architect Himanshu Lal and the team started clearing up the site of the unwanted debris and weeds. They collected old doors, window shutters, wooden pieces, and more, that could be reused in the new structure. He recollects that they had to remove a small tree from the front of the site, that had started to slant and fall. Once the site was set, they planted several trees including a Champa tree in the middle of the courtyard, to be restored, and a mulberry tree at the entrance corner of the site. “I have seen architects plant mature trees at the site towards the final stages of construction, to enhance the landscape. But I wanted the trees to grow with the time and process of construction," Feenstra said.

The second question daunting the architects was: “Can we preserve this (the almost deteriorated structures of the haveli)?” Feenstra showed me pictures of the structure, from back when they found it and started working on it. The structure had been affected by climatic, biological, and man-made causes. There was staining on the brick wall that had lost its plastering due to weathering, windows that had fallen due to decayed wooden frames, soil deposits and deformation in crafted arches, brick bonds that had started to loosen, fallen roofs, and a foundation that barely seemed to be holding it all together. Looking at the images, one could assess with certainty the challenge that Feenstra and Lal were taking up. It also made me curious about his confidence in badly wanting to preserve whatever he could and not wanting to start afresh. “There is history in those structures. It is the home where Jindal spent his childhood years. The walls remember the laughter and memories of those times. It wouldn’t be fair that we completely let that part of the past disappear,” shared Feenstra.

In our extended conversation of Jats, Indian architecture, and how buildings contribute to history, I noticed the board—written in Hindi—'Welcome to Nalwa.' The roads started to narrow and occasionally we saw a brick kiln among the mustard fields, justifying why a lot of the buildings in the area had brick architecture. The worn-out roads, dry winter winds spreading heaps of sand around, and the curious looks of old people sitting in shop verandahs, invited us to the village. We parked the car a little far from the building and walked to a small shop nearby. Feenstra wanted us to greet one of his acquaintances before we made our way to the community centre.

Nalwa is similar to most rural villages of North India; it has narrow roads that diverge to narrower alleyways, small uncovered shallow drains running on the sides of the road, bull carts filled with heaps of grass parked on the sides, old men dressed in white khadi kurtas, dhotis and turbans inspecting everyone who passes by, and women with their faces concealed behind their saree pallus. It was evident that everyone there recognised Feenstra, a kind of familiarity that only comes on meeting a person multiple times, over the years. We slowly started walking towards the centre, with Feenstra pointing out the roof of the building, visible from a little distance. After a curve, I first saw the entirety of the building.

Reflecting the architectural character of its neighbouring building, the community centre, too, was dressed in a pinkish lime plaster finish and had sculptural arches similar to that of Mughal architecture, with crafted doorways. One could have very easily mistaken it for a well-preserved Jat haveli; but what gave the 21^stcentury intervention away was the compound wall. In other buildings of the village, compound walls were as absent as any other kind of boundary; the walls themselves acted as a boundary. In this structure though, the compound wall with grills turns at the beginning of the old facade to join it. At this intersection is the entrance gate. The prologue of the design narrative starts from the compound wall, where the new meets the old, creating a gateway where both worlds coexist in one place.

At the entrance of the site stood a small tree with fallen leaves owing to the harsh weather; my mind immediately went to the Mulberry plant that Feenstra and his team had planted before construction. Later, Feenstra confirmed this, after which we moved to the large front yard with the garden. There, towards the east, was the restored courtyard, now acting as a pavilion, of the first haveli. Raised on a platform, each side of the courtyard wall had three arches supported by stone columns. In the centre of the courtyard was the Champa tree, planted four years ago. The thick walls of the courtyard, along with the arches, had alcoves for storage and diyas, and small cutouts for placing other objects. Standing in the courtyard, which was a part of the old structure, it was easier to picture Feenstra’s stories of Jindal spending his childhood here. Within the courtyard architecture of the pavilion, this place does feel like a home.

Through the arches of the courtyard, you find a modern addition to the site, a glass and steel structure hosting the community hall. This structure remains an extension of the second haveli. The front wall of the community hall is the restored facade of the haveli, with ornate doors and arches, that subtly extends inwards and joins the steel-glass structure. The differences between the heritage structure and modern structure are visibly evident in the interiors. In the flooring, buttress, structural reinforcements, materials, and architectural details, the new and old, simultaneously, mirror and contrast each other.

As is visible in the architectural language, the wall of the old structure was restored in brick and lime, and the new addition has a steel frame with glass. Even when the material palette contrasts, the scale of both remains proportionate. The old doors, window shutters and stone slabs of the old structure, with wooden and metal ornamentation, have been restored and placed at their original positions. The new structure has no windows, due to the transparency of the glass, but has large doors, almost similar to the scale of the old one. Through the dialogue of old and new, scale becomes an integral factor, one which Feenstra has effectively used for both structures, ensuring they coexist in harmony. Another interesting part of the community hall is the roof design. Locally, buildings have a flat roof but at the community centre, Feenstra adopted sloped roof structures with ornamented eaves board, made on site from steel.

While standing at the community hall, you cannot look away from the contrast that surrounds you. It almost feels like time travelling, with one leg in the irregular red brick flooring and the other in the diagonally laid and levelled tile floor.

Coincidentally, this perception of time can be seen in the generation of users as well. While looking around the community hall, there was a group of 10 girls attending a general studies class, and in the library, behind the courtyard, some other girls were issuing books, while, in the front yard garden, some old men were sitting and talking. As we walked around the site, with Feenstra telling me stories from its construction days, kids who left the school came running into the centre to read books at the library. Later some older women with covered faces, and humbled smiles came holding textbooks to attend another class starting soon in the hall. For a community, that has a perceived history of having the most conservative outlook, the community centre architecture seemed to be guiding a new dawn of community development.

The design of the two-storeyed library was mostly conventional. On the ground floor was a linear library, with Jindal’s ancestral iron safe exhibited on a pedestal towards the end. The first floor had rooms and bathrooms for refreshment and for those using the halls for events. Towards the southwest of the library building was the community kitchen and toilet block. This block sits at a small yard across the library and community hall. Here, kids play, soak in sunlight and interact with other users of the centre.

Though the restored courtyard, community hall, library building, and kitchen block remain as different volumes on the site, what binds them together is the landscape paving details. Separating the easily accessible areas—the library, halls and courtyards— from the more intimate spaces—the community kitchen and toilet blocks—are two different patterns of the paving. At the front is a rectangular geometric pattern, bordered by vertically placed bricks and towards the back is a simpler cross-patterned layout. Feenstra’s attention to using scale in design, once again, finds fruition in this landscape design. Due to this difference in flooring layout, the front yard appears to be in movement and the backyard acts as an extension of the hall.

After having gone through all the spaces, I sat on a chair placed in the garden, looking back at the building. Feenstra, on the other hand, was interacting with the users of the space, inquiring: “How do they perceive the space? What could have been different? What seems to be lacking?” I noticed that along with trying to understand their perspectives, Feenstra was noting them down, learning from them, and thinking on what can be done further. Even after four years, the building is still a work in progress, constantly growing to the village and the community’s needs.

Sitting on the lawned garden—which Feenstra wasn’t too happy about, mentioning lawns as a British concept that doesn’t fit here contextually—you can find layers of time on the buildings. Even without hearing the story behind the ‘Living Heritage’ (as Feenstra defines it), one can find a part of the past in it. The old structures are flawlessly painted, with staining visible on them, like a timely imprint of nature on architecture. The sandstones have weathered at places, exposing the hidden materiality of the structure. The flooring is slightly undulated, a history of all who walked on it.

In heritage structures that find new meanings through restoration, we often witness a perfected version of the last documented period. Sitting here at the community centre, I remembered—John Ruskin’s anti-restoration movement. He criticised restoration architects for the destruction of the historical authenticity of the buildings. I, on the other hand, couldn't help but wonder, what would have happened if these ruins of havelis weren’t saved. Was it better that they were wiped out and ceased to exist or was it in a way better that the last of it was saved and 'restored?’ Can the definition of heritage conservation and architectural restoration change with respect to the history we are dealing with?

The four-hour long drive back from Nalwa was different. I left having known a village and its people, having heard their stories in regional Haryanvi language, absorbed in the sweetness of their snacks, the warmth of their memories. Architectural analysis of buildings extends to many parameters, most often narrated by the architect or a writer. But, occasionally, the user explains the design to you. There are no mediators in this process, only the user and architecture. For me, Feenstra’s 'Living Heritage' will always be a project that I saw through the eyes of the people of Nalwa, nothing more, nothing less.