RESEARCH General Arts History

HISTORIC RENOVATION
UI scholars submit plan to renovate endangered historic site in India

Melissa Mitchell, Arts Editor
(217) 333-5491; melissa@uiuc.edu

3/1/02

Courtesy Landscape Architecture Entrance minarets of Jami Mosque

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — An overgrown, centuries-old sacred site in the Indian state of Gujarat – identified as one of the 100 most endangered monuments on the World Monuments Watch
List – may be in line for a facelift, thanks to a team of landscape architects from the University of Illinois.

Amita Sinha and Gary Kesler, professors of landscape architecture, recently submitted a master plan for the design of a proposed Champaner-Pavagadh Archaeological Park to the Heritage Trust in Baroda. The plan was developed by Sinha and Kesler and a team of UI design students who traveled to India last summer to study the lay of the land and develop a plan which – over time – would rehabilitate the site, once home to Gujarat’s capital city, Champaner.

Courtesy Landscape Architecture Step well

"The forgotten city of Champaner was 'lost in the jungle,' " Sinha noted in the report, until excavations led by R.N. Mehta for the department of archaeology at Maharaja Sayajorao University in 1969-75 revealed numerous mosques, mansions, houses, streets and fortification walls. The rediscovered city was actually the last incarnation of Champaner, which has a multilayered history dating back some 1,200 years. Previous cities were sited on nearby Pavagadh hill, a striking, 830-meter promontory on the landscape that rises up unexpectedly from the surrounding plains. The hill is the main focal point for pilgrims, who climb it to reach the goddess temples on its summit.

Photo by Bill Wiegand Amita Sinha and Gary Kesler, professors of landscape architecture, recently submitted a master plan for the design of a proposed Champaner-Pavagadh Archaeological Park to the Heritage Trust in Baroda.

The hill and those temples are the main attraction that draws some 2.5 million pilgrims and tourists to the site each year. "Since prehistory, geology interacted with mythopoeic tendencies in producing legends that have made the site of such immense cultural and religious significance," Sinha wrote. "The hill is perceived as the toe of the goddess Sati that fell on earth when grief-maddened Shiva carried her dead body on his shoulders."

Sinha said Champaner-Pavagadh first became a focus of attention by Indian officials in 1987, when the Heritage Trust sponsored a study and international conference on conservation of the site. The resulting report proposed the development of an archaeological park. Sinha said sustained efforts toward that goal have been made in the past, with the latest progress being last year's invitation to the UI team to develop a landscape management plan for the site.

The UI proposal, if accepted, would need to be implemented in stages over the course of many years and would have to be administered by a public body created through legislative channels, she said. But if everything goes according to plan, initial conservation efforts would focus on the revival of the site's traditional waterworks. From there, priorities include restoration of pilgrim paths and construction of heritage trails; restoration and rehabilitation of heritage sites, including the introduction of landscape plantings and water features; construction of visitor and interpretation centers; environmental reclamation of quarried sites; and restoration of a derelict railway.