Amita Sinha
Associate Professor
Landscape Architecture

and James L. Wescoat
Professor and Head
Landscape Architecture

Beginning almost twenty years ago, University of Illinois Landscape Architecture faculty and students have been involved in developing master plans for conserving historic places in India— from the Buddhist monastic center at Sarnath to the Taj Mahal area in Agra and, most recently, India’s newest World Heritage Site at Champaner-Pavagadh in eastern Gujarat state.

Champaner-Pavagadh was declared a World Heritage Site in 2004 through the leadership of the Heritage Trust, Baroda in collaboration with the Department of Landscape Architecture at Illinois. The collaboration goes back to 2001 when Karan Grover, President of Heritage Trust, invited a team of faculty members and students to prepare a landscape management plan for the site. Following a week-long design workshop at the site, the student-faculty team came back to campus and spent 12 weeks in developing their initial concepts. Two more visits and studio workshops in 2003 and 2005 followed, resulting in three reports that have been widely disseminated, submitted to UNESCO for World Heritage Site nomination, and used for fund raising.

Champaner-Pavagadh is a spectacular archaeological site: an entire medieval city that flourished between 1484-1535 CE now largely buried underground, protected by forest scrub and graced by a few surviving mosques and mausoleums. The city was abandoned after it was ransacked by the Mughal army and over time was lost to the jungle. It lies waiting to be re-excavated at the foot of a sacred hill called Pavagadh that is the destination of over two million pilgrims per year who visit the temple of the Great Goddess—Kalika Mata—at its summit. Pavagadh Hill also has many archaeological heritage sites—forts, palaces, water structures—dating back to the Rajput era (eleventh to fourteenth centuries CE) that preceded the arrival of the Islamic Sultanate in that region.

In addition to its religious and historic significance, Champaner is a “living heritage site” as some 5,700 villagers continue to eke out an existence from agriculture, forest products and tending to pilgrim needs. And herein lies the challenge: protecting and revealing the past while meeting the needs of a living community. Years of neglecting the cultural landscape and numerous architectural remnants including mosques, temples, fortifications, stepwells and other structures, combined with pressure for developing more shops, restaurants, apartments and other facilities, resulted in Champaner-Pavagadh’s listing as one of the World Monuments Fund’s top 100 most endangered
sites.

The landscape plans proposed by the UI teams are based upon an integrated approach to managing the historically and culturally significant landscape of Champaner-Pavagadh. They include restoration and development of heritage trails with interpretive signage; view and rest places for visitors; design of pilgrim welcome and interpretation centers at key junctures in visitors’ paths; conservation and restoration of historic water structures; preservation of viewsheds; a community development plan for treating waste water and solid waste; and designs for shop-cum-residential units with sustainable materials for the squatter population. A three-dimensional digital model of the vanished city of Champaner was developed and so were guide maps for journeys for pilgrimage, archaeological exploration, and following the
movement of water in the landscape.

It is the hope of the UI design teams that through this work and continuing efforts by Heritage Trust, renewed attention will be given to Champaner-Pavagadh, a landscape that speaks so eloquently to the history and culture of western India.

Faculty members involved at Champaner-Pavagadh include Professors Amita Sinha, Gary Kesler, D. Fairchild Ruggles, and James Wescoat. About 50 Illinois student alumni have contributed to the India cultural heritage studies, with a comparable number of design students working in India. In addition to new projects, including conservation of a palace-garden complex at Nagaur, Rajasthan, the Illinois landscape architects’ overarching goal is to establish a longer-term collaborative program with design schools, students, and scholars in India in the years ahead.