The Architectural Heritage of Private Non-Monumental Structures: Diu Town

The Portuguese colonial empire spanned nearly 600 years spreading across the southern hemisphere of the globe from South America to South East Asia resulting in a string of littoral settlements. Within the realms of comparative urban and architectural studies on Indo-Portuguese settlements, there is little academic work conducted specifically on the native’s and their specific urban and architectural environments, the current heritage value and the physical condition of structures. Today, these settlements exist as post-colonial cultural neighbourhoods within quickly urbanising culturally complex urban environments. Due to neglect and demolition of heritage structures in cultural neighbourhoods by their private owners, cities face a future disconnected to their past where structures of heritage value are being replaced by homogenous new builds.
This research utilises the researcher’s connection to a former Portuguese colony, Diu Town located on Diu Island, off the south-west coast of Gujarat, India as the primary case study. The main aim of this research takes on an architectural perspective to document, analyse and establish the urban architectural heritage values of privately-owned architectural structures of Diu Town. This is so that private owners become aware of the globally shared composite nature of the urban and architectural values of their structures. The methodology, research methods and data collection techniques are heavily moulded by the researcher’s heritage linked to the island, the cultural contextual backdrop of the former colonial Diu Town, and availability and access to Diu Town and its structures in today’s contemporary contextual environment. Through a sequence of onsite urban mappings and building surveys, this research documents and analyses the urban fabric of Diu Town consolidating the composite nature of the socio-cultural, historical, and globally shared urban and architectural heritage values of Diu Town. The research also presents a discourse and proposal of guidelines, reformulated from INTACH, on how to allow bottom-up self-agency-based conservation and adaptive reuse of privately owned structures of a globally shared heritage nature with support from the local councils and beyond. In doing so, the research proposes soft systems solutions to addresses a lack of jobs, commercial tourism, and migration of youth by utilising the heritage structures for financial and socio-cultural regeneration and sustenance of the architectural and urban heritage. Most importantly the conservation initiatives proposed to utilise the special socio-cultural dynamics of private owners (diaspora and locals). Proposals outline how private owners can adapt their heritage homes to provide homestays/ heritage experience to future heirs and descendants visiting the island while providing jobs to locals and also mitigating the need to build excessive hotels on the coast making use of current heritage building stock pointing towards CBECHT type initiatives. Hence the research contributes to current comparative studies in Portuguese urban and architectural patterns testing, defining, and documenting globally shared heritage structures of Diu Town. It also sets up further research to document and establish heritage values of similar contexts like that of Daman. Also, by establishing the urban and architectural values of Diu Town, owners are made aware of the global importance of their heritage as well as procedures by which they can interpret their heritage through local-global conservation and adaptation initiatives and take control of the future of their heritage. Academics and professionals in conservation are also made aware of the dynamics of private owners and the need to continue developing initiatives that take into consideration the global and local natures of private owners and their heritage.