2023_Prajwal Deshmukh — SEA Archives

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Architecture of impermanence: interplay between human mobility, landscape, and architecture

Transience and Home
Prajwal Deshmukh, 2023

Histories of human settlement have created consolidations of property, emphasizing spatial concepts of privacy and permanence. However, when migrants leave behind consolidated settlements for various purposes, they destabilize some of these settled relationships. Pilgrims in particular are an interesting set of people who, through their journeys, further destabilize settled relationships of property, privacy, and permanence. My study looks closely at the Warkaris, a set of pilgrims in Maharashtra whose pilgrimages are important to understand dynamic relationships through which space gets produced through an interplay between human mobility, landscape, and architecture.

Pilgrimage is one of the driving factors that motivates a large number of people to undertake a journey. Examples such as Chardham, Narmada Yatra, and Hajj Yatra demonstrate how people from various cultural groups undertake these journeys to connect with a higher power(god) based on their beliefs and traditions. As technology and development progress, the methods of reaching pilgrimage sites and the routes taken have also evolved. The way in which the sacred places and the routes to reach them are organized plays a crucial role in shaping the overall experience of the pilgrimage. Additionally, the actions and performances of the pilgrims during their religious rituals further impact this experience. I am examining in what ways do migrating individuals (pilgrims) constitute space during their journeys as they occupy and interact with the surrounding landscape and built structures, and vice versa.

I look at Pandharpur wari for my research, which is a significant pilgrimage in Maharashtra, India, dedicated to Lord Vitthal. It attracts a massive number of pilgrims who undertake a journey to the Vithoba Temple in Pandharpur. I have been listening to stories of saints since my childhood. As a part of our school program, we would celebrate this day by taking a round of the school campus, recreating the gesture of the varkari processions. Our festivities were heightened by the traditional musical instruments such as tal and mrudunga. Due to my affection for this site and considering the scale of research, I have chosen this site. From its starting point to the destination of pilgrimage, the wari passes by multiple geographies in its route.

Based on my personal experience of finding comfort in unknown places, my research is to understand how the interplay between human mobility, landscape, and architecture influences the production of space and destabilizes settled relationships of property, privacy, and permanence during their journeys.

Read also under ‘Memory and Belonging’:

Spatialities of everyday heritage

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Remembering ghar: continuities of memory

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Anika Pugalia, 2024

Architecture of a monument: Vasai fort

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Chinmay Kadwadkar, 2018

Architecture and memory: remembering home in involuntary dislocation

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Dhruv Chavan, 2018

On Sindhi refugees: making home in Jalgaon

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Khushboo Tejwani, 2024

Retrofitted domesticities

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Nikunj Dedhia, 2020

Architecture and healing: civil war inversion of public space Borella, Colombo

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Rutu Kelekar, 2018

Spatiality of remembrance: encounters between the native and urban

Memory and Belonging
Tanishqa Rodrigues, 2020

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