Don't Tear It Down!: Preserving the Earthquake Resistant Vernacular Architecture of Kashmir

DON'T TEAR IT DOWN! Preserving the Earthquake-Resistant Vernacular Architecture of Kashmir, makes the case for the preservation of the traditional domestic architecture that make up the urban form of Srinagar and the other cities in Kashmir. Published initially by UNESCO's New Delhi Office for distribution in Indian and Pakistan Administered Kashmir, the book is a product of UNESCO's mission to advance scientific understanding following the 2005 Kashmir earthquake which affected both Pakistan and India. The author, international heritage preservation consultant Randolph Langenbach, brings to it a vision of how the heritage buildings of Kashmir can become an armature on which to help rebuild people's pride of place after years of civil unrest. The work makes the case for preservation, not in spite of the antiquated construction of these buildings, but because of it. It is framed on the capacity of the best examples of Kashmiri traditional construction to resist one of Nature's most prodigious forces - earthquakes. By discussing two traditional forms of construction found in Kashmir: taq and dhajji dewari, this book documents an often ignored architectural heritage and a construction tradition that has demonstrated a level of earthquake-resistance that has led experts to introduce their attributes into the Indian and Pakistan building codes and to use features of them as the basis of ideas for how to improve the earthquake performance of modern structures of reinforced concrete. The book is illustrated with photographs by the author, who is also a noted photographer.

Randolph Langenbach studied architecture and building conservation at Harvard University, USA and the Institute of Advanced Architectural Studies in York, England. His first visit to India and Kashmir was in 1981 under an Indo-American Exchange Fellowship. In 1984, he was appointed Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of California at Berkeley. In 1992 he became Senior Analyst at the Federal Emergency Management Agency specializing in the repair and upgrading of buildings after earthquakes and other disasters. In recent years, he has consulted with UNESCO after earthquakes in Turkey, India, Georgia, and Iran, and both UNESCO and UN-HABITAT after the 2005 earthquake in India and Pakistan. In 2002 he was awarded the National Endowment for the Arts Rome Prize Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome for this work. Author's website is www.conservationtech.com, and the website specifically related to the book is: www.traditional-is-modern.net.