Prutha Goa

The conference titled 'Challenges for the Preservation of the Diverse Goan Religious Heritages' was held at Fundação Oriente India in Panjim on the 18 th of March 2018. Joaquim R Santos (University of Lisbon), Vishvesh Kandolkar (Goa College of Architecture), Amita Kanekar (Al-Zulaij Collective), and Gulafshan Khan (Deccan College of Pune) presented perspectives on the heritage of various religions in Goa. Architect and research scholar Joaquim Santos spoke about the Catholic religious architecture in Goa and deterrents to its preservation. Some of the apathy towards caring for Catholic structures and even conscious destruction of Catholic monuments could be traced to an animosity towards the Portuguese regime. Perhaps it is because these stand as an ideological and political reminder of that time with the obvious Portuguese influence on the architecture. In 1934, all the significant churches in Old Goa were listed as national monuments. When Goa became part of India, the

All over Goa we see heritage houses, a testament to the Portuguese rule in this tiny state. Usually they are abandoned, empty with the owners living in another country, or in a dilapidated condition. The occasional well-maintained Portuguese-Goan style house is preserved at considerable cost. Even so, the preservation of ancestral Goan houses is essential to the Goan identity which carries with it stories of families and their legacies. There are many Goans who cut costs and try to use modern methods and materials such as ceramic tiles, etc. The best way to maintain these ancestral homes is to use age old architectural techniques which, although expensive, retain the integrity and structural harmony of the house. Ketak Nachinolkar is a conservation architect who has made an example of his own ancestral house by maintaining it the old fashioned way. Ketak, who has been practicing for the last sixteen years, found opposition to his ideas of conservation when he started out but more recen