Introduction
To look with new eyes at our own town, to analyse it more deeply and to become aware of the infinite variety of faces, and sometimes masks, that it wears is rather like re-reading a demanding but favourite book with the intention of getting to know the characters better. At the beginning of the story the functions and feelings of the heroes or heroines are familiar and then we come to a word we don't know or have forgotten and the story is suddenly incomprehensible. In the same way the town is also familiar and yet complex and needs to be read at different levels if it is to be understood. As residents we naturally have a longstanding intimacy with the place and can easily orient ourselves and identify landmarks and monuments; whenever we walk the streets of a part of the town we know well, we are at home in them. Habit, and the feeling that we've seen it all before, tends to limit curiosity and the desire to explore. A town is not simply a collection of streets and houses with a certain number of inhabitants listed in books of statistics but is, above all, the profound expression of a culture, reflecting the discords as well as the aspirations, of the people who live in it. A living urban environment is the product of its past and of its architectural tradition. In Pondicherry, as in any town in the process of change, the doubts and the difficulties are due largely to a fascination with an image of modernity which entails sweeping structural transformation and the more or less complete abandonment of age-old habits and customs. The aim here then is to provide students and their teachers with analytical methods and with ways of considering a town, so that they may the better make the place where they live their own. and come into closer contact with the living spirit in places generally Pondicherry has been chosen for this analysis but the methods used can as well be applied to any town. First, we look at the situation and the site of Pondicherry and then turn to the history of the town's morphology, its form, and to the particular plan used in its layout, along with the reasons for the adoption of that plan. Comparisons are made here with other towns in India. Next we focus upon the urban landscape of the street in both what was called "ville blanche" the French or European town, and the "ville noire" or Tamil town. Several aspects are considered here: the actual physical reality, from the architectural, urban and historical points of view, and the "experienced reality", or socio-cultural aspects. Each of these approaches casts light upon a specific aspect of the urban landscape and, far from being mutually exclusive, they enrich each other. The procedure is the same in the chapter on the house with its emphasis on the Tamil house, where the focus is on the diversity of the actual physical reality: the architecture, the function of the materials and the adaptation to climate, as well as the experienced reality, the symbolic aspects and customs.
Preface
Everyday words such as town, street and house designate places with which we are familiar, they refer to streets we walk along time after time, to sights imprinted on our vision and to the unique place itself where we live, which is enriched with the tangibility of the past even as it vibrates with our words and presence. It is through personal experience of the innumerable landscapes in the town, any of which may disappear at any moment, that they speak to us directly, casting light on the evolution of our culture. Places are treasure houses of meaning; house and town are as intrinsic as the mother tongue to our living memory. This book is neither a guide nor an inventory of monuments, nor yet an introduction to the history of Pondicherry. It is rather a tool kit to help in the process of making the town our own, and it is an invitation to you to enter into a closer relationship with the spirit of place.
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