The Vanishing Wadas of Pune

A unique style of housing may soon be history unless new ways to preserve its glory are discovered and implemented. Neha Tambe shines a light on the situation

- Neha Tambe

My first introduction to the wadas (courtyard-style housing) was as a child in Baroda (now known as Vadodara), while visiting my great-grandmother. She stayed at what was then called the Tambe Wada. At that point I was blissfully unaware that the wadas were not just predominantly native to Baroda, but present all over India under different nomenclatures.

Indeed, wadas are basically a form of courtyard housing that were designed to suit the Indian climate as well as the family set-up, which at that point used to be a joint-family system. On visiting Pune a few years later, I first saw the remnants of the glory of the Maratha Empire in the form of the mighty Shaniwar Wada. I did not actually start thinking of the wadas as an architectural or indeed an urban element, till I began architecture school and eventually graduate school.

Wadas are found in parts of what would have then been deemed as the Bombay Presidency (modern day Gujarat and Maharashtra) during the British Raj (although they predate the British Raj). Like the Rajasthani Havelis, these wadas were designed to suit the climate of the area they were situated in using locally sourced materials and in an architectural style that was dominant. During the early days of the British Raj, Pune became a popular British outpost, with a cantonment area created for British officers. At the same time these wadas remained intact and were active residences for the native population. It was around this time that the first specks of urban cultural and leisure festivals were organised in the form of music and religious festivals, as a way of uniting the native community. My initial study was to find alternative adaptive reuse solutions for these once beautiful houses.