Wherever I go, my heart always stays with Hyderabad. With that emotion, this came about to be my second subject in my 100 days project. I grew up in one of the oldest residential locality of Hyderabad. I have seen beautiful old houses disappear and new apartments replacing them ever so often. Back then, it had never occurred to me how much history and culture those limestone walls held. Through the time lapse of change, one day in the middle of all the fresh concrete, I was surprised to find a beautiful little house of old world charm snuggled in between apartments. My love for them grew as I started realising that all these beautiful houses were vanishing in the name of development and metro construction in the recent years. I was fortunate enough to grow up in one of them and now my husband and I share the same love for such Art Deco houses. We would like to have one for ourselves before we are old and grey.
Exploring this subject furthermore, I wanted to focus on these buildings’ specific features. Like what made them stand out from the rest, was it their balconies? Or was it the patterns? Was it the shape itself or how worn out they were yet still standing strong to this day? These were my thoughts during the making of them. Although I wouldn’t happen to know the knick-knacks that an architecture student would know about drawing these structures, I tried to bring them to the canvas as realistically as possible in my perspective.
Hyderabad Vintage has been highlighted as one of my subjects to create awareness around these history-clad constructions and to urge that they need to be preserved. Whenever we visit another country, we always rave about their architecture filled with culture and heritage yet we turn blind eye to all the demolition that has been happening around the city. It is high time we preserve what we have and renovate them from time to time without losing their essence.
Moreover, Hyderabad is my home, my identity. It is diverse and everyone is accepted here. Hence, working on this subject was my personal agenda to showcase the beauty of these good old architecture of my city. Hope you enjoy looking through them!
