Professor Pradumnya Vyas, director, National Institute of Design (NID) appeared to be one confident head of the institute as he spoke to his students attending the orientation session towards the ‘heritage contest’, a Times of India initiative.

“We at NID certainly have the expertise and talent to make the needed difference to Ahmedabad’s status. The city is culturally rich and the competition is an opportunity for us to show to the world our strengths and our unconditional love for this city which has harboured us for 50 long years.” The ‘heritage contest’ brings together the four premier academic institutes of Ahmedabad, Indian Institute of Management (IIM-A), Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT) and Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad (MICA) in one competitive forum along with NID. These institutes will present their vision about the city to an international jury in order to generate attention towards Ahmedabad’s heritage value and wrest the World Heritage City status from Unesco on February 25.

As if taking a cue from their director’s enthusiasm, student leaders came forward on the spot and discussed how they can utilise the hard work they have put in their assignments to study the architecture, design patterns, and images of the city’s core to create a wonderful vision about the city. NIDians are designers of dreams, and it was no surprise that one of them asked whether all the four institutes can collaborate for crafting a united perspective for their city. The discussion passionately veered on the topic of making Amdavadis proud of their heritage.

Core faculty members including Prof Anil Sinha, head of communications design and Prof Deepak John Mathew, head of department of photography also participated in the orientation taking keen interest in the framework of the contest and discussing with their students the strategies to be prepared.

Speaking on the occasion, heritage architect Debashish Nayak said, “The motifs and patterns on the old wooden havelis or pols narrate the story of a family. While a house is an expression of individual thought, the walled city with hundreds of such pols is an expression of collective thinking of the city.”

Read more: – The Times of India