FOREWORD

This book is dedicated to my father Kuppanda Muthayya Chinnappa who with my mother Gunavati Mahadevan Chinnappa taught me the value of our heritage and the importance of "a sense of place".

My father was a Coorg. My mother was a Tamilian from Bangalore. When they got married in 1944 it was not easy for them. Times were different.

My elder sister and I, true hybrids like the Coorg coffee, grew up in Kolkata and Mumbai. We went to Bangalore and Coorg for naming ceremonies, weddings and funerals and of course many wonderful summer holidays on the coffee estates of our relatives.

I remember staying in and visiting the wonderful old Coorg homes and seeing the fish from the paddy fields being made into pickle.

I remember the red coffee berries with their green leaves surrounding them on the coffee bushes. My father would tell me how as a young boy he would walk an extra few miles a day to attend a better school in the capital Mercara, now called Madikeri. He lived in Virajpet. His father was in the forest service and died when my father was seventeen. There were many other stories that are etched in my memory.

I was thirteen when I knew I wanted to become an architect. My sister Ranjini who was three years older was already in architecture school. We, the "Chinnappa girls," both married Coorgs and our architectural firm Somaya and Kalappa was born in 1975. Ranjini relocated to Holland in 1980, but on her yearly vacation home to her husband's family estate my two children, Vikram and Nandini, would go to spend the summer with their cousins. Thus although we lived far away in the urban sprawl of Mumbai, Coorg was always part of my life.

Then a few years ago, witnessing the rampant destruction of Bangalore's architectural heritage I began to have similar concerns about Coorg. I had been involved with restoration and conservation for many years. My work in this area ranged from the West End Hotel in Bangalore to the Cathedral and John Connon schools in Mumbai. I had been on the Urban Heritage Conservation Committee for many years and learnt about the importance of listing and documentation. Then one day I heard that a wonderful wooden structure that was part of an ainemane- the ancestral house - had been destroyed. The prospect of further destruction of such irreplaceable treasures brought home to me the urgency of documenting the architectural heritage of Coorg.

It was in 2001 that this beautiful timber building of immense sociocultural and architectural significance was reduced to rubble. While its loss continues to be felt keenly, the destruction of this irreplaceable treasure did have one positive outcome: it served to alert many concerned individuals to the increasing vulnerability of the Coorg architectural heritage. As land prices in Coorg skyrocketed, it was no longer safe to assume that cultural sanctity and community sentiment would suffice to ward off the threats confronting such buildings.
This threat posed to a distinctive and little-known architectural tradition resulted in this book. My cousin Kuppanda G. Premnath shared my concerns and took an active role in moving the project forward. We were subsequently joined by Dyan Belliappa, a likeminded architect with wide knowledge of the traditional architecture of the area. Together we embarked on the task of identifying traditionally built buildings to be documented in detail. It was an onerous task as the ainemanes are scattered all over Coorg. Preliminary investigations revealed that many of these buildings had been greatly altered and modernized. While they retained broad historical, sociocultural, and familial significance, such altered structures had diminished value as heritage buildings. Criteria had to be developed for selecting traditionally built buildings for research and detailed documentation. Some of these criteria included integrity to the original plan, with minimal physical intervention with the built fabric, and high architectural significance. Continuity of use and of social significance was also important. Once the buildings were identified we approached the families for permission and assistance for documentation-in most cases our request was not just received positively, but with affection and hospitality.

Two young architects from my Bangalore office, Rishma Parikh and Yogesh Tantia, took over six months to prepare the measured drawings of the building complexes. Rishma is now an honorary Kodava and even took her husband there soon after her marriage! Plans and sections of nine ainemanes, three temples, and two independent houses were completed. The photographer, Mallikarjun B. Katakol, was commissioned to record the buildings in colour and black and white photographs. Supportive literary research and compilation of the gathered information began in March 2005. The conservation architect Poonam Verma Mascarenhas was commissioned to write the text; Gautam Premnath, an assistant professor at the University of Berkeley, provided editorial assistance. Gita Simoes, another HECAR trustee and a dear friend, took on the design work of the book and provided me additional continuing support, so vital to the completion of this project.

The book is thoroughly and professionally researched and documented, and aims to provide as definitive a record as possible of traditional Coorg architecture. We have also tried to make it accessible to a wide audience, so that it can help spread awareness of this architectural tradition and the urgent need to take measures to preserve it. In any project such as this readers may find areas of disagreement. If any errors have crept in they are purely unintentional and not due to lack of effort or seriousness of purpose. Due to limited written documentation certain assumptions, backed by available research and our own perceptions, are necessary. I always believe that much of the work the HECAR Foundation and the trustees in their individual capacities have done have worked as catalysts to take things further. We hope this book will only be a prelude to many others that will follow and take the research and documentation further to cover what we could not. Apart from documenting a distinctive architectural tradition we also want to reach a fuller understanding and appreciation of the values, beliefs and practices that shaped it. Out of this, we believe, will emerge the commitment to preserve and protect the tradition.

In concluding, I would like to thank my husband Codanda Anand Somaya who provided me not only with continuing support and encouragement, but also with a wonderful large Coorg family who helped me throughout this process. It is his and my family and our friends in Coorg who helped us complete the physical and visual documentation of these carefully selected structures.