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The old heritage buildings of Kolkata rise against the city’s skyline like the sturdy chords of an ancient chamber organ. The rise and fall of these architectural reeds lend the city its own music: a composition of memory, loss and renewal.

The 109-year-old Royal Insurance Building in Dalhousie Square, facing the stately GPO, spent decades folded into the city’s bureaucratic routine. The building is reflective of early 20th-Century colonial commercial architecture, with strong Edwardian and Classical influences visible in its scale and ornamentation. But on March 27, the building assumed another personality altogether. Neon pink and blue lights washed over its creaking stairwells as flamenco dancers in high heels gathered on the steps, waiting to burst into performance.

Royal Insurance Building in Dalhousie , Kolkata | Photo Credit: Shreya Banerjee

This transformation was part of Kolkata Unforgettable, an experiential tourism initiative led by Shailaja Mundra and her daughter Vasudha Pachisia. Their idea was simple yet compelling.

While exploring the city’s heritage structures, the organisers realised these buildings could function as “pre-made backdrops” for cultural experiences. The idea emerged from the reality that heritage owners often lack the financial incentive to maintain ageing properties. Their solution was to animate these spaces through fortnightly curated immersive performances that could generate both public interest and revenue.

Art walker, Navpreet Arora engaing the audience while sharing stories about the Royal Insurance Building’s history | Photo Credit: Shreya Banerjee

“Dalhousie, which is the downtown area of the city is dead on weekends despite its architectural richness,” says Vasudha. Rather than turning the events into “history lessons”, the team blends storytelling, music and dance, making the venue itself the hero. Past events have included a theatrical production on the history of the GPO, a dastangoi performance on Guru Dutt inside a North Kolkata rajbari evocative of Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam, and a concert inside St. John’s Church which saw the church’s rarely heard pipe organ being played alongside a choir and string instruments.

Attendees break indo dance during the flamenco performanc at the Royal Insurance Building | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

At the Royal Insurance Building, choreographer Soujit Das and his troupe Beatbusters turned the staircase itself into a performance space, with audiences moving through different levels of the building as the show unfolded around them. In between performances, art walker Navpreet Arora guided attendees through the history of the building. “These are not auditoriums. We have to go wild with our imagination and reimagine every venue as a stage,” Vasudha says. The events, planned every few weeks, are intended to eventually become self-sustaining, with a portion of the revenue supporting the upkeep of the very buildings they seek to revive.

Across Kolkata, old walls are finding new rhythms, as jazz bars, cultural venues, cafés and performance spaces, sustained by owners who see restoration not as nostalgia, but as continuity.

Upholding the spirit of restoration and adaptive reuse is Munir Mohanty, co-founder, Skinny Mo’s jazz bar and owner of the 109-year-old late colonial building on South Kolkata’s Manoharpukur Road.

Munir Mohanty’s 109 year old building in Manoharpukur Road that houses Skinny Mo’s and Nutcase | Photo Credit: Skinny Mo’s / Facebook

It houses two of Kolkata’s defining haunts: Nutcase, the cocktail parlour, and Skinny Mo’s jazz bar, which shares space with a thrift shop

On acquiring the building in 2019, Munir explains the process of restoration that took him a year to make a dated property such as this, suitable for housing commercial establishments. “I had to take all the sewage pipes, electricals and the plaster on the inside and outside out until the building became a brick shell. There was damp all over the building which required repair and then we had to sound proof the building, refraining from using glass — we used aluminium windows, retained the red oxide flooring and sourced tiles from Bikaner, which still has a lot of palaces that use them.”

To help heritage property owners with restoration and sourcing materials, architect Aishwarya Tipnis and her co-founder Hinna Devi Singh created Jugaadopolis, an open-source restoration toolbox initiative inspired by the principles of the circular economy, aimed at empowering citizens to restore and conserve their own heritage buildings.

“Most owners are wealthy and have travelled or studied abroad. For instance there is The Red Bari, a cafe housed in a 90-year-old building in Kalighat, in the same area there is Bombaim which is a high end boutique located in a 100-plus year old heritage bungalow,” says Aishwarya.

Red oxide floors of The Red Bari | Photo Credit: The Red Bari

Avantika says, “The walls that run through the building are its main structural support. We were very judicious about not changing the bones of the building. This means we have really thick walls in the middle of some of our rooms, which give an old home vibe. Light and air flow in the building is the key to how the building works. Given the restrictions, we’ve managed to host events like baithaks, private parties, alternative dance performances, a Halloween party, workshops and more.”

Speaking about the restoration process, she adds, “We had to be compliant with all regulations, we built a fire escape and maintained all our fire and food safety standards. To do this we had to ensure the load of the fire escape structure didn’t come on the building. We also added a lift in a similar fashion, luckily the building had inbuilt space for us to do these structures as external structures. Plumbing, however, is a challenge. We have to clean our old drains four times more than any normal establishment. But on the plumbing, we also didn’t change where the water lines were. All lines were replaced but we didn’t try and pull water and add bathrooms to the building where older water lines didn’t exist.”

GM Kapur, General Council (GC) Member and Convenor of INTACH West Bengal and Calcutta Regional Chapters, says INTACH is presently working on creating a platform where buyers and sellers can meet and assess whether their requirements align. “Instead of flattening the building, we are in the process of creating a platform where, say, you have a heritage building and, say, I am a seller, so we meet on the platform to discuss and come to an agreement or a deal.”

Kolkata Police Headquarters, Lalbazar | Photo Credit: Nikhil Kapur

Among the examples cited were the demolished residence of filmmaker Pramathesh Barua, concerns surrounding the future of the Roxy Cinema and questions over the fate of landmark institutional buildings such as the Alipore and Presidency jails. The petition reflected a growing anxiety among conservationists that some of Kolkata’s most significant buildings remain vulnerable despite their cultural and architectural importance.

Against this backdrop, adaptive reuse is gaining attention as a more practical route to preservation. Rather than relying solely on regulation, it seeks to give heritage buildings an economic purpose, transforming them into businesses, cultural venues and hospitality spaces capable of generating the revenue needed for their upkeep.

The truest restoration, however, is not of brick and lime, but of a city's memory.

The Hindu Weekend / Kolkata / heritage / monument and heritage site

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