World Heritage Day is less about nostalgia and more about relevance. It’s a reminder that buildings—when they outlive their original functions—don’t fade into the background. They adapt, endure and sometimes, quietly shape the future. Not just as structures, but as markers of imagination, risk, restraint and vision.
This time, we ask architects and designers to think beyond stone and stucco—to revisit the buildings that left a mark. Whether through formative encounters, projects that demanded difficult choices or something that just worked as an inspiration, these are spaces that continue to provoke, teach and stay with them.
As we speak with Sonali Rastogi, Founding Partner at Morphogenesis, whose practice has long been grounded in contextual intelligence, she reflects on how buildings in Ahmedabad and Goa shaped her view of architecture as a cultural continuum.
Standing in front of the Mill Owners’ Association Building in Ahmedabad as a student, she encountered more than just Corbusier’s béton brut. What she saw was a blueprint for a new kind of architecture—climatic, contextual and charged with cultural meaning.
“The brise-soleil, the shaded terraces, the way light and air moved through the building—it was an education in passive cooling and spatial generosity long before these became mainstream conversations,” she says. For her, this wasn’t just a masterclass in design. It was an invitation to understand how architecture could be both radical and rooted.
The ethos of Ahmedabad—with its unique mix of private patronage and public imagination—left a lasting mark on Rastogi. “What has also inspired me is the tradition of private patronage in Ahmedabad—how industrialists commissioned buildings that were progressive, experimental, and deeply civic in spirit. The idea that architecture could be a form of cultural investment—not just in function but in meaning—is something I hold onto,” says Sonali.
Heritage buildings, she believes, are more than relics; they are living repositories of time and emotion. Sonali says, “They embody not just the architecture of a particular time, but the aspirations, struggles, and social values that defined that moment. In cities like Ahmedabad, for instance, post-independence architecture didn’t just mark a break from colonial traditions—it captured the hope and imagination of a new nation.”
At Morphogenesis, that respect for memory is never about freezing time. It’s about evolving it. In their project The Yellow House in Goa, the team worked within the modest scale of a Portuguese-era villa. Instead of overwhelming it with new gestures, they built around its existing rhythm—extending the courtyard, preserving the terrain, working with rattan, terrazzo, and Udaipur stone to strike a quiet chord.
The same approach shaped their work on the Delhi Art Gallery in Kala Ghoda, where the original colonial-era shell had lost its form over time. “There were no drawings to work from—so we reconstructed the building’s narrative by studying its neighbours, reading the street, and creating something that felt like a plausible continuation of its original voice, layered with a new function,” says Sonali.
One moment that lingers with her is from that same Goan villa. “We were walking the site for the first time, and there was this beautiful old tree in the middle of the property—predating even the villa. There was never a discussion about removing it; it was immediately clear that it had to stay. What emerged over time was that the tree became the anchor of the entire planning strategy. The courtyard was extended around it, communal seating was arranged beneath its canopy, and eventually, it came to define the atmosphere of the space—calm, shaded, timeless.”
For Rastogi, this is what heritage can be: not always monumental, not always built. Sometimes, it’s the tree that holds the memory of a place. Sometimes, it’s the silence that reminds us how to listen. “That’s the kind of decision that doesn’t show up in plans or elevations,” she says. “But it shapes everything.”
In a country like India, where every street corner carries a palimpsest of stories, the conversation between art, architecture, and heritage feels more urgent than ever. “Art gives architecture its emotion. Heritage gives it depth. Architecture binds them together,” she says.
And when that happens—when buildings become carriers of memory, meaning and imagination—architecture becomes more than form. It becomes cultural continuity.
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