High rising for centuries –
The diversity of towers in Pune
- Jonas Wachinger
While talking about Pune’s heritage, one can not overlook magnificant
towers in city built for various
reasons. Jonas Wachinger, an intern with Janwani’s Heritage Team, visited some of these towers and attempted
to study the architecture, purpose and the current status of these towers. The Part I of this series gave a
brief introduction of these towers and highlighted their symbolic significance. In the Part II, we read about
objectives of these towers. The Part III will enlighten us about the purpose of towers and the latest towers of
Pune. This article concludes this series.
2.4 Energy
There is a fourth, often neglected purpose of height,
and although some of these structures are often
ignored when it comes to heritage towers, these
should not be left out in an article dedicated to the
vast diversity of towers in Pune. Placing things at
a higher level brings certain energetic advantages,
for example in exploiting gravitational principles or
temperature regulation.
2.4.1 Water towers
But the need for enough water with sufficient
pressure wasn’t always purely a luxury but due to
deeper fears. For example the historic building of the
Pune Archives soon got its own water tower, as the
danger of a devastating fire destroying the important
documents stored here was considered too big. This
tower and the elaborate system of pipes for guiding
the water in case of fire to the precious scripts can be
seen from street level.
2.4.2 Chimneys
When the Peshwas started to build water lines to
bring the water directly into the homes, the need for
water towers reached Pune. The principle that the
water has to be placed above the level it is needed
later to ensure the steady flow was already known,
and the early, rather low wadas didn’t require very
high water towers. The big wadas were the first ones
to be equipped with their own water towers, and some
of them can be found until today, for example the one
at the Jahangir Bungalow in Wakdewadi.
Chimneys are used for the ventilation of fumes and
insuring circulation through the so-called stack effect.
There are two important aspects of chimneys: As
vertical as possible for the fumes to flow steadily, and
as high as possible or at least as necessary to ensure
that the pressure difference responsible for the draft
which pulls in air at the bottom and moves the fumes
out at the top is sufficient. Both aspects make many
chimneys look like a tower, and although today most
chimneys we have in mind are the rather unpleasant
sights in industrial areas there are other examples,
too. The best one here in Pune might be the one of
the College of Engineering, Pune (COEP) which is
so well built pretty much everyone who sees it for
the first time might mistake it for a symbolic tower to
give the University a more reverend appearance.
3 Pune’s towers today
But, as anyone can see, the building of towers hasn’t
stopped since the beginning of the 20th century, but
their purpose, the concept behind this type of building
has changed. Of course there are still monuments being
built, there are water tanks on top of the buildings or
radio towers to improve the reception of our mobile
phones, but the towers we notice, which shape the
way the whole city looks from miles away, usually
are neither used for symbolic purposes, nor for any of
those described earlier, but for hosting people. Most of
these new towers belong to one of two categories: to the
office towers, for example the MCCIA Trade Tower
on Senapati Bapat Road, or to the rapidly increasing
number of living towers, for example the prestigious
Trump Towers, currently under construction. The
huge influx of migrants into Pune as an industrial
center in the second half of the 20th century resulted
in a high demand for new accommodations, and the
city government started to change the rules for the
height of buildings accordingly. Now, as for example
the transfer of development rights made it possible to
build towers higher than by the general Floor Space
Index permitted, buildings started to grow, and soon
the old towers, which once had such a huge impact on
the skyline of the city, lost their importance.
It would be possible to draw the conclusion that, with
what Joseph Campbell said in mind, the only thing
relevant in our society here today are luxury (e.g.
Trump Towers), or money and business (e.g. Trade
Towers), as the tallest buildings are serving these
purposes. But this might neglect the number of towers
which might not be able to compete in height, but are,
whether still in use or not, still respected, and while
every single one with its own purpose tells its own
story, combined they are a unique token of Pune’s
history.
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