Charting the Identity of Shimla

Abstract

Identity of a place changes due to rapid modern alterations in a city. There are various factors leading to these changes in the identity of a place. This research article investigates those factors through the physical mapping technique through the case study of the city, Shimla. The article delves into how the city of Shimla was formed as a British summer capital of India and has evolved its character and identity into a state capital.

Components of identity of a place are explored and those components are applied to find the identity of Shimla on the basis of three major nodes of the city with important government offices. The components used to find the identity of the city are—historical layers of the structures, take of social community towards them, the components of the built form of the major nodes and activities performed at the nodes. The identity of a place is investigated by integrating all the aspects of the physical components associated with the major activity nodes extracted from the history and evolution of the city. Multiple ways of looking into physical spatial components of the nodes led to define the predominant factors to form the identity of the city.