Cultural Identity of a City: Studying Jaisalmer and Kolkata

The relationship between cities and culture has been dominant in determining the identity of a city ever since the Indus Valley civilization came into existence. The advent of industrialization and urbanization led to modernism which has had a significant impact on the traditional components of a city. ‘Modernism’ and ‘traditionalism’ together help create the term ‘transformation’ that is further aided by human experience and emotions. The city and its culture play a vital role in creating an identity for its inhabitants. The stronger the cultural identity of a city, the stronger its imageability. The research helps in analysing the cities through case examples of Jaisalmer and Kolkata. The paper focuses on the dialogue among architectural spaces created through culture, which aids in forming the identity of the city with the view of analysing the dialectical relationship between architecture and culture. It also raises the question of the relevance of cultural identity in the formulation of the image of the city of the era of the times. It aims at not only recognizing the expression of social beliefs in already built environments but also understanding the unexpressed cultural potentials of urban places.