Architecture as Memory and Meaning

Buildings are created to serve a function and in the process of achieving it, creates a meaning for itself; not necessarily confined to space and time but something more human— the memory. Against the genealogical understanding of the building, we have before us a created meaning. The building in this manner somehow acts more like a sign signifying something more than the building in its physical sense.

It can rather be proposed that architecture is like a book— to be read across pages rather than merely glanced at by its cover. Peter Zumthor (b.1943), in his Thinking Architecture (c.1998) summons reader to similar appeal – “I believe that architecture is about creating emotional space... something that can be read and re-read, like a good novel.” It is memory built in material.

Roland Barthes (d.1980), in his essay ‘Work to Text’, argues that the relation of writer, reader and observer is changed by movement from work to text. A ‘work’ in architectural sense is a closed, finished object—rooted in style, architect’s intent, and fixed meaning where as a ‘text’ on the other hand, is participatory and open to multiple interpretations. In this way, the work is alien to observer, but text is personal. Barthes proposes differences between work and text in terms of method, genres, signs, filiation, reading, and pleasure.

The Kashmir valley, known for its mystic traditions and spiritual spirit, has inspired a built form that unites faith with material expression. There is a thoughtful reverie to these sacred structures that captures centuries of collective emotion: of belonging (right to the city), prayer (faith), rupture (politics), and endurance (resistance).

The Islamic shrines of Srinagar for example, embedded within the organic urban fabric, embody a concept similar to Colin Rowe’s (d.1999) Collage City — a city of fragments and memory rather than utopian order. These sacred structures coexist with everyday life, layered with cultural meaning and lived experience rooted in place, ritual and history.

The region is testament to political uncertainty and erasure of identities. And yet, in the wholesome timber pillars of Jama Masjid or the reborn edifice of Dastgeer Sahib shrine, the memory of people and resistance survives. The architecture as memory-containers, means not merely to sanctify but to signify and to outlive through craft and presence.

The Khanqah-e-Moula as it may seems to the observer, is not just stone and wood—it is where the sacred hymn, pronounced by the muezzin, rises, echoing through the shrine and drifting outward. The sound breaking through the air redefines the moment, and floats with the Jhelum. This is that aspect of architecture, which is first to be seen by the observer, and only then, slowly, to be felt.

The precinct of Hazratbal, as imposing it is against the backdrop of Pir Panjal, draws its sacredness not as much from the landscape as from the holy relic that empowers its core. The white dome—like a marble ornament framed by the Dal Lake, the mountains, and the ever-changing sky, carries the weight of belief not through height, but through the presence of the soul it holds. And this is felt by the knower—the reader of its history—not by one unaware of its depth and historicity.

Then we have the shrine of Makhdoom Sahib, built in 16^th century, fused with the landscape, embedded into the hill. Located in the heart of the city, on the slope of Koh-i-Maran, it stands quietly, overlooking Srinagar. The climb of stairs to shrine signify ascent, and the descent from the shrine echo Nietzsche’s metaphor: ‘One must go down’ in order to rise, like the sun, guiding the observer for the journey through inner struggle. The building plays with light—both natural and borrowed—as part of its spiritual rhythm. Open at either end, it looks out over the slopes, as though offering peace to the valley below.

The three-tiered roofs, elaborately painted soffits, and forest of columns speak of another architectural sensibility— one that values presence over monumentality. The effect of light filtering through latticed windows, combined with the breeze of incense and recitation of prayers, is not simply visual. It works on a psychological plane. The shrine is a feeling it itself.

Theoretical frameworks may appear distant or even unnecessary, yet they quietly assist the naïve observer in unfolding deeper layers of experience. This finds resonance in Roland Barthes’ idea of the ‘death of the author’. Just as the author is not the owner of the text but merely a medium between the subject and the reader, architecture too cannot be solely ascribed to the architect or builder. Its meaning is constantly shaped, reshaped—produced in the observer’s mind. A building, then, is never complete. It is an open text—read one way by the devotee, another by the architect, and yet differently by the passerby.

In the ‘Poetics of Space’, Gaston Bachelard (d.1962) writes, ‘The house... is a ‘psychic state’... it bespeaks intimacy.’ Kashmir’s shrines embody this, offering not just architectural magnificence but emotional refuge. Their wooden caress, carved interiors, the dimly lit corridors, along the silence of whispered prayers—all become signifiers that are first seen, then slowly felt. The sacred here is not in structure alone, but in the quiet memory it stirs.

This way of seeing and observing becomes vital in the conservation and cherishing of age-old architecture. As long as buildings are read in only one way, treated as inert and silent, their historicity and spirituality remain overlooked. It is only when they are understood as signifiers of something beyond wood, stone, and iron that they begin to live as sites of return, of reinterpretation. And as long as there is someone to stand beneath their wooden canopies, or pause beside their carved columns, they will continue to speak—not just of faith, but of memory that refuses to fade.

Sheikh Muzamil Hussain, Urban and Regional Planner and alumnus of CEPT Ahmedabad.