GOLCONDA–HYDERABAD 1975/1996/2012: A Photographic Essay

One of the many great qualities of cities is their ability to defy the desire of the planners who attempt to orchestrate their form through design. Cities are wondrous organisms, like microbes they evolve, and the damage as well as the transformations are usually done before citizens, conservation advocates and civil society more generally even realize that change is underway—what is, in truth, most often a rear-guard action. Photography and film are perhaps the only visual mediums that truthfully capture this process. It is for this reason that the works of Thomas Lüttge and Hans Winterberg are of importance to the conservation movement, as well as a historic documentation of Hyderabad and Golconda. (Prof. Rahul Mehrotra, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University)