As I wandered through the older quarters of my town, my eyes were drawn to the towering wooden houses that once defined the traditional neighbourhoods of Kashmir. Weathered by time yet dignified in their silence, they stood like quiet witnesses to generations long gone. Their carved balconies and fading facades seemed to hold conversations with the past, as though every beam and bracket carried a memory waiting to be heard.Compelled by curiosity, I stepped into one that now stood in ruin. Though its walls bore cracks and its paint had long surrendered to time, something within it still breathed. The creaking floors, the filtered light passing through the delicate dub the projecting wooden balcony or bay window of old Kashmiri homes and the stillness of its rooms stirred a single question in my mind: Why did we abandon this beauty?

Where Wood Remembered Warmth and Time

Between the 14th and 18th centuries, alongside the flourishing of Kashmir’s mosque architecture under the influence of figures such as Shah-i-Hamdan, a remarkable tradition of domestic architecture emerged. These homes were shaped less by religion than by climate, daily life, and the intelligent use of........

© Greater Kashmir