ABSTRACT
The past is never dead. In fact, it is not even past. William Faulkner
In 1900 an extraordinary range of house types existed in India. Some (for example, the bahajs and dunga boat dwellings of the poor in Kashmir) were not houses in the conventional sense (K. Shah 1972). In the rural areas, the detached house was the most prevalent type while in the urban areas the predominant form was the shared-wall house except in certain hot-humid geographical zones. Numerous examples of row houses, nevertheless, existed in both rural and urban areas. In 1900, all these houses had characteristics that were clear responses to the inter-relationships among local climatic, material availability and cultural conditions. In the twentieth century, our story will show that the latter two had the greater impact on the changes that the bungalow underwent as a housing option preferred by many of the middle class.
