Rethinking Khan Market
Vandana Sehgal
Collaboration: Studio Symbiosis

Khan Market was initiated as a small business opportunity given by the government of India to the displaced people due to partition, after independence. As a built construct, it comprised of shop cum flats, where the dual purpose of earning and residing was taken care of. Till recently, it was a friendly neighborhood market, which catered to the daily needs of the abutting government colonies. In the last six years, how this small time market transformed into a fashion cum food hub, showcases the amazing growth of an average Indian urban space that overtakes, overlaps and oversteps spatial constraints, functional inadequacy, safety standards and the initial character. What we see today at the Khan market is that the shops have become smaller as the initial shop has been divided into two and the flats on top have been converted mostly into specialized restaurants or branded boutiques and showrooms spread in two floors accessible through a narrow closed staircases. So, the services that catered for a shop and a family, now has to take in the bulk of a heavily populated public place. The experience of ultimate shopping in Khan Market is associated with extreme parking problems, sewer stench, uneven walkways, draughts of air-conditioning vents and kitchen exhausts to name a few. These are the evident woes. What is not so apparent to many are the hazards of fire as the narrow staircase is inadequate for the exodus of the number of people sitting in the restaurants and the total disregard for the elderly and physically challenged to access them.