A record of India's heritage architecture, made before it changes.

Heritage Architecture Foundation is a trust based in Coimbatore. Its work is the documentation of heritage buildings: the structure first, and then the history, craft, materials and surroundings that explain it. The aim is a careful record that remains available when a building is altered, damaged, rebuilt or lost.

The Trust was registered in August 2026. Its public archive currently holds 16 records. The wider work is being built now.

See the record → Why HAF exists

Ladan Temple, Anamalai, Madurai · Photographic record · HeritageArchitectureFoundation-2026-008

The Record

The building comes first.

A useful record of a heritage structure starts with the structure itself: its plan and form, its proportions, how it was built, what it is made of, its details and sculpture, its condition, and what has already been altered.

Around that sits the context needed to understand it: its history and records, the people connected with it, the craft and material knowledge behind it, and the place it stands in.

A record is complete enough when someone, years later, could understand what the building was even if it no longer looks the same.

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Structure

Form, plan, construction, materials, details, sculpture.

Condition

The state of the building when it is recorded, including earlier alterations.

Context

History, records, people, craft, surroundings.

The process

Who recorded it, when, how, and where the material is kept.

What HAF is building

Today, and what HAF is building.

The current publicly available records are photographic records, with one record of architectural drawings. HAF is being built around a broader and more systematic approach to architectural documentation.

Documentation

Today · being developed

The public archive currently holds records of 16 heritage sites in Tamil Nadu. HAF is developing a broader, more systematic method of architectural documentation.

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Kalanjiyam

Being built

களஞ்சியம், a storehouse: the long-term repository of architectural memory that HAF is building.

About the Kalanjiyam →

Research

Planned

Research that begins from the record and deepens it.

Research at HAF →

Conservation support

Planned, long term

In time, using careful records to inform conservation that keeps a building's original character.

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Learning

Planned, long term

In time, learning through real documentation work.

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Approach

Record first. Then keep the record well.

1 Before change Wherever possible, record a building before it is renovated or altered, so a baseline exists.

2 Structure, then context The building first. Its history, craft and surroundings to explain it.

3 Traditional and digital Observation, photography and drawings, supported where useful by video, drone, 3D and mapping.

4 The process too Who took part, when, what methods were used, what was collected and where it is kept.

5 Kept for the long term Catalogued, given permanent references, stored in lasting forms, shared at the right level.

This is the approach HAF is building its documentation around. The methods serve the record; they are not the point. Not everything recorded is made public.

Where the record stands

Tamil Nadu, for now.

Today

Every record in the archive today is from Tamil Nadu, mostly temples and Jain sites. There are 16 in all.

Over time

India's heritage architecture extends far beyond this. HAF's intention is to work across the country over time.

Alongside others

That work is meant to happen alongside the many people and organisations already recording and caring for heritage buildings.

A record of India's heritage architecture, made before it changes.

The building comes first.

Structure

Condition

Context

The process

Today, and what HAF is building.

Documentation

Archive

Kalanjiyam

Research

Conservation support

Learning

Record first. Then keep the record well.

From the archive.

Meenakshi Amman Temple

Perur Pattieshwarar Temple

Thenparankundram

Tamil Nadu, for now.

Today

Over time

Alongside others

This is long work, and it needs more than one institution.