Socio-cultural and physical aspects of place-making in three streets of Puri, India

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to understand the impact of physical and socio-cultural aspects of streets on sense of place in the streets of Puri, a pilgrimage and a religious city. The three major streets of Puri leading to Jagannath temple, consist of the Bada Danda, Temple and Swargdwara streets. Each of these streets have their own unique spatial quality resulting from their cultural, historical and religious importance, serving as both spiritual and social places for the people. Because of their religious and functional significance, scale and diverse activities, these streets have a strong sense of place. The sense of place on streets of religious cities, which is visited by number of pilgrims on daily basis, thus needs to be assessed not only for physical but also for the fact that these streets be perceptible as a ‘place'. The research adopts a mixed method approach: visual survey and a structured questionnaire survey of both pilgrims and residents to achieve at its objective. The result indicates the dominance of socio-cultural aspects more than the physical aspects on sense of place thereby indicating that the improvements in physical characteristics can further enhance their perception about street identity and sense of place in Indian religious cities.