On the 'Maldives Resort Architecture' Exhibition.

The exhibition's water colours are an exhibition unto themselves.

Entering the senior architect Mauroof Jameel’s exhibition “Maldives Resort Architecture: Identity, Memory and Legacy” at the National Art Gallery, you’re awash with delicate watercolour paintings that capture a version of the Maldives that is completely new to you. The vivid colours, imagery and details depict a period suspended in amber, the very beginnings of the trajectory of our country being changed forever. Each decade of the exhibition was accompanied by audio recordings you can listen to, scanning a QR code, making it a rich audiovisual experience. 

You walk a little more to be greeted with tiny models of the resorts - where you can see the progression of their architectural history manifest in real time. The exhibition was rich with historical knowledge, much that I learned for the first time. It was also curated in a manner where you feel like you’re walking from the past right towards the future. Every element of the exhibition was done with finesse and dedication. 

On the day I visited the exhibition, there was a talk by the artist built around the History of Resort Architecture. The talk was organized by the Architecture Association of the Maldives, and Jameel discussed in great detail the prominent design features of the resorts in each decade. He led the talk with an incredible attention to detail, with the level of insight you can only achieve after decades of experience. 

The talk covered a myriad of topics, but what stood out to me was when Jameel dissected UNESCO World Heritage in relation to preservation. From the earliest iterations of the resorts, the only one left standing currently is the Nika Island Resort. Founded in 1983, the island preserves the old, authentic condition of the resort and as he said “It is both a working resort and a living heritage site”. As it stands, Nika Island meets the standard for UNESCO World Heritage site, and recognition would affirm the value of the Maldivian resort tradition.

He highlighted how the UNESCO World Heritage would encourage long lasting tourism. The Maldives accepted the UNESCO World Heritage Convention on 22nd May 1986 and since then, no Maldivian sites have been inducted. As of today, the sole listing remains the Coral Stone Mosques of the country. 

When I approached Mauroof Jameel to raise my queries about preservation, he mentioned how the main reason why he pitched for UNESCO World Heritage site is that the Maldives is politically turbulent - placing the onus of preservation on the government is not reliable. 

I am not an architectural expert, so I am by no means qualified to give an opinion. However, I came away from the exhibition with a persistent question - how do we determine what is worth preserving? What is remembered, and what is left to fade to obscurity? 

We do not have a systematic manner to preserve our spatial history, the urban landscapes we come to take for granted. It is easy to get used to our surroundings, we are inundated with perpetual sameness - the kind of unchanging monotony that can only come from a geographically isolated city. Nothing happens, and nothing changes. It’s easy to think that nothing can change, but everything changes even in just a couple of years. Cafe’s, art murals and small businesses appear and disappear around us. We accept the transient nature of the city as part of life, we don’t really consider that maybe our memories of our surroundings are worth preserving. 

The resorts become more sophisticated as time moves on.

The beautiful islands depicted in the resorts have only been experienced by the people who could afford to be there. From the very beginning, when we were considered a Robinson Crusoe-esque adventure destination reserved for the daring and the bold, to the current day ultra luxury holiday destination, we have persistently remained an expensive fantasy. Being able to afford to go to a resort in the Maldives is not a universal experience, but why is there no value in documenting experiences that are universal to the average person in the country? The spaces we occupy everyday, the parks, the cafe’s and houses we visit. I would love to see a thorough visual timeline of how the landscape of the islands changed over the years, how our concrete apartments came to be and how the style of architecture changed over the years. 

Recently, I came across an image posted by ‘Ranzamaan’ on facebook of a musical performance by the Sri Lankan Baila legend Desmond De Silva, at Icege in Male city. This was a man that had re- shaped modern sinhala pop music & baila from the ground up and influenced Maldivian music, so I was very surprised that I’d never heard of this event before. After all, most Maldivian would have heard his iconic, melodious hit “Sumihiri Pane” even if they don’t know it. And then there was Icege, a place that’s vibrant and alive in the memory of many Maldivians but currently unheard of by the younger generations. Sure, it might have not been an ‘architectural marvel’, in terms of structure, but Icege was once known as the ‘It’ social space. This was where the youth once socialised, danced to live music & of course, enjoyed ice cream (from a ‘cold metal cup’, said one Facebook user).

What’s the objective of a historical exhibition? The target audience of an exhibition is usually always the youth. A lot of the people who attended the lecture  were budding architects and young children with their parents. An exhibition documenting the history of the resorts relays the idea that our tourism history is worth remembering. However, I believe equal weight should be given to spaces the youth of the past went to on a regular basis, places we know through oral history by elders enthusiastically discussing their youth. Some people would have us believe that a place like Icege has no place in our spatial memory. That should not be the case. 

I believe that Mauroof Jameel has done invaluable work, and the fifty year resort architecture archive he has amassed over the years is an integral part of our history. I completely agree with his perspective on the need to preserve natural heritage sites, and it would be a disservice to not consider resorts as part of the history of the Maldives. However, I believe we need to preserve our everyday surroundings with the same, passionate fervour. If the system is not in favour, it should be our collective responsibility to record and archive the islands we grow up and live in. Whether it’s documenting the architecture of our island communities or painting the various little cafes that pop in and out of the city, I believe there is value in honouring the commonplace sights in our lives. 

I don’t have the answers to how we can document our spatial history on a national level. I am ultimately just a person with a laptop and keyboard. However, the exhibition has brought about a vested interest in our visual history, and I wonder how as a collective we can put more of an effort to document our spatial history. I left the exhibition with a new perspective and a signed copy of the book Maldivian Resort Architecture.