Sardar Baug — Lal Darwaja, Ahmedabad
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Sardar Baug
Ahmedabad
Sardar Baug is one of Ahmedabad’s most historically significant public gardens — a 26,010 sq m landscape that sits within the boundary of a 15th-century royal citadel at Lal Darwaja. The garden held deep civic importance in the pre-independence period, serving as a gathering ground for freedom movement assemblies. After decades of deterioration, it was meticulously restored under UNM Foundation’s PRATITI initiative, reinstating its heritage character alongside new public amenities including a 1.5 km walking pathway, an open-air amphitheatre, and over 630 newly planted native trees.
Associated Lighting’s scope covered the full landscape — from the formal garden geometry at the heart of the park to the winding pathways, specimen trees, open lawns, and the statue precinct. The brief was to extend the park’s active evening life while preserving the quiet, mature character of a heritage landscape that has stood for over six centuries.
Typology
Location
— Lighting Approach
Light within
living heritage
Lal Darwaja, Ahmedabad, Gujarat
Lighting a restored heritage garden demands a different kind of restraint from a new-build landscape. At Sardar Baug, the site carries the memory of six centuries of civic life — the lighting had to extend that life into the evening without imposing a contemporary character onto a place defined by its age and its trees.
The formal garden at the centre of the park — its cross-axial layout, planted beds, and structured pathways visible clearly from above — was treated with low-mounted path bollards that mark the geometry without flooding it. Warm-white uplighting was applied selectively to mature specimen trees, revealing trunk structure and canopy mass while preserving the depth of shadow between them. The result, visible in the aerial photographs, is a garden that reads as inhabited and cared for after dark, without losing the organic density that defines it.
The statue precinct — a focal point within the park — received restrained accent uplighting that acknowledges its civic significance without overstating it. Along the winding outer paths, low-level luminaires cast warm pools of light onto the ground plane, guiding movement while allowing the tree canopy overhead to remain in its natural darkness.
