Sustainable Transformation of a Vernacular Habitat through the Revival of Crafts: Naya Village in West Bengal, India

India is a culturally diverse country with a rich heritage of crafts, which evolved upon social and religious practices remaining as records of their historic influence. Tribal and indigenous art forms, which grew up drawing from its surroundings and local resources, were essentially people’s art. The society remained the cradle of the expressions of the aesthetics, which brought identity unique to a community of a region. This aesthetics was part of the lives of the people and reflected in their habitat in a number of ways. This paper presents the study of a village in South West Bengal in India where a craft named ‘Patachitra’ flourishes. Due to globalization, the craft lost its glint and was slowly heading for extinction, as market demands lowered with the change in the aesthetic sensibilities. At this juncture, the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) Convention 2003 brought this region into its foray on revival of dying crafts. This move helped revive this craft into a sustainable economic development of the area. The paper illustrates how the capacity building of the handicraft artists and the promotion of the craft gave the region an identity and helped to establish a place as a craft destination in the global map. The transition has not only been in sustainable economic development, but also in terms of transformation of built space of the village by reviving and incorporating vernacular aesthetics into the habitat unique in the essence of its craft.