Lasting fame of a city comes from its history. History provides the city with icons by which it will be remembered. These icons take many shapes, one of which is the built environment.

Rome, the eternal city, is the classic example of all time. The ancient monuments provide it with numerous icons. Paris, with Louver and the Eiffel Tower, London, with the Tower Bridge and a hundred other structures, Beijing, with the Forbidden City and now the new airport and Olympic stadium, the list can go on forever. Icons can also be in the form of natural environments or parks such as New York's Central Park.

What dose Pune have? Shanivarwada and the Aga Khan Palace hardly attract tourists. Balewadi is a sorry excuse for a national sports center. It does not have an iconic airport, conce hall or any other public building. It does not have major colonial architecture as in Mumbai, New Delhi or Calcutta. It has no modern iconic built form that will carry the next century.
The reason, in my opinion, is the lack of core values, particularly in the construction fraternity. Do not mix this with core competence there is plenty of that around. Core competence is what makes Pune the fastest growing city in the county. The construction industry is working at a furious pace and getting rich as quickly. But is there anything being built that will become part Pune's brand image?

Core values are what we live by. They are our beliefs and aspirations for the city. That is why the industry exists in the first place. Values transcend profits. Profits are necessary, but the main purpose of the construction industry is to create places for people, places to live in, places to work in and places to relax in. All such places should be sustainable and remarkable. They must form the essential fabric of a memorable city.

It will be our core values that will produce here, say, the tallest building in India, or the most modern public transport system, or an international level sports stadium or even a world class airport. It will be our core values that will produce a Major convention center like the one in Singapore or an exhibition center like the one in Guangzhou. It will be our core values that will produce iconic built forms for Pune to be remembered in the next century.