New?Delhi : Journey's End

The days in Delhi had been spent time-travelling – hopping from the era of the early Mughuls to the twentieth century then zipping back to pre-Islamic and early Islamic times. The increasing heat bearing down through the thickening humidity forced early morning trips to sites. Rajasthan beckoned. On that final day a dust storm swirled across the city while we travelled to the end days of yet another empire, to structures built over a village reputed to be the remains of the very first settlement in Delhi – the ancient settlement of Indraprashta.

We followed in the footsteps of kings and travelled up Rajpath to look at part of Lutyens’ Delhi.

Although many British architects were associated with the public buildings of New Delhi during the Raj, it is Lutyens whose name is remembered and who also evokes the most controversy.

Edwin Landseer Lutyens was born in London. His father of German immigrant descent was a minor painter of his time. His mother was the daughter of an Irish protestant policeman. Edwin Lutyens was a sickly child, the ninth son in a family of thirteen.

It seems apt that the government that gave the most opportunity to the English working and lower middle classes to acquire wealth and some status as expatriate workers in India should have commissioned a man whose childhood, if not exactly poverty stricken, was certainly not that of the privileged classes.

In 1911 King George V announced the British were moving India’s capital from Calcutta to a new site in Delhi. Lutyens, married to the daughter of a former Viceroy of India, was already a well known and respected architect in England.

In 1912 Lutyens served on a committee with Herbert Baker and Mr Lanchester to advise the Indian Government on the practicalities of building a new capital. Lutyens and Baker then drew up a plan over which they squabbled for years.

The government enclave was finally completed in 1929 and inaugurated in 1931 when the British Viceroy in India moved into his new vice regal residence on top of Raisina Hill. From here he could gaze across Vijay Chowk down Rajpath to India Gate.

Wide avenues may have been Lutyens’ idea of opening the city to the light, a reverse of the closed, often claustrophobic designs of earlier rulers of India. But on first arriving in front of the former vice regal residence, now known as Rashtrapi Bhavan and home to the President of India the view down the hill evokes images of despotic rulers and grandiose military processions. It takes a shift in perspective to view it for what it is.

An entire army could parade effortlessly down Rajpath. And that is exactly what it is used for. Each year on January 26, Republic Day, the Indian military parades its might before the celebrating citizenry.

Delhi residents are proud of the enclave. The Rashtrapi Bhavan has been described as “architecturally quite brilliant”. If you read nothing else about this part of Delhi, read Dalrymple’s description in City of Djinns.

He begins by saying:
“This was Rajpath – once the Kingsway – one of the great ceremonial ways of the world. It was planned as an Imperial Champs Elysees – complete with India Gate, ... But it was far wider, far greener, far more magnificent than anything comparable in Europe ...”

I will leave the rest for you to read yourself.

The maidan around India Gate at the foot of Rajpath is a venue for families to escape the claustrophobic clutter of the city and relax on cool afternoons.

Look at a map of Delhi. From the seeming chaos of the ancient lanes there emerges an elegant symmetry. The “wheel” of Connaught Place articulates with that of India gate. The two harnessed by wide roads to the oval of the President’s Estate.

Birla Mandir was completed in 1939, just eight years after the capital was moved to Delhi. During the building of both of these structures Gandhi was bringing the situation of India to the attention of the world, embarked on a journey with an inevitable ending.

Within twenty years of the Viceroy moving into his residence India was partitioned and the last occupying forces had departed.

Observer
Friday, 2 April 2010
http://longline8.blogspot.com/

Email: longline8@gmail.com


For a brief thought-provoking discussion about Lutyens and others involved in the design of public buildings in Delhi see
http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?235665


Another worthwhile website:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/8_2_urbanities-architect.html

The following is a great blog from Delhi:
http://thedelhiwalla.blogspot.com/2009/04/capital-walk-raisina-hill-lutyens-delhi.html

Dalrymple on Lutyens:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2004/nov/13/architecture.india