ARCHITECTURE OF DELHI

Home Background Post 1947 Developments-Buildings Part1 Part2 Housing Sector

THE TRACKING OF POST INDEPENDENCE DEVELOPMENTSFrom traditional to global imageFrom government led development to private developersFrom Nehru Place to corporate parksFrom Housing colonies to apartment blocksFrom sandstone and dholpur to glass facadesFrom the Mughal to the British Imperial to the present Individual statements in architectureWhat follows is a brief overview of the developments that have made a significant contribution in the post Independence scenario of Delhi in the public buildings sector and then the housing sectora) The way the public buildings came aboutSenior architect (1953-70), and then Chief Architect of CPWD(1970-4), Rahman was responsible for many of the buildings that give central Delhi it’s present character; the post and telegraph building(1954),the auditor and general  controller’s office, the Indraprastha Bhavan, the WHO building(1962) and the multi storey flats at RK Puram (1964) and the Patel Bhavan (1972-73).

It was the work of Gropius and the International style that overwhelmingly influenced the younger architects of the period. During the 1950’s the influence of the international style began to be widely evident in houses, whether Mistri or architect designed. 

Horizontal bands of large glass windows, freestanding staircases and cantilevered porches were the main features. Plinths became lower, living and dining rooms were

combined and, in houses for the wealthy, bathrooms became attached to bedrooms. Windows in many houses began to be recessed and concrete fins began to appear on the facades. The massing became horizontal. Reinforced concrete became the material of the modern era not only for houses but even more for public buildings.Tuberculosis Association Building

Walter Sykes George (1881-1962) was an English architect in the post Independence era. (He had designed the St Stephens College,built in 1941). George's design for the Tuberculosis Association Building in New Delhi shows a modification of the prevalent International styles. The building’s adjustable lightweight horizontal louvers place it clearly in a contemporary Modernist context. George's use of materials in the building does, however, show continuity with much Anglo-Indian architecture of the 1930's. 

The central and state pwds and their offshoots such as the DDA(estab provisionally in 1955 and finally in 1957 when it absorbed the Delhi Improvement trust) continued to work much as beforeIndependence. They were primarily involved in the design of public buildings and large-scale housing developments. The design efforts of the architects of the CPWD in New Delhi have made a major impression on the city.

Many of the buildings such as Vayu Bhavan, Krishi Bhavan, Udyog Bhavan, Rail Bhavan(below,left),Vigyan Bhavan(below,right) and the Supreme court (1952) use

chattris and chajja's, and are topped by domes to give an Indian character. The plain cubical mass of a government conference hall, the Vigyan Bhawan, which was designed by RI Geholote of the CPWD for large international conferences, uses elements from Buddhist, Hindu and Mughal architecture. The large entrance is of black marble and glass and is shaped in the form of a chaitya arch of the Ajanta style, symbolizing”the Indian heritage of peace and culture."  The arch motif became an easily recognized and frequently employed symbol of Indian identity, applicable to a wide variety of structures.

Supreme Court

The Supreme Court was designed by Deolalikar in an Indo British architectural style as it is located in Lutyen's complex. It is regarded as rather heavy headed.For example the chattris have square 15 by 15-inch columnar supports which stand in strong contrast to the elegance of those at Fatehpur Sikri or in Lutyens or Baker's work.

 

Towards the next decade-the sixtiesThe sixties brought about the presence of Joseph Allen Stein onto the architectural scene of Delhi. His work of the period - the India international centre (1959-62) and the AmericanInternationalSchool(1962-68)- comes more out of the American Empiricist tradition than the European Rationalist and its concern for orthogonal geometry particularly in the sitting of buildings.

His later work in the Ford Foundation building (1969) and Triveni Kala Sangamand the UNICEFbuilding (1981) shows a continuous intellectual development. Few other architects have retained so independent and consistent a line of thought. Despite such works, it was the work of Gropius and the international style that overwhelmingly influenced the younger architects of the period.

It is possible to tentatively distinguish between those architects who consciously or unconsciously followed in the European Rationalist tradition inspired by Le Corbusian lines of thought and those who were Empiricists following in the footsteps of Wright, Stein and Kahn.

The Indian Institute of Technology (above left) campus (1961) designed by Jugal Kishore Choudhary and the JawaharlalNehruUniversity (above right) campus by the CPWD and Mr CP Kukreja show influence of Rationalist thinking. The IIT Delhi is a less direct image of Le Corbusier's work than the PunjabUniversity plan. It consists of the academic buildings, housings and research facilities and faculty and staff residences. The former consists of three storey parallel blocks and a seven-storey block perpendicular to the longest of the three storey locks, which it joins to the administration. The buildings are linked by covered ways, which form courtyards-, a marriage of Oxbridge and Le Corbusian patterns.

The use of concrete for the main blocks contrasts with the rough stone aggregate of the lecture theatres and the multi story staircases provide sculptural elements penetrating the courtyards.Akbar Hotel

The Akbar hotel (1965) designed for the Delhi Municipal Committee owes a lot to the Unit'ed' habitation by Le Corbusier. This building, which formed part of a new commercial center built in south Delhi in the 1970s, echoed many of the qualities of theChandigarh secretariat in its use of concrete and its sculptural surface pattern.

It is a thirteen-strorey concrete slab building, which forms part of a larger commercial complex. A service floor separates the bedrooms above from the common areas on the lower floors. Like the Unite, the roof has "communal facilities"- in this case, a restaurant, garden and small open air theatre. A two storey curvilinear block juts out at the base, echoing the form of the MillownersBuilding in Ahmedabad. It houses restaurants and lounges..

Shri Ram Centre

Prasad's other work, which clearly picks up on Le Corbusier's thought processed is the Shri Ram centre of a private trust promoting dance, drama and music. Like much of Prasad's works of the period, it is built of reinforced concrete and expresses, through

architectural form, the variety of functions the building is to house. For instance, the theatre is in a cylindrical form and the rehearsal spaces are in the form of a rectangular mass. Many of the spaces have to serve a multiplicity of purposes and hence are open ended in design; there has also been a major effort to have the interior and outdoor spaces linked together.

The work in India that followed the Empiricist approach originally owed a great a debt to Richard Neutra and Frank Lloyd Wright; it was more thoughtful in dealing with the local contexts. Later the influence was continued through the works of Louis Kahn. Stein and Mansigh Rana (Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Library) (1968) . 

Structural buildings

Architecture in India has had a long engineering tradition and structural engineers such as Mahendra Raj and H.K. Sen are amongst those whose collaborative work with architects created many innovative buildings. Raj's works include the Delhi cloth Mill(1970), the Permanent Exhibition complex (Pragati Maidan-1972) and the National Co-operative Development Corporation building.

The period since the 1960's has been an era in which issues of cultural identity have also been raised, not only in India, but also in countries, such as France, which felt culturally threatened by changes taking place in and around them. Perhaps the fundamental problem with the Modern movement was that architects used the forms of buildings and urban designs as a symbol of progress and democracy rather than attempting to deal with the broader array of human needs. 

The geometric patterns of Modernism became used as a set of types for all architectural works by a number of architects. The patterns of these buildings became embedded in the minds of the clients as expressions of progress. Much of the continuing Modernist

work consists of commercial buildings, some of which stand out because of their distinctive character. This character may arise from their location-they are single towers in an otherwise lower scaled built environment or they have a design different from the norm.

 The former group includes such buildings as the Vikas Minar of the DDA and the latter is exemplified by buildings like the LIC (below,left) by Charles Correa in CP. It is a stone and mirror glass building under a steel framed parasol set on a podium and dwarfs the Connaught circus buildings(below, right)  designed by Tor Russell.Both the buildings are substantially different from their surroundings as well as from standard commercial buildings

In response to concern about the changing face of new Delhi, the urban arts commission was set up by the parliament in 1973 and given powers of approval over structures of "public importance". Its members proved either unwilling or unable, however, to halt the spread of high-rise building. 

The 1962 plan had included a system for controlling the height of buildings by creating a floor-area ratio in which height was related to plot size, with ratios varying according to the zone of the city. The most generous height allowances were projected for the business district adjacent to Connaught place. 

Included in various proposals for the district was a scheme produced by Raj Rewal and Kuldip singh in 1968 for the controlled redevelopment of barakhamba and Curzon roads. 

They suggested that tower blocks be set back from the street alignment, to be partially screened by a raised pedestrian plaza and an irregular line of relatively low buildings. A similar proposal was made in 1969 for Janpath(below,left) another broad artery leading into Connaught place. This street was to continue as a shopping area, with low-rise buildings bordering the street and tall buildings set within the blocks. In practice, however, the district had no unified plan, becoming instead the focus of spontaneous high-rise development. 

The old unity of style, moreover, was supplanted by flamboyantly competing forms. Contributing to the dramatic new profile of the commercial center was the life Insurance corporation of India building byCharles Correa, together with the state trading corporation (below,right) and the new town hall byRaj Rewal and Kuldip Singh. The large column free framework in vertical shafts creates large spans and allows for a variety of forms to be hung between them.                                                                                    

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ARCHITECTURE OF DELHI

Home Background Post 1947 Developments-Buildings Part1 Part2

Housing Sector

THE TRACKING OF POST INDEPENDENCE DEVELOPMENTSFrom traditional to global imageFrom government led development to private developersFrom Nehru Place to corporate parksFrom Housing colonies to apartment blocksFrom sandstone and dholpur to glass facadesFrom the Mughal to the British Imperial to the present Individual statements in architectureWhat follows is a brief overview of the developments that have made a significant contribution in the post Independence scenario of Delhi in the public buildings sector and then the housing sectora) The way the public buildings came aboutSenior architect (1953-70), and then Chief Architect of CPWD(1970-4), Rahman was responsible for many of the buildings that give central Delhi it’s present character; the post and telegraph building(1954),the auditor and general  controller’s office, the Indraprastha Bhavan, the WHO building(1962) and the multi storey flats at RK Puram (1964) and the Patel Bhavan (1972-73).

It was the work of Gropius and the International style that overwhelmingly influenced the younger architects of the period. During the 1950’s the influence of the international style began to be widely evident in houses, whether Mistri or architect designed. 

Horizontal bands of large glass windows, freestanding staircases and cantilevered porches were the main features. Plinths became lower, living and dining rooms were combined and, in houses for the wealthy, bathrooms became attached to bedrooms. Windows in many houses began to be recessed and concrete fins began to appear on the facades. The massing became horizontal. Reinforced concrete became the material of the modern era not only for houses but even more for public buildings.Tuberculosis Association Building

Walter Sykes George (1881-1962) was an English architect in the post Independence era. (He had designed the St Stephens College,built in 1941). George's design for the Tuberculosis Association Building in New Delhi shows a modification of the prevalent International styles. The building’s adjustable lightweight horizontal louvers place it clearly in a contemporary Modernist context. George's use of materials in the building does, however, show continuity with much Anglo-Indian architecture of the 1930's. 

The central and state pwds and their offshoots such as the DDA(estab provisionally in 1955 and finally in 1957 when it absorbed the Delhi Improvement trust) continued to work much as beforeIndependence. They were primarily involved in the design of public buildings and large-scale housing developments. The design efforts of the architects of the CPWD in New Delhi have made a major impression on the city.

Many of the buildings such as Vayu Bhavan, Krishi Bhavan, Udyog Bhavan, Rail Bhavan(below,left),Vigyan Bhavan(below,right) and the Supreme court (1952) use chattris and chajja's, and are topped by domes to give an Indian character. The plain cubical mass of a government conference hall, the Vigyan Bhawan, which was designed by RI Geholote of the CPWD for large international conferences, uses elements from Buddhist, Hindu and Mughal architecture. The large entrance is of black marble and glass and is shaped in the form of a chaitya arch of the Ajanta style,

symbolizing”the Indian heritage of peace and culture."  The arch motif became an easily recognized and frequently employed symbol of Indian identity, applicable to a wide variety of structures.

Supreme Court

The Supreme Court was designed by Deolalikar in an Indo British architectural style as it is located in Lutyen's complex. It is regarded as rather heavy headed.For example the chattris have square 15 by 15-inch columnar supports which stand in strong contrast to the elegance of those at Fatehpur Sikri or in Lutyens or Baker's work.

 

Towards the next decade-the sixtiesThe sixties brought about the presence of Joseph Allen Stein onto the architectural scene of Delhi. His work of the period - the India international centre (1959-62) and the AmericanInternationalSchool(1962-68)- comes more out of the American Empiricist tradition than the European Rationalist and its concern for orthogonal geometry particularly in the sitting of buildings.

His later work in the Ford Foundation building (1969) and Triveni Kala Sangamand the UNICEFbuilding (1981) shows a continuous intellectual development. Few other architects have retained so independent and consistent a line of thought. Despite such works, it was the work of Gropius and the international style that overwhelmingly influenced the younger architects of the period.

It is possible to tentatively distinguish between those architects who consciously or unconsciously followed in the European Rationalist tradition inspired by Le Corbusian lines of thought and those who were Empiricists following in the footsteps of Wright, Stein and Kahn.

The Indian Institute of Technology (above left) campus (1961) designed by Jugal Kishore Choudhary and the JawaharlalNehruUniversity (above right) campus by the CPWD and Mr CP Kukreja show influence of Rationalist thinking. The IIT Delhi is a less direct image of Le Corbusier's work than the PunjabUniversity plan. It consists of the academic buildings, housings and research facilities and faculty and staff residences. The former consists of three storey parallel blocks and a seven-storey block perpendicular to the longest of the three storey locks, which it joins to the administration. The buildings are linked by covered ways, which form courtyards-, a marriage of Oxbridge and Le Corbusian patterns.

The use of concrete for the main blocks contrasts with the rough stone aggregate of the lecture theatres and the multi story staircases provide sculptural elements penetrating the courtyards.Akbar Hotel

The Akbar hotel (1965) designed for the Delhi Municipal Committee owes a lot to the Unit'ed' habitation by Le Corbusier. This building, which formed part of a new

commercial center built in south Delhi in the 1970s, echoed many of the qualities of theChandigarh secretariat in its use of concrete and its sculptural surface pattern.

It is a thirteen-strorey concrete slab building, which forms part of a larger commercial complex. A service floor separates the bedrooms above from the common areas on the lower floors. Like the Unite, the roof has "communal facilities"- in this case, a restaurant, garden and small open air theatre. A two storey curvilinear block juts out at the base, echoing the form of the MillownersBuilding in Ahmedabad. It houses restaurants and lounges..

Shri Ram Centre

Prasad's other work, which clearly picks up on Le Corbusier's thought processed is the Shri Ram centre of a private trust promoting dance, drama and music. Like much of Prasad's works of the period, it is built of reinforced concrete and expresses, through architectural form, the variety of functions the building is to house. For instance, the theatre is in a cylindrical form and the rehearsal spaces are in the form of a rectangular mass. Many of the spaces have to serve a multiplicity of purposes and hence are open ended in design; there has also been a major effort to have the interior and outdoor spaces linked together.

The work in India that followed the Empiricist approach originally owed a great a debt to Richard Neutra and Frank Lloyd Wright; it was more thoughtful in dealing with the local contexts. Later the influence was continued through the works of Louis Kahn. Stein and Mansigh Rana (Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Library) (1968) . 

Structural buildings

Architecture in India has had a long engineering tradition and structural engineers such as Mahendra Raj and H.K. Sen are amongst those whose collaborative work with architects created many innovative buildings. Raj's works include the Delhi cloth Mill(1970), the Permanent Exhibition complex (Pragati Maidan-1972) and the National Co-operative Development Corporation building.

The period since the 1960's has been an era in which issues of cultural identity have also been raised, not only in India, but also in countries, such as France, which felt culturally threatened by changes taking place in and around them. Perhaps the fundamental problem with the Modern movement was that architects used the forms of buildings and urban designs as a symbol of progress and democracy rather than attempting to deal with the broader array of human needs. 

The geometric patterns of Modernism became used as a set of types for all architectural works by a number of architects. The patterns of these buildings became embedded in the minds of the clients as expressions of progress. Much of the continuing Modernist work consists of commercial buildings, some of which stand out because of their distinctive character. This character may arise from their location-they are single towers in an otherwise lower scaled built environment or they have a design different from the norm.

 The former group includes such buildings as the Vikas Minar of the DDA and the latter is exemplified by buildings like the LIC (below,left) by Charles Correa in CP. It is a stone and mirror glass building under a steel framed parasol set on a podium and dwarfs the Connaught circus buildings(below, right)  designed by Tor Russell.Both the buildings are substantially different from their surroundings as well as from standard commercial buildings

In response to concern about the changing face of new Delhi, the urban arts commission was set up by the parliament in 1973 and given powers of approval over structures of "public importance". Its members proved either unwilling or unable, however, to halt the spread of high-rise building. 

The 1962 plan had included a system for controlling the height of buildings by creating a floor-area ratio in which height was related to plot size, with ratios varying according to the zone of the city. The most generous height allowances were projected for the business district adjacent to Connaught place. 

Included in various proposals for the district was a scheme produced by Raj Rewal and Kuldip singh in 1968 for the controlled redevelopment of barakhamba and Curzon roads. 

They suggested that tower blocks be set back from the street alignment, to be partially screened by a raised pedestrian plaza and an irregular line of relatively low buildings. A similar proposal was made in 1969 for Janpath(below,left) another broad artery leading into Connaught place. This street was to continue as a shopping area, with low-rise buildings bordering the street and tall buildings set within the blocks. In practice, however, the district had no unified plan, becoming instead the focus of spontaneous high-rise development. 

The old unity of style, moreover, was supplanted by flamboyantly competing forms. Contributing to the dramatic new profile of the commercial center was the life Insurance corporation of India building byCharles Correa, together with the state trading corporation (below,right) and the new town hall byRaj Rewal and Kuldip Singh. The large column free framework in vertical shafts creates large spans and allows for a variety of forms to be hung between them.                                                                                    

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ARCHITECTURE OF DELHI

Home Background Post 1947 Developments-Buildings Part1 Part2 Housing Sector

Sixties Development continued....

Other examples of the sixties development include the NCDC (National Cooperative Development Corporation) building andthe Delhi Civic Centre(left)designed by Kuldip Singh. The NCDC headquarters has a circulation core in which elevators are linked to two sloping wings by footbridges. 

Closer to the explorations of late modernism in Europe and the United States is the pure sculptural work represented by the Bahai House of Worship(1980-86) designed by Fariburz Sahba and theBelgian Embassy (below, left) and the Ambassadors Residence in the Chanakyapuri Enclave by Satish Gujral. (1980-83).The Belgian embassy is a unique work in India. The chancery is an exposed brick building, which is an Expressionist statement and the ambassador's residence is more like an inhabitable ruin. 

LOTUSTEMPLE- The Bahai house of worship (above, right) is a representation of an opening lotus flower, a flower sacred to many Indians. The structure consists of three ranks of nine petals each and uses water and light as decorative elements. It is also detailed to deal effectively with New Delhi's heat by drawing air over a reflecting pool to cool it. The building is designed to represent the clarity and clarity of the Bahai faith. 

Since 1970 architects have increasingly looked at traditional urban design and building types for inspiration. They have looked at the way light, massing and sitting has been handled; how decorative features form part of the architecture; the materials used; the construction process. The use of traditional forms has been explored in Raj Rewal's AsiadVillage (1980-82), his National Institute of Immunology (1984-8) (below, left), the Design Groups Yamuna Housing Society (1973-80), their YMCA staff Housing and their HUDCO bazaar. 

The SCOPE (Standing Conference of Public Enterprises) Building (above, right), designed by Raj Rewal (1980-9) is close to being a megastructure. It is almost 100,000 square meters; ten story building, housing seven thousand employees. It is a city within a city.  Its sitting as an object in space is strictly Modernist. SCOPE's square modular system and corner towers make it look like a citadel. It is Modernist in its expression of structure; the service and air conditioning ducts above the roof like chimneys. All these buildings are one off statements. In contrast, across India, there are thousands of buildings highly similar in appearance. They are from the same cloth, so to speak. Their architecture has become known as Utilitarian Modernism.In addition to the vast social housing estates the design concepts have been applied to many other building types- district centres (e.g. Nehru Place), offices, shopping areas and institutional buildings, particularly schools.From district centres to corporate parks

The central business districts serve a vital and useful purpose as the heart of the city, and its deterioration presents a challenge to business and civic enterprise.In this category we can place CP, Sadar bazaar and the district centres proposed by the master plan.(The Master Plan of 1962 for the city of Delhi proposed for seven district centers at- Nehru Place, Rajendra Place, Bhikaji cama Place, Janakpuri, Lakshmi Nagar, Shivaji Place, Jhandewalan). A second type is a small business district. The small commercial center contains the chain retail stores, professional offices, service supply enterprises, motion picture theaters, bank branches and stock exchanges. Then we have the neighborhood centers.Coming back to the district centres-While the architecture of Nehru Place(below,left) is highly utilitarian and is not holding well over time its urban idea is nevertheless an Indian innovation. It segregates pedestrian and vehicular traffic and creates an internal plaza, existing as an island in the sea of parking. 

A step ahead from Nehru place-The District Centre at Janakpuri (above,right) developed on a 35 acre site and designed by Ranjit Sabiki serves as an important shopping centre catering to the needs of a large residential population of the area. Simultaneously providing for social, cultural, and recreational requirements

through the provision of cinemas, a meeting hall, library cultural centre and a hotel. The graceful colonnaded arcade and the landscaped central garden of Connaught Place is an image of New Delhi that is easily identifiable. In the creation of a major new commercial centre in West Delhi this image served as a point of reference and thus the shopping centre at Janakpuri has a handsome double height colonnade which defines and ties together all shopping spaces. This in turn extends visually and relates to the landscaped courts and gardens of the District Centre.

Another major preoccupation in the creation of this District Centre has been the need to provide a strong framework of order that would not in any way restrict the multitude of signs, lights and fixtures that define the expression of exuberance in all existing commercial centres within the city. Specific spaces have been defined for the erection of signs and hoardings, and in order to be able to camouflage the multitude of fixtures such as air coolers, air conditioners, etc. a system of pre-cast concrete louvers has been proposed. These louvers are spaced wide enough to allow light and air to penetrate through, but from a distance, they still read as a screen which in turn forms part of the standard facade and serves as a unifying element.

India Habitat Center

The design of the India Habitat centre marks a transition in the architecture of Joseph Allen Stein. This is mainly as an expression of a realization, perhaps sub-conscious, that buildings of this scale and function represent the complexities of contemporary society, where a building is an artifact that can be critically altered by its users and respondents. Hence there was a conscious decision to under build. The IHC utilizes only 1.4 of the 2.5 FAR permitted at the time of construction.

The IHC contains a variety of functions that cater to almost all types of requirements. Major office spaces are located in the blocks adjacent to the main streets, the associated functions such as guest rooms, staff quarters and the auditorium are adjacent to the Lodi colony housing. The blocks housing the offices are articulated to form the three courtyards, the ground levels of which contain public functions such as exhibition spaces, fast food restaurant, banks etc. and access to the vertical cores. The blocks adjacent to the housing area have been progressively reduced in volume and the auditorium is set back substantially from the plot line to create a distinct entry.

The courtyard views of IHC

DLF Centre

The traditional district centres have given way to more "global" office buildings. Located on a site adjoining the historic Jantar Mantar Observatory, the DLF CENTRE (designed by Ranjit Sabiki) follows the curved form of the erstwhile Narendra Placebuilding on the same site and also reflects the curved form of the Park Hotel on the opposite side across Parliament Street.Conceived as a sophisticated office complex, the building is the most up to date structure of its kind in the capital having central air-conditioning, a sprinkler system, fire detection system, reverse osmosis water system, and a full

capacity stand-by generator. Parking and services are accommodated in three levels of basement below ground level and the offices are distributed in the ten floors above ground. Externally, the building is expressed in a simple curved curtain wall on the front and back with a granite colonnade defining the lower two floors. The two end walls have long uninterrupted curtain walls, which to the South provides a spectacular panoramic view of the Jantar Mantar Complex.

Amba Deep Towers,CP

Amba Deep Tower, Kasturba Gandhi Marg, Delhi is a cluster of three towers with the tallest of 23 floors, grouped around an 8-storeyed atrium. The covered area of the complex is 2, 00,000 sq.ft. A glass capsule and a large, multi-level Shopping Centre are some of the important features of the project. It was completed in 1992 at a cost of Rs. 20 crores. Designed for the Ansal Group of Companies by CP Kukreja associates, Amba Deep is a forceful blend of the traditional and modern high-tech. Located on a 1.3 acre corner plot in Connaught Place, the building has advantage of a segregated car park with vehicular entry from the side road- a major plus in the busy area it is stimulated in. The building is an interesting massing of three vertical tower blocks,

basically square in plan, of varying heights arranged around an atrium- the cohesive design element. The tallest tower is 21 storeys (84 m high) and overlooks the arcaded terraces of the smaller towers (14 storeys and 9 storeys high respectively). 

The two smaller blocks as well as the glass encased lifts overlook the landscaped atrium. Storage areas, the air-conditioning and mechanical plant along with an electric sub-station and the mandatory car parking requirements are all housed in three basements of the building. Essentially commercial in nature, the building is carefully designed to allow for maximum floor area coverage. Landscaping is an integral part of the design and strong elements that penetrate into the interior of the building include the atrium, with its terraced waterfall and planters, and a court at the back of the buildings which is overlooked by the staff canteen and the ground floor. The bold facade treatment in long continuous bands broken at corners by square pilasters uses geometric patterned glass tiles in shades of white, yellow and blue- used so strongly perhaps for the first time in a modern building of this scale. 

Beyond Delhi- Gurgaon's Corporate buildings

The DLF Corporate park (left) is a unique concept of seven corporate towers on one site. Conceptualized by DLF Universal Ltd., the leading developers of Delhi’s satellite city Gurgaon and located just outside Delhi, CorporatePark is the hot new business address in Delhi. The towers have been bought by various multi-national corporations like Pepsi, Dupont, etc. Five of the seven towers are used by individual organisations and two have been given floor wise. A common basement serves as a car park and houses the services. The high-performance glass and alucobond cladding system used in these structures is state of the art and particularly suited to achieving the corporate look recognized all over the world. The area around the tower blocks is landscaped to

form a harmonious and pleasing mix of stone paving, water bodies and grassy mounds. The serene surroundings contribute to the productivity of the workplace. 

Signature Towers

 Signature towers- is a Joint Venture office complex project with M/s. Unitech of New Delhi and Singapore Consortium located on the outskirts of Delhi on Delhi-Jaipur Highway, The complex has 2 basements with 2,50,000 sq.ft and 15 upper floors with an area of 3,50,000 sq.ft. The complex is centrally air-conditioned with 100% back up power, high-speed lifts and comprehensive Building Management System facilities. The BMS facilities include energy management in lighting, power and air-conditioning, fire fighting control, security and billing system, car parking management facilities etc. The cost of the project is estimated to have cost  Rs. 90 crores.

Capital Court,Delhi

The Capital court office complex has been designed by Raja Aederi (the architect of Le' Meridien). The building has a maintenance free finish of heritage plaster with a granite band, along with structural glazing. The complex houses seven floors of varying areas ranging from 20,000 to 10,000 sq. ft. This has been achieved by staggering the floors at all levels as you go up. The use of beam and slab construction has provided large column free spans which provide the offices with flexibility of space utilization. Each corporate house owns a floor area of at least 5,000 sq. ft.The scale and height of the atrium provides an ease of circulation and access and leads directly into the lift core which houses capsule lifts which enable a visitor to enjoy the scale of the atrium at upper levels as well.

It is important to recognize that design of office buildings has become more complexthan what it was fifty years back. Projects are larger, and more agencies and business undertakings are involved and the clearly definable patron has vanished. Office buildings are driven by market forces other than any other building topology. This exposes architects to an interesting facet of the profession- the ’business of architecture’, something that is always believed by architects as hard to accept.Furthermore, the level of technical complexity is greater and above all teamwork is the buzzword. Many more consultants need to be involved and technical integration has become vital. Successful office design, today, is much like a carefully orchestrated symphony. 

Virtual offices or ‘intelligent buildings’ are fast becoming the norm of the day. The functioning of such buildings is controlled by advanced computer systems. An Intelligent Building Management System (IBMS) helps make minor adjustments to control the air conditioning and lighting in response to the changes in climate, so as to maintain a conducive working ambience for employees. Companies like Compaq are already using the concept of ‘hot desking’.ICFI building

IFCI, Delhi- This is a unique building in Delhi with ground and 22 upper floors, providing columns less office area on each floor. This is also one of the First Intelligent Buildings in Delhi. Won in competition the scope of the builders included total architectural and other services until final completion and handing over. No car parking has been provided as clients intend to provide parking in the multi-level car park to be constructed by Delhi development authority. The building has central A/C, with cabins having split A/C units for after office hour use.

  Redefining the Corporate Look   -AN ARTICLE ON THE PRESENT INDUSTRY

REQUIREMENTS

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Home Background Post 1947 Developments-Buildings Part1 Part2 Housing Sector

The background till independence

 

Delhi remains one of the oldest surviving cities in the world today. It is in fact, an amalgam of eight cities, each built in a different era on a different site – each era leaving its mark, and adding character to it – and each ruler leaving a personal layer of architectural identity. It has evolved into a culturally secular city – absorbing different religions, diverse cultures, both foreign and indigenous, and yet functioning as one organic entity. It was known for its riches – both material

and cultural – foreign travellers were hypnotised by it – books have been written on it since time immemorial, poets have loved it and Kings and Emperors have fought over it. Delhi has a history of resilience – plundered, looted and destroyed several times over by central Asian and Persian rulers – the city always returned to its cultural sophistication and intellectual sensitivity – a tribute to the undying spirit of the citizens of Delhi.

 An inscription on one of the walls at Diwan – I – Khas in the Red Fort describes Delhi as"If on earth there be a place of blissIt is this, it is this, it is this"

Mir Taqi Mir, a poet from Delhi, wrote:"The streets of Delhi are not mere streets;They are like the album of a painter"

The streets of Delhi have also flown red with blood – it has seen massacres of the innocent, yet the same streets have also seen the joy of freedom.

Delhi : A Transition through Time - As you walk along the narrow bylanes of this city of dreams, tread softly. Every crumbling wall has a story to tell. Every yesterday is replete with history. Rulers have come and gone. The city has lived through wars and resurrection, repeatedly rising from the ashes. 

Cradling civilisations since times immemorial Delhi goes back hundreds of thousands of years back into time. Stone tools belonging to early stone age were discovered from the Aravalli tracts in and around Anangpur, the Jawaharlal Nehru University Campus, the northern ridge and elsewhere - evidence that the Early Man lived here.Excavations at Mandoli and Bhorgarh in east and north-west Delhi respectively have thrown up remains of chalcolithic period dating back to 2nd millennium BC, 1st millennium BC as well remains of 4th-5th century AD have been traced here.The excavations of the ancient mound of Indraprastha, capital of the Pandavas, located withing the fold of the sixteenth century Purana Qila revealed evidence of continuous habitation of the site for almost 2500 years.

According to the Mahabharata, the Pandavas founded their capital Indrapratha in the region known as Khandava-prastha. Delhi was also witness to the glories of the Maurya Empire during 3rd century BC. The Ashokan edict engraved on a rock in East of Kailash as well as remains found in Purana Quila excavations belonging to the Mauryan period point to Delhi's importance during this era. The first city of Delhi, Lal Kot was founded by the Tomar ruler Anangpal ,  in the 11th century. It was extended to Qila Rai Pithora by King Vigraharaja IV (Circa 1153-64). Qutbuddin Aibak becameDelhi's first Sultan in 1206 and laid the foundations of the Qutb Minar, India's tallest stone tower at the site of the first city of Delhi subsequently the kings of the Sultanate dynasties, Khaljis, Tughluqs Sayyids and Lodis continued to build. New cities as Delhi grew.

The second city around Siri by Alaud-Din Khalji (1296-1316); Tughlaqabad, the third city built byGhiysud-Din Tughlaq (1321-51); Firozabad, the fifth city of Delhi, is now represented by Kotla Firuz Shah, founded by Firuz Shah Tughluq (1351-88).

It was Humayun who laid the foundations of the sixth city - Dinpanah. This was destroyed and reconstructed as the Purana Qila by Sher Shah Suri. However, it was the Mughals who took Delhi to the zenith of architectural glory.

While some construction activities did continue during the reign of Akbar (1556-1605) and Jehangir (1605-27), it was Shah Jehan (1628-58) who built the seventh city, Shahjahanabad which remained the Mughal capital until 1857.

 

The old city of Shahjahanabad, a compact high-density settlement, had its foci in the Red Fort(above) and Jama Masjid (below), the two major building complexes, and in

the bursting business street of Chandni Chowk(left). The city was walled by high masonry walls, punctured by strategic entrance gates linking it with other major towns in the region. Winding streets from these gates meandered into the close-grained built-form, creating a hierarchy of streets leading upto the major ceremonial and commercial thoroughfare of Chandni Chow)

 

This principal artery, aligned in the east-west direction of the old city, address the main entry to the Red Fort, a walled, military/civic complex within the walled city. The sky-line was, however, dominated by Jama Masjid (left), placed symbolically atop a hill and complimented by a large urban open space befitting the scale and prestige of the city. The surrounding built-form was originally divided into introverted clusters reflecting the socio-economic structure and supporting a high degree of functional mix.

The northern parts of the town were settled by the British in the mid 19th century, where they established their churches, banqueting halls, bungalows and civil lines. The introduction of the railways in the late 19th century, coupled with the British presence, induced new trade and developments around the north and the west of Shahjahanabad. The traditional, dense, built form of the old city with central courtyards and narrow streets was counter pointed by the new prototype of the European Style bungalow with vast green spaces around structures, elaborate compound walls and wrought – iron gates. With the decision to establish a new capital, the British found a location south of it, leaving a large buffer open space between the two.

The site chosen was a sparsely populated area, sloping up gently from the Yamuna river and Purana Quila towards the west, culminating in a mound called Raisina Hill. The new site enjoyed “aspect, altitude, water, virgin soil”, and afforded an excellent view

of Shahjahanabad and other remains of the older Delhi’s.

The British in 1911 shifted the capital of India to Delhi. The eighth city of New Delhi took shape in the imperial style of architecture. From then to now Delhi continues to throb with vitality and hope. 

 

From 1912 to 1931 British architects Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens and Sir Herbert Baker were responsible for the construction of New Delhi as Britain's new imperial capital of India. The challenge they faced was to produce an architecture that successfully combined local traditions with a statement of colonial power. New Delhi's urban plan, with its emphasis on wide, straight roadways radiating like the spokes of a wheel from major imperial landmarks, was a direct expression of British control. But Lutyen’s design for the Viceroy's House (1912-1931), though inspired by neoclassicism, also paid homage to Delhi's Mughal architecture in its use of red and yellow sandstone, its dome, and in other details.

LUTYEN’S   NEW DELHI

Lutyen’s plan for New Delhi, conceived and constructed between 1912 and 1931, was very much the genre of Versailles and L’ Enfant’s Washington. Characterized by formally laid out axial movement net-works, strongly articulated terminal vistas and a low-density, low-rise physical fabric, New Delhi was the prestigious capital of Britain’s Indian Empire, accommodating its governmental and other auxiliary functions. 

The plan establishes two major visual corridors, one with the Jama Masjid of Shahjahanabad and the other with Purana Qila, an even older fortification of Delhi, culminating in the Capitol Complex. Along the Purana Qila axis, in the east-west direction, is the major ceremonial green called the Central Vista with the King’s Way penetrating the Capitol Complex between two major office blocks, and terminating in theViceregalPalace. The integrated mass of the Capitol Complex provides a visual climax to this dramatic linear open space, criss-crossed by lateral roads and punctuated by India Gate and a small but very ingeniously designed pavilion to shelter the statue of King George.

 

The formal nature of the New Delhi plan as often complemented by structures disposed symmetrically in space. The buildings are aligned in axis to movement lines and centrality is maintained in the placement of domes, spires and other elements in relation to building mass and plazas. This is particular true of the Central Vista, where very strict geometry is also observed on both sides of the green.

Even though the New Delhi plan was alien in spirit to indigenous planning practices, Lutyen’s attempted an interesting mixture of architectural styles blending Indian and European vocabularies. Innovative detailing using Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic elements abound in these buildings. Aware of the fact that local laborers had to be employed in the actual construction process using materials and techniques familiar to

them, the designers adopted a vocabulary that was familiar to them. The careful blending of alien elements expressed in red and pink sandstone has resulted in a unique style that at once has the gravity of European Classicism and the humane charm of indigenous architecture.

Lutyen’s and his team of architects borrowed freely from Indian architectonic elements using them not only as appopriate building components, but also to create a contextual continuity. Purana Quila, which terminated the Central Vista on the east in the original plan, is characterized by a unique element, the Chhattri, which is a cupola like structure that accentuates the sky line. Adaptation of this chhattri in the Capitol Compex provides an example of how a simple architectonic element was used by Lutyen’s to create symbolic and physical continuity.

 

 Apart from the chhattris, stone trelliswork, sun shades balconies supported by stone brackets, characteristic door and window details, cornices, mouldings etc, are executed in combinations of red and pink sandstone in the Central Vista buildings. In Lutyuen’s own buildings concrete or masonry structures are often clad with stone, or stone is used directly as structural material. However, the scale of structures is broken by the use of carved stone depicting European and Indian symbolic elements such as elephants, snakes, shells, bells, fruit forms, leaves and so on, at appropriate places. Compound walls, benches, lamp posts and other urban furniture elements are also used to create textures and rhythms which break down the scale to a human level.

The consistent use of sandstone, with the visually heavier red stone at the base of buildings and lighter pink stone on the upper parts, is another dominant factor that lends visual cohesion to the entire group of buildings. The warm hues of stone complement

the vast green background in the Central Vista. The sandstone, available in plenty even today, is a versatile material used traditionally for structures and is easily amenable to ornamentation. In post-independent India, major government buildings have come up on either side of the Central Vista and most conform to the general colour scheme.

In the Capitol Complex, water is used as a landscape element in a formally laid out garden for theViceregalPalace and in the Office Court on Raisina hill. Two large fountains placed symmetrically below the office blocks mark the beginning of water bodies that flank Rajpath on either side. These are less than a metre deep and terminate near India Gate with another two symmetrically placed fountains. A small water body surrounds the chhattri further east of India Gate, axially placed on the Vista. A gaint lake at the eastern end of the Vista which was a part of Lutyen’s original plan was never realized.

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Part2 Housing Sector

From housing colonies to apartment blocks 

The lodi colony(left) is an example of work being done at the very beginning of the Nehru era. The buildings are of two stroreys containing four flats-two on the ground floor and two on the floor above. The ground floor flats have access to private space on both sides. Each flat consists of two rooms, a kitchen, bathroom, toilet and verandahs. There are two entrances and the toilet is located well away from the kitchen. These locations were kept keeping in mind the prevailing cultural norms. The units have proved to be highly adaptable to different ways of life. The verandah is often used for sleeping and backyards for food preparation.

From 1947 onwards, refugee housing areas, known as "rehabilitation colonies" were built on the periphery of New Delhi by the New Delhi Improvement Corporation, the CPWD and later the DDA. The colonies of Nizamuddin, Lajpat Nagar, Kalkaji and Malviya Nagar in the south, and two Rajendra Nagars, three Patel Nagars, Moti Nagar, Ramesh Nagar and Tilak Nagar on the west of the city are products of this era. These colonies were either plotted development or built by a government agency.

A typical government agency plan(1947-55) consisted of units built on a site of 60 to 70 square meters. The layout of the newer housing schemes were much tighter than the Lodi colony but the rooms were the same size. The backyard was smaller and the units became part of a row or of larger blocks. 

The building of housing colonies throughout the Nehru years attempted to keep pace with the migration of people to the cities and into India from Pakistan. The units

remained much the same but the front garden usually disappeared to be replaced by communal gardens which are an adaptation of the type in the Rajendra Nagar housing. These gardens consist of a fenced lawn, enclosed by an access road, which is surrounded by the housing blocks 

Laxmi nagar housing (left), built in the 50's, by the CPWD, for the government employees, is typical of the period. Located south ofSafdarjungAirport, it consists of 2 types of housing units; 756 three room flats for gazetted workers and 655 two-room units for non-gazetted staff. A central area contains school while the market is located in one corner.

Over time, each area becomes a symbol of status of its inhabitants, depending upon the size of the unit and often the ethnicity of the people who live there. Names of the areas give identity. Chittranjan park was developed for Bengali refugees from East Pakistan (Bangladesh).

 

Yamuna Apartments,(left) by Ranjit Sabiki, was one of the first co-operative group housing schemes to be completed, and although they have been built within the same constraints as applicable to other housing development in the city - including DDA's own housing - they present a refreshing contrast in concept and design. 

The layout of the complex is in the form of four radial streets converging on an asymmetrically placed central square that forms the focus. At this point is located a club house at first floor level forming a bridge across two housing blocks. Close by are the central amenities such as shops, canteen and recreational facilities.The housing units themselves are of simple standardized plan. There are three basic types that have been used in combination on a repetitive basis to form the individual housing blocks. The access staircases in each block form important design elements. These staircases wind around a central wall panel but at each half landing have an independent flight peeling off to lead directly to the front door of an adjacent residential unit. This device helps not only in giving the staircases externally a sense of gracefulness but in addition imbues each staircase with considerable importance as a transitional space between the common public areas and the private areas of each unit.

 

YMCA Staff quarters,(left) built in 1962and designed by Ranjit Sabiki, is a complex of four secretaries apartments and four junior staff quarters. The clients brief insisted on a physical separation of the two categories of apartments and this was developed in the form of a separating street. The same basic system of planning on a square grid with a system of alternating terraces on each floor ensured an overall unity of concept. 

The system of alternating terraces ensured that all large openings to the outside were adequately protected from the harsh summer sun. A system of internal courtyards and

the separating street were in keeping with traditional planning systems providing both comfortable climactic conditions as well as privacy to each apartment.

 

 The Asian Games Village (left) was constructed on a thirty-five acre site in Delhi in 1981-82. This complex, consisting of two hundred houses and five hundred apartments, was intended to be sold to private buyers once it had served the purpose of housing visiting athletes. In the Asiad Housing Raj Rewal has explored the use of urban patterns from Jaipur and Jaisalmer in both theAsiadVillage and Sheikh Sarai. The site design is based on the system of streets and chowks of traditional housing areas in Rajasthan. Vehicular movement and parking thus has to be on the periphery. The housing itself involves an aesthetic and volumetric play through the use of many terraces, with the floors decreasing in size as the building goes up.The tendency of the residents to consider the fronts of their houses to be facing the parking area and the back to be facing the chowks results in the scheme not having the same set of public and semi public spaces and thus the territorial controls of the original type.

In the ideological climate of Western post-modernism, the high-density Delhi housing complexes drew high praise, and foreign critics eagerly accepted at face value the architects’ claims that such building appropriately accorded with both tradition and contemporary living patterns.

The shared spaces and the implied social intimacy of the tradition-inspired housing complexes do not necessarily reflect the lives of the inhabitants. The Yamuna housing was commissioned by a group of people from Tamil Nadu who already formed a cohesive community, sharing a local language and set of customs. The backers of Tara complex came from diverse backgrounds, having in common only their

connection with parliament. The occupants of the Institute of Immunology housing have no link other than their common employer. The Asian Games housing was built by the government with no particular group of occupants in mind, but with the assumption that it would be sufficiently attractive to be readily salable. In spite of Delhi’s chronic housing shortage, the Asian Games units proved difficult to market, although it remains unclear whether the problem lay with the nature of the architecture or with the high prices.Both before and after independence, planners promoted the development of a sprawling, automobile-based, low-density metropolis. Within this unfocused ambient, the new housing enclaves create a counter-image, as though small bits of Old Delhi, however, the new complexes are purely residential and their inhabitants, like their neighbors in more conventional housing, are dependent on motor transport for access to employment, shopping, recreation, and other urban facilities. 

 Over the past decade or so we can see a shift towards apartment buildings. What stemmed out as a result of scarcity of land is now being opted by many through choice. Apartment blocks are better equipped and provide greater facilities and services to their tenants as opposed to villa homes. A sense of security which one gets in a well guarded society is the driving force for many individuals, so much so, that they are selling off their independent bungalows to buy space in such housings.

Moreover the developers have a lot to offer from in built gyms and swimming pools to

community centres and 100% power back up for their clients.

In addition to such developer done up apartment blocks we have a rise in the cooperative group societies in the city. The positive impact is that there is optimum utilization of space. But at the same time the overall image, in certain areas, does get affected by tall skyscraper apartment buildings. At times they end up giving a very hard look.

 

 Dwarka, positioned as one of the largest sub-city in Asia and the first area to be developed as part of Delhi Development Authority (DDA's) strategy of urban expansion. Lured by affordable prices and sylvan surroundings, the middle class had staked a claim here. Patterned on Le Corbusier’s town planning concept forChandigarh, the total area of this much hyped sub-city is 5,648 ha and incorporates 29 sectors. The planning of the city, which is expected to house over one million people (including both DDA's housing and co-operative group housing societies), began in 1989. The area is conceptualised as an open landscape with large vacant space, several district parks, wide roads , children play areas, sport complexes, district centres, etc.

FOLLOWING ARE 3 ANALYTICAL ARTICLES RELATED DELHIS DEVELOPMENT-

ARCHITECTURE AND IDENTITY

CITIES AS MOVEMENT ECONOMIES

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Home Background Post 1947 Developments-Buildings Part1 Part2 Housing Sector

ARCHITECTURE AND IDENTITYThe question of how best- if at all- India's architectural heritage could be used to self consciously create architectural expressions has been always a complex one. The issue has been further compounded by the regional diversity of the country and its people. British hegemony tended to impose a set a ideas on the whole country, altough there has been a continuos debate in India about how they ideas should be treated. With political independence in 1947 came a desire for new ways of thinking, which together with the entrenched ways, resulted in dual set of values that continued to shape the work of architects. One set focussed on the future and the other on the past.

The search for a symbolic aesthetic reflecting the aspirations of India has focussed largely on what a building, building complex, or urban scheme is made of - its structure and materials- and, more generally on what it looks like, its external appearance- its size, proportional schemes, decoration and relationship to its neighbors and site.

While the focus on the issue of identity communicated through the exterior appearance of buildings is fundamental, the internal spatial organization of neighborhoods and buildings and the purposes they serve are also important.

Buildings and urban patterns also have a fourth dimension- time. There are two aspects to this dimension. In the first place to understand the environment in the course of the everyday activities of life, a person moves through it, and therefore the sequential experience of one space after another, or more correctly, one behaviour setting after another, becomes important. The expected sequential organization of the built environment is very much culture bound and it changes over time as culture changes. The second aspect is that the built environment, at any moment, is a compilation of the changes made in it over time. it is seldom static; it changes as human needs and perceptions of the good life change- as people's aspirations change. These changes may be carried out unselfconsciously by people as part of everyday life or self consciously in the purposeful pursuit of specific design objectives. The buildings around us thus contain memories of the past.

The link between a pattern of built form and its meaning depends on an association between the form and some referent. The relationship between the pattern (or symbol), the thought (or the meaning specified) and the referent (idea or another with which the symbol is associated) is often represented in a triangular form.

The symbolic meaning of a particular urban or architectural pattern depends not only on the pattern itself but also on its geographical and cultural context. The indian patterns used by John Nash in theBrighton pavilion on the south coast of England carry meanings very different from those they would have if the pavilion was in India or built today or designed by an Indian architect. The meaning would also differ if the building was located in a residential area rather than a commercial one. 

It is the design of the façade of the buildings that has most frequently been the focus of self-conscious attention- the presentation of a face to the world- the external appearance. There are more subtle variables that carry meaning. The internal spatial organization  of a building, its degree of enclosure, the proportion of enclosed space to open, the plan layout, the sequential experience as one moves through as set of spaces and the degree of penetration an outsider is allowed into a building are all culture bound,

The variables of the built environment that communicate meaning are vast, having many values and interacting with each other. They can, nevertheless, be categorized into a number of basic architectural elements-1)     The overall configuration of a precinct of a city or a building carries meaning. The patterns and masses that comprise an architectural style have specific associations. Thus the organizing principles behind a specific pattern and its components are of great architectural concern in communicating meaning.

2)     The materials of which any building is constructed and the construction techniques used carry meaning. 

3)     The illumination of buildings and their interiors has been a major carrier of symbolic meaning. Usually one thinks of light in this way only in he case of ceremonial buildings such as the Bahai House of worship designed by Fariburz Sahba. Certainly the explicitly symbolic use of light has been associated with such places, but, except for the blind, every behaviour setting possesses some level of light. 

4)      The use of colour- colour serves many mundane purposes such as reflecting light or hiding dirt but it is also a medium of aesthetic expression.

5)     The uses  to which spaces have been put and ther relationship to each other have meaning. Some uses are sacred, some are mundane.

6)     The activities that take place in specific spaces- the behaviour settings that comprise the environment- are associated with particular cultures.

 Creating Symbolic Expression in Built FormDesigning purposefully to communicate specific symbolic meanings is a complex task. It is even more difficult if one seeks to do so in a new way. It is difficult to think of any architectural expression as something completely novel, a total break from any precedent. While modern architecture did introduce a new special order and construction ideology, it had a number of antecedents. Complete spatial and visual novelty can only come with a radical restructuring of society. 

According to Lucien Steil, there are three modes of architectural production: imitation, copy andpastiche. To Steil, the first is the truly creative. Imitation is the process of

creating something new- not simply novel- out of a thorough understanding of the principles underlying precedents. The design objectives and the architectonic and technological mechanisms of achieving them need to be fully comprehended; the affordances of specific patterns of built form must be understood. A copy, in contrast, is a replication, or reproduction, of a precedent, while a pastiche is a reproduction of a number of elements- compositional or stylistic- of some precedent. A pastiche is thus a ‘ partial and imperfect’ copy. It focuses on the appearance- or rather the impression of appearance- of an artifact, be it a small object or a city. Copying might be seen to be the least productive design mechanism but it often requires great skill, particularly in craftsmanship. 

Indianization has different meanings for different people both in the sense of an idea and the possible manifestations of that idea. One view is that the government and governmental agencies such as the Central and State Public Works Departments and institutions such as professional including architectural associations, for instance, should be run by Indians and buildings be designed by Indians. A second view is that those institutions and their modes of operation should be based on Indian traditions. In both cases not only were instrumental ends sought but self-esteem and a sense of identity; there was a symbolic dimension to the development of both the architecture and the profession.

The goal has been to develop a symbol system that has, as Nikhil Perera puts it, a ‘capacity to accommodate diverse social and cultural representations with the nation.' It implied more then simply copying the past.

While some of the efforts of the nationalist movement focused on the maintenance of traditions, the movement was generally modern in spirit because it sought change. The questions were ‘Change to what’ and implicitly,’ Will we still be Indians if we change? ’The arguments in architecture over the course of the last century reflected and shaped, at least partly, contemporary national debates on the nature of progress and the meaning of being Indian. In Indian architecture one sees this tussle between modernism, traditionalism and revivalism reflected in built form.

The maintenance of traditions was one way in which local aspirations subverted colonial and modernizing forces in India. Seeing traditions in architecture solely as the maintenance of past building forms is, however, a limited view because a part of the

Indian tradition consists of foreign ideas successfully incorporated into indigenous life and indigenous architecture. In this sense, much of the architecture, which has sought to amalgamate foreign and indigenous elements over the past five hundred years, has been in the Indian tradition. Few people, however, understand traditional architecture in these terms. To most, including architects, tradition involves the maintenance of past social structures and past architectural patterns rather than the use of past processed of change. This limitation is unfortunate.

Many buildings in India continue to be designed in a traditional manner not only in rural areas but also in cities. Mistris continue their traditional role in society either working with a tried vernacular architectural vocabulary, particularly in the design of religious buildings, or in a transformed manner as contractors or designers. In contrast, there is the continued development of architectural activities and increase in the number of activities, further separating design and construction processes.

The terms modernization and westernization are often used synonymously. Westernization, in the Indian context, usually means changes introduced by the British prior to Independence and afterwards through the application of ideas from European and American sources.

Modernism is simply The State of being up-to –date. The use of the term here implies changes from the past in certain structural characteristics of a society a well as the adaptiveness of socio-cultural systems to change. Modernism is an attitude. It is based on the perception that change away from the past is required in order to make the future better.

Architecturally, the term ‘modern’ has been applied to whatever contemporary ideas were regarded as good. The modern movement, however, represented a specific set of attitudes towards design. Modern architecture responded to the need to provide for the new patterns of behavior that resulted from political and technological change in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It began with the perception that the classical orders and composition do not present a universal bias for the appreciation of beauty in architecture.

Regionalism attempts to out back into architecture what Modernism conspicuously took out, a continuity in a given place between past and present. Regionalism is seen as the

champion of local values against the universalizing tendencies promoted by technological advances.

Critical regionalism in the Indian context

(With extracts from anjali shukla's article on critical regionalism)In the early fifties policies of a progressive and forward-looking approach to everything gave the Indian architects an opportunity to design and build.

The late sixties, however, saw the emergence of a question of identity. Questions like how well did the forms conceived marry Indian actually. Their meaning and social relevance came under scrutiny and questions arose as to whether the forms proposed were actually devoid of sensitivity to Indian ethos and rootedness of regional styles, materials and climate. This quest brought about the development of a conscious effort to bridge the gap between the two variant schools of thought. 

The seemingly divergent forces of traditional architecture and contemporary building methods and materials created a conflict, which became complicated.

As the early seventies approached, this tension, struggle and questioning got weaker. In the eighties and nineties it totally lost its body and meaning and got replaced by a very dangerous complacency. There was a certain loss of collective thought –a holistic approach that is totally lacking today.

In the words of Paul Ricorur,." We face a paradox; on the one hand the nation has to root itself in the soil of its past, forge a national spirit, unfurl this spiritual and cultural revendication before the colonialist’s personality. 

But in order to take part in modern civilization, it is necessary at the same time to take part in scientific, technical and political rationality, something which very often requires the pure abandon of a whole cultural past. It is a fact that every culture has to sustain and absorb the shock of modern civilization. There lies the paradox: how to become modern and to return to sources: how to revive an old dormant civilization and take part in the universal civilization...” 

The realization of this crucial problem confronting nations just rising from

underdevelopment, like India, leads us to the question that, in order to get onto the road towards modernization is it necessary to totally abandon the old cultural past which has been the "raison d’ etre" of a nation?

To resolve this paradox, Kenneth Frampton proposed the theory of critical regionalism. By way of general definition, regionalism upholds the individual as well as local architectonic features as against the more universal and abstract ones. Critical regionalism, as the name suggests, involves the critical synthesis of a region’s traditions and history, their reinterpretation and finally the expression of these in ’modern’ terms. Hence, the essence of the concept is to mediate the impact of universal civilization with elements derived indirectly from peculiarities of a particular place.

The features of this theory seem most relevant in analyzing where the blind adoption of architectural form without any questioning can be turned back towards a more relevant context.

Consciously bounded architecture: Critical regionalism manifests itself as a consciously bounded architecture. Most of the contemporary buildings in DLF, Gurgaon, on the outskirts of Delhi, do not seem to have any binding to where they are, only to a blindly borrowed image. This is a glimpse of what is prevalent in other parts of the city as well.

Territorial orientation: It states that a building is not a freestanding object but established a territory and is established in a territory.

 Architecture as tectonic: It looks at architecture as a tectonic fact rather than the reduction of built environment to a series of ill assorted scenographic episodes. Like the imagery adopted for these buildings which is then just pasted on to the urban fabric.

 Optimizing building systems: It stresses on optimizing the use of building systems like air conditioning and a tendency to treat all its openings as delicate transitional zones to respond to specific conditions of climate and light of a place. This factor is totally ignored insensitively. Consequently, most of these buildings suffer inefficiency of resource management and maintenance.

 Emphasis on the Tactile: It stresses that the tactile is as important as the visual.

 Experiential qualities of space are irreplaceable: It claims that one can’t replace experiential qualities of space within, with information. Sensitivity towards local light, ambient sessions of heat, cold, humidity and air movement are the tools of space making.

 Reinterpreting vernacular elements: The most important feature is that critical regionalism attempts to reinterpret vernacular elements in the making of space within and space without. It endeavors to cultivate a contemporary place oriented by culture without becoming too simplistic or direct about formal references or levels of technology.

With these features forming the backdrop, if one were to now understand and reinterpret the qualitative and tactile qualities of traditional Indian architecture such as order, unity, geometry, form and centrality in the context of modern materials and technology, it might just be the answer t create an architecture of reason and relevance. An architecture which would not need to hang its head in shame when, asked -what are you and where are you?

A fitting example would be of the India Habitat Centre by Joseph Allen Stein which is an office complex with the entire modern systems and requirements of any building with such a scale. Yet it has captured the essence of the Indian climate-light and shade and also the form of the courtyard which is one of the most basic and suitable elements of space making in our local traditions and reinterprets it in the modern idiom: The use of materials is very sensitive.

Thus, we are at a juncture where all architects and facilitators of large and small building projects like the DLF Group of builders need to be keenly aware of the fact that lasting meaning for anything they create lies in the roots which the built environment has into where it is. A great depth is required to understand the phenomena that India is with its various nuances of traditions, art, culture, climate and light and then to reinterpret it into the modern building type with all the high technology building systems and materials.

All these concerns and concepts must have influenced architects in India fifty years ago

when India got independence. Yet it seems that, without undermining the work of a few great masters, the thrust towards modernization blinded the makers of the nation to the need of mediating the impact of auniversal civilization with elements derived indirectly from the peculiarities of a particular place. The light, nature, climate, topography, abstractions - religious, mythological and symbolic --- the many different nuances of ‘ a sense of place’--- all screamed to be noticed. It was instead preferred to simply import western concepts to make the new cities and institutions. 

After fifty years a chaotic, rootless picture of the nation has emerged which addresses a change. At such a time when there is an emergence of pride and a surgence towards pschycological and politicalindependence , in the true sense of the word it is essential to examine the concept of Critical Regionalism. The understanding and use of this concept needs a keen self -consciousness. As a step in this direction, Charles Correa stands out amongst other Indian masters who has the vision to abstract the cultural history of India and root the present in the past.

Sigfried Gideon’s concept of the ‘Eternal Presence’ is the deep source which links Correa not only to his youth in Goa, but also to the absolutely inexhaustible history of a subcontinent where past, present and future co-exist in an undistinguishable continuum. His work has reflections of a thought process, which embodies an understanding of the subtleties and ambiguities of variations in air and light in various regions.

In his own words - "India is a source of spiritual sustenance that is as universal in it’s implications as it is deeply rooted in it’s geophysical conditions and the mores of a particular place."

Correa’s work spans many regions of India, and the essence of the ‘open- to -sky space’ irrespective of it’s many variations, is the pervasive theme of his architecture. A study of his work provides an insightful glimpse of his quest for Critical Regionalism.

Before staking any claims to fully understanding the concept of Critical Regionalism, it is essential to be aware of the danger related to gravitating towards being too literal in interpreting and reflecting the past. And so does the work of Charles Correa have a few instances of this kind like the L.I.C. building. Yet, being an architect of the sixties, he managed to cast aside blind adoption of western concepts and has dealt with trying to capture the ‘meaning’ of India.

As he puts it himself - "…at the deep structural level, climatic conditions, culture and it’s expression, it’s rites and rituals." In itself, climate is the source of myth: thus the metaphysical quantities attributed to open to sky space in the cultures of India and Mexico are concomitants of the warm climate in which they exist : just as the films of Ingmar Bergman would be inconceivable without the dark brooding Swedish winter.

"The fourth force acting on architecture is Technology. No other art feels it’s influence so decisively …the prevailing technology changes every few decades. And each time this happens architecture mustre- invent the expression of the mythic images and values on which it is based."

The sensitivity to such a large canvas with its many differences is indeed a challenge for the Critical Regionalist - an architect of the nineties. Setting afoot in search of the pride of being an  ‘Indian’architect there is an urgent need to concentrate our focus on clear -rooted thought and reflecting on the past .

The words of Karl Kraus are an appropriate summary to what the architect in India today must be “...In this noisy epoch which resounds with the horrible symphony of facts that produce news that is guilty of facts: in this epoch let no particular word be awaited for me... Nor could I pronounce any new word, for in the room from where I write,  the noise is so loud, and whether it comes form animals, children or only from mortar is not something to be decided now...Those who now have nothing to say, since facts are allowed to speak, continues to speak. Let anyone who has something to say, step forward and keep quiet.” The definition of what is legitimate Indian modernism has often been left to critics from the developed world, who make patronizing journalistic forays into India or those theoreticians who inversely complement themselves by recognizing the third world modernism as the only sign of survival of a style they have long discarded. In architectural terms one is looking at contemporary architecture that is set free from all ‘isms’ and stylistic categories to inquire into the nature of architecture as an aspect of the dynamic, living, and changing conditions that determine the content of our actions. 

 The ‘free’ movement of ideas in time and their growth and evolution within the human psyche, are what invest architecture with its most powerful political situation, as a

symbol and an instrument of myth. Conceptualization and the consequently stylistic reductionism have always inhibited its total expression.

In the ongoing debates on contemporary architecture, we have continuously attributed a purely fictional hiatus between the traditional and the modern, the superstitious and the rational, Western and eastern, Indian identity and internationalism and so on.

This form of highly individuated discussions on architecture locating the debates outside nature and the social milieu that actually nurtures architecture throws up primarily three major issues.

The first issue- 

It has progressively destroyed the integrity of both the urban fabric and natural systems. All over the world today it is an accepted fact tat the integrity of the urban fabric has been compromised most, though the modernist era. The single most important criticism one can level on modernism, is its callousness towards the city, in the way it asserted the narcissistic individuality at the expense of the integrity of the pre-industrial; city centers. 

However, it is a well-known fact that urban design is nothing but an integral way of building that sees every piece of architecture as a growth module in the city fabric. To this extent urban design is antimodernist , along with architecture conversation, which again is but a reaction to the callous postures of modernism to  the old fabric.

The distinction between what is classified as the traditional and the modern in buildings, then melts into this air and becomes the extended range of sensibilities that one can respond to as a designer.

The second issue- 

By relying outside its own core for sources of abstraction and thereby creating a deep schism in sharing of meaning between architects and communities, much of contemporary architecture has forfeited the right as the prime mediator of the myth making process of societies. A myth is the quintessential expression of the complex, dynamic value-frames. 

The contradiction between communicability and abstraction is something that every contemporary architect in India faces sometime or the other. Some of us have bluffed our way through it, others have made commercial disasters of themselves and some have given up in the middle. Few have confronted and come to terms with this great dilemma of contemporary architecture in India.

The third issue-                                                                  

By excessive servility to markets and bartering the freedom to cohere the essence of our time, contemporary architecture in  India has become too vulnerable to global machinations of the marketing of professional services. The architect is trapeze artist swinging between creativity, technology and an uncouth market. The market feeds and imprisons the profession simultaneously. Popular paradigms that are marketed by the architect at once define the persons as well as provide the architect the lock that he can break to stay afloat in contemporarily. We have to continuously draw those fine lines between marketability and expression, and one can easily say that the unfair structure of the architect inIndia is the single most important factor that endlessly stifles creativity in this country.

The poor profits we make, the miserable pay that is offered to the bright young fresh architect compared to other professions are camouflaged in imaginary freedom to create and the sheer kick of design. Besides most agencies that we deal with in construction are unreliable and hardly accountable. Materials are poor and a highly exploitative building labor market suck competence out of the building workers.

It is this adverse market and the servility that it demands that has left the contemporary architect inIndia, incapable of taking criticism or engaging in any meaningful dialogue about the direction of our contemporary architecture.     

How the architects approach the issue of identity-

CHARLES CORREA-"Our identity we are searching for is going to be pluralistic. It is not a mono centric one."India is a pluralistic society. It has many layers of orders. Firstly overviews are very important in looking for identity. Secondly identity is not a single pattern. It is not a single pattern. Identity is dynamic and continually changing. Identity is

a process. It is not an end in itself but a by-product.If identity is pluralistic and dynamic does that mean that anything goes? That anyone can come in and build anytime, anywhere?We might not know what something is but we surely know what it is not. Architect should have the right instincts so that he can tell the difference between something authentic and something superficially picked up.There are three streams that create built form. The first is what is being constructed in the rural areas. It is indigenous. And the second is new popular.The third is the architect. We are the purveyors of myths and of ideologies -very often with the wrong ideologies. In order to change this there are two ways we can proceed.One is to go back to the indigenous and other to try to invent the future. New attitudes of life styles should not decide this approach.

 RAJ REWAL-"I  don’t believe in blindly copying our past. We have to learn from the precedents to solve our existing problems. I feel we have to re-invent modernity in terms of our own traditions and cultural heritage. It is an important task to search for a modern architectural language, which responds to our requirements, lifestyle, climate and building materials. Market economy and the consumerist culture are facts of life and architectural language is based on it.

 Traditional architecture was based on a vocabulary of design which may not be relevant today even inKashmir or Rajasthan. We are building with concrete with concrete frame structures, infill walls and now also beginning to build partially industrial structures. The base of contemporary architecture has to be new techniques of building and a sensible use of modern and traditional materials.

 ROMI KHOSLA " The search for identity in our architecture lies in creating buildings of the horizontal (contemporary plane) which will recognize and develop out of the historical (vertical plane) and not purely out of modernism." I don’t believe that architecture is intended to respond to technical and economic scenarios. Architecture evolves over time. The Indian sub-continent has a craft-based building industry that is beginning to get industrialized at the periphery. So, buildings are still hand-made and have industrialized components attached to them- that is the architecture of today. Tomorrow it may be different. Architectural patronage has always come form the well-to-do middle class with a disposal income with which it wants to project its image. 

Money multiplying factories and real estate flatted buildings seldom are at the cutting edge of architectural ideas in the metropolitan cities of Mumbai and Delhi. The demonstration of architectural bravado is more often that not confined to farmhouses, hotels and private farmhouses as well as institutional buildings whose mangers wish to project a progressive image of their institution. There is a wide range of work going on in India and each architect is busy doing a wide range of work within his office.

 

 The Indian architect is heroic, he will accept my challenge and is far bolder and more courageous that his western counterpart. He is trying to fight practice against enormous odds. Firstly, he has no professional support. For all intents our professional such as the Institute and the Council are still suffering form birth pangs that have rendered them professionally sterile. Secondly, he is unable to find enough space to work in because as we all know, the real estates of Mumbai, Delhi, and New York are on the par.

Thirdly, he is powerless to influence the fate of his cities, which have been donated to the builder who is essentially corrupt. In this architecturally hostile environment you do need to be heroic to try and build good buildings.

 Contemporary architecture is saddled with the same problems and beset contemporary life. India has a vast architectural heritage and the phrase ”Indian architecture” is as meaningful or meaningless as the term “Indian mind”. In trying to define what is Indian, there would be tendency to identify it as Hindu Indian.. We will then certainly have to accept that the Taj Mahal is an imported structure. The truth is that India is like a funnel into which everything keeps getting poured.  How lucky we are! That is the strength of our architecture.

 AGK MENON(Extract from AGK Menon's article "Interrogating modern Indian architecture)

"It is one of the paradoxes of globalization that even as it imposes transnational values and process in local cultures, it simultaneously gives them a ‘presence’ they never had before. The more globalization disrupts, displaces and overlays local traditions, the more one is made aware of the significance of what is lost in the process. 

The interdisciplinary and intercultural scholarship encouraged by globalization brings to light the value of historically evolved architecture of a region and the indigenous knowledge systems and practices, which produced it.

With the attainment of Independence, the idea of a unified and homogenous  ‘Nation’ became an ineluctable reality, and manifested itself in many forms of artistic expression, not least in the field of architecture. The imperative to modernize, the urgency top ‘catch-up’ of course reinforced this idea.

Architects in India innocently traipse through the minefield of cultural representation, oblivious to the contentious issues inherent in the positions they take. When they aspire to achieve ‘Indianness’ in their works, it is attempted without pausing to consider the ontological significance of he quest; when they reject it, their position still bristles with their indifference to the urgent ideological and philosophical issues of contemporary cultural formations. In the last fifty years, architects have not considered this conundrum an issue, and have thus failed to develop the colonial legacy into transformative architecture after Independence."PROCEED TO "CITIES AS ,MOVEMENT ECONOMIES"                            "DELHI-CITY IN CONFLICT"

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ARCHITECTURE OF DELHI

Home Background Post 1947 Developments-Buildings Part1 Part2 Housing Sector

Delhi - City in conflict After partition Delhi's growth remained unchecked for nearly a decade. Developed land was in short supply and people did not have the means to afford the exorbitant rates quoted by the private developers. This led to the establishment of unauthorized colonies. After the establishment of DDA it acquired most of the land in urban Delhi and became solely responsible for the development of land.

In terms of planning one noticed a marked change. The mixed land use patterns so characteristic of our town was not incorporated. The coming in of the automobile changed the concept of distance, which was now judged on travelling time.

The first indicated vehicular oriented planning was of Lutyens Delhi in 1920's.

The coming of industry too necessitated the removal of noxious industries from predominantly residential neighborhood. Most of the planners were educated abroad and were very much influenced by the planning concepts prevalent there.

Therefore the 1962 master plan was based on having identified zones for different landuses.

According to KP Singh, the MD of DLF, the situation was much better when the ban had not been imposed on private developers because they did cater to the housing demands to a large extent.

 DDA did however allot plots to cooperative societies for the construction of group

housings like Taraapartments, Yamuna aptts etc.

The expansion of Delhi has resulted in its boundaries extending beyond the Yamuna river. People tend to live further and further away from the city centre because of the lower rents prevalent in these areas. This has resulted in increased travelling distance from work to residence. More time is spent in commuting. To overcome this problem the city is now working in full swing to construct number of flyovers and to start off the metro service. In the years to come we will find the ring road signal free and the pressure would be taken off the buses in a big way with the MRTS getting added to the transportation scene.

Lutyens Delhi faces the question of redevelopment and re-densification. This areas differs markedly as compared to the rest of Delhi.

One of the major policies of the Master Plan has been the development of the District Centers however they have failed to fulfil their purpose. The reason for this could be that the DDA is only interested in preparing the plan and design with the sole object of selling the plot. No attention is paid to its location, context and zone of influence. Also once the project is complete the authorities wash their hands off completely from the project and leave it to decay with the passing time.

Today the city of Delhi is seem in three forms-

1.      The inner city i.e. The city that existed before the introduction of the Master Plan.

2.      The city of planned growth-which evolved between 1962-1982.

3.      The new city of the future

 It is important to tie the three together to make Delhi a complete and unified entity for a smooth running of the wheels.

 Urban renewal and the impact of transportation on the city's skyline

With excerpts from articles by Mr PR Mehta and Mr Suptendu Biswas

An image of a city is created by its identity. Identity is a reflection of its natural assets (such as rivers and water bodies, landform, vegetation, etc) people (race, features, costumes) and the built environment in the form of monuments, buildings and public spaces. The built environment symbolizes the achievements of a society and the available technology and space.

Natural increase in population and a continued migration has resulted in densities up to 500 persons per acre in some of the older parts of the cities. This is far beyond the acceptable environmental limits. Many of the buildings have outlived their utility. Rebuilding has been impossible because of multiple ownerships- an outcome of sub divisions of properties over the generations.

The present concept of land values leaves no provision for the urban poor. The result is the mushrooming of jhuggi jhonpri clusters and shantytowns without any urban facilities. Almost 25 per cent of the urban population lives in such tenements.

Transportation movement is the lifeline of any urban area. Nearly 50 percent of the urban population needs to move everyday for the purpose of education, work, shopping or health care. The increase in the number of automobiles has resulted in the increased level of air pollution, congestion on roads and consequent delays in commuting time. The conflict between the vehicular and pedestrian movement is increasing. 

Trade and commerce are important functions in any urban area. The commercial district not only serves the city the but also a region. Experience shows that the commercial areas nearer to the important nodes of a town such as railway stations and terminals attract a great deal of inter city businesses.

Movement of men and material reaches its peak during the business hours and these areas become virtually inaccessible. Pedestrians face congestion and adequate parking is unavailable. 

More often than not with the increase in demand for commercial spaces, the surrounding residential areas gradually get converted for commercial use. This causes stress on the infrastructure.

In order to decongest these districts a number of attempts such as shifting of wholesale

business, creation of new business districts, restriction on material movement, restriction on redevelopment have been made in the past, but without success. The intrusion of commercial area into the residential ones has disturbed the tranquility of the latter. Enforcement of the land use plan ad building bye-laws has always been inadequate.

Instead of curbing the growth of trade it is better to plan counter development in other locations with increased level of facilities. With technology and transportation providing the link between the work place and the residence the relationship between production, value and movement from point A to point B undergoes a change. Indian cities have undergone change and transformation where the transportation network was used as a tool for shaping the city form and its imagery. Pedestrianization in the existing commercial areas can bring a qualitative change in the high intensity business districts.

According to Robertson the major problem of cities is that it creates high rise towers with windswept plazas in between. He calls for lower buildings that respect streets that create urban squares and that make people feel good to be there.

 Shahjahanabad- an image of an indigenous city.

 The image of Chandni chowk, the processional path in Shajahanabad was created by placing mass at two pivotal points in the form of the Red Fort and the Fatehpuri Mosque. The path, flanked by two parallel surfaces on either side in the form of a diminishing skyline, necessitates a slow movement pattern, responsive to the fine grain and texture of the fabric. Yet when one enters a mohalla, the sudden change in the scale of the street and its irregularity impart a residential quality. Thus the image governed by time and scale depicts the land use behind its mask.

Industrialization and the laws of economics

The transportation network during the colonial period in the form of railways had a tremendous impact on the transition from a pre industrial economy to an economy of capitalist industrialization. 

This led to the destruction of village industries, the concept of land holdings and the equilibrium of the urban- rural relationship.

Moreover in city building the Britishers used the transportation network as a tool within the city- a separation to accommodate two different classes. Owing to colonization the indigenous city coexist with the colonial one to form stratified layers, exchanging an uneasy tension, which evokes a dualistic image in its space, surface and mass.

New Delhi-

Designed as the capital of the British Raj it has adopted an alien city design underlined with well-calculated gestures of political measures. Lutyens visualized a city of the twentieth century with automobiles screeching through its wider roads. Views and vistas were established through articulated positioning of the built forms on the India Gate chowk. Topology was created by involving buildings, freely positioned in spatial volume through the "interplay of concavity and convexity of surfaces." While the concave surface relieves the space at which the movement line meets, the convex dome adds the mass to the built form. The image of Lutyens New Delhi therefore gives a clue of how interplay of space-mass-surface in relation to the point, line and time (speed) can possibly link the isolated forms in space.

The basic concept of the Master plan 1962 made in the mould of modernist urban planning, was that, the traffic movement within the city should be kept minimum and a work-to-home relationship was conceived and the city started growing radially. Owing to the master plan zoning principle, the "legibility " of the city has undergone a change on the basis of the projected land use pattern. However one feature which somewhat lends legibility to the urban fabric, is the emergence of district centres mainly on the ring and radial junctions.

 This concentration of economic activity started exerting pressure on the population density, land value, land use and land holdings of the surroundings areas, and demanded suitable accessibility to its influence zone.

In the master plan 2001 there are some attempts at providing mixed uses, and increasing densities in residential areas in prime locations, proposals are made for Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) to connect the ring to the periphery and also to improve city intra-city network along the ring. 

The arrival of the high technology communication system has redefined the meaning of work place, and the distance has got reduced. Communication through the visual medium has infiltrated into the private as well as the public domain. With the emergence of moving image, the reduction of scale, the usual perception has become a symbol of the complex relationship between the body and the space around it. While transportation, through its "unfoldingness," exposes us to the surroundings, the communication system reduces the "transparency" in between.

In the clutches of indiscriminate electronic mediation, the notion of territoriality transcends the individual identity to give rise to a collective homogenous image of the city in an ironical manner. 

Decongestion, by itself, is a good phenomenon but by decongesting the core of the city what will we achieve? Owing to the polycentred growth, the expansion of the city is on the verge of going out of control. By reviving the mixed-use growth to its optimum potential in central areas of Indian cities, in case of Delhi within the inner Ring road area, a simultaneous movement system can be overlaid. A "centrifugality" can balance the "centripetality" of the existing movement network.

How American architect Christopher Benninger views   Delhi   situation-

 Delhi is a thousand suburbs in search of a city. "Its like a labyrinth". Delhi has been conceptualized as an automobile city and this is the basic flaw in its planning. Most of the working population, which lives in urban peripheries, travels the most. The city's planning has led to low structures, which accommodate few people and compromise on efficiency.

It is constantly sprawling out and this creates serious management issues.  He feels that apartments that accommodate many people and are near facilities, would be the most viable solution to the present chaotic city.

"Noida and Gurgaon are urban disasters." The reasons being that people have to travel long distances daily, top market revenue has drifted to neighboring states and they are poorly planned. "Development always moves towards cheaper land and in the process puts pressure in the already stretched city management system."

From the times of the Britishers, Delhi has had a southward drift," he says. He is fascinated how the city was deeply influenced by the garden movement. Benninger believes that the metro will change the face of the city, It would have a positive impact on the land value and the land usage. Although areas around the metro stops would become commercial hubs the places in the vicinity will become efficient high-density residential colonies. 

He visualizes successful projects like the asiad village coming up once a competent metro system is built. Large underground stations, which will have a large number of people crossing everyday, could be developed as profitable shopping centers. "Designing cities is like designing an aeroplane" …it is a work of art. He is an advocate of intelligent urbanism. "Human beings are comfort seekers and here planning needs to go against it. Why encourage buying automobiles when a plethora of people cant afford it"? As there is a symbiotic relationship between transportation and density it should be something taken into account while planning.

  Time capsule

 

1931- New Delhi inaugurated at India gate

1937- Delhi improvement trust established

1947- influx of 500,000 refugees to the capital city

1950- birla committee appointed

1957-DDA established

1962- master plan for DDA approved

1982- 9th Asian games held. Six new stadia and seven flyovers constructed

1987- master plan for Delhi updated upto the year 2001

 

Plotted development over the years

1952-53                   Sunder nagar

1953-54                   Lajpat nagar, Jangpura , Malviya Nagar and Hauz khas

1955-56                   South extn

1957-58                   Defence colony

1959-60                   Maharani Bagh

1960-61         East Nizamuddin       

1962-63                   Safdar Jung Enclave

1963-64                   GK-1

1965-65                   Vasant Vihar

1966-67                   Pansheel

1970-71                   Shanti Niketan

1972-73                   GK-2

1973-74                   Gulmohar park

1974-75         Sarvodya enclave

1977-78                   New Friends colony

1980-85        UdayPark

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