The Contemporary Architecture of Delhi - A Critical History - Architexturez South Asia

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The Contemporary Architecture of Delhi: a Critical History | Architexturez South Asia
Writing
The Contemporary Architecture of

Delhi: a Critical History
Menon, AG Krishna. The Contemporary Architecture of Delhi: a Critical History. Architexturez.
New Delhi, India: TVB School of Habitat Studies, 2003.
Keywords: Identity and Contemporary Indian Architecture
Introduction
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 the least in the field of architecture. The imperative to
modernise, the urgency to 'catch-up', of course, reinforced this idea. The use of the
English language too, is complicit in the collusion of a modern artistic expression
and the idea of the newly independent Nation-State. Thus, it became common to
refer to 'Indian Architecture', and 'Indian Art', and 'Indian Music' and 'Indian
Culture', when, in fact, one was referring to an astonishing variety of architecture,
art, music and culture within a political entity called India.
We can now see these identity constructions for what they were, and continue to
be semiotic packages reflecting aspirations to find continuity with an idealised past
and a bridge to an idealised future. The problem with such packaging is not that
they reflect aspirations, but that in the process they flatten out and simplify a
complex reality of architecture-in-the-making. These idealizations are being
contested in several academic disciplines,
but surprisingly, not in architecture,
where in fact, the issue of identity is central to the process of form-making and
place-making.
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 the quest; when they
reject it, their position still bristles with their indifference to the urgent ideological
and philosophical issues of contemporary cultural formations. We can see in this
conundrum, how the colonial and colonised mindsets co-exist because what was
once the colonial imperative remains unchanged in the ways of thinking
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contemporary architecture.
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. There are several historical reasons for this endemic failure
but two of immediate significance are, first, the absence of theory in the pedagogy
of architectural education, and second, its absence in architectural writing as well.
Architectural education has got bogged down in the agendas that were identified
almost a century ago when the first Technical Schools were established in the
country. It would not be an exaggeration to claim that these agendas were
implicitly defined by the spirit of Thomas Babington Macaulay's (in)famous
Minute on Education of 1834,
and more explicitly, by restricting educational
objectives to merely serving vocational ends. The situation is not too different
today. Then, as now, the entrant to Schools of Architecture, must demonstrate
their aptitude for science and mathematics, reflecting the coloniser's objective to
produce local surveyors and civil engineers to assist British architects.
The
support subjects to architectural design are drawn predominantly from the

engineering disciplines.
The teaching of architectural design itself, has perhaps
evolved, but it is still only a problem-solving exercise, in which students are offered
over-the-shoulder guidance.
Theory is conspicuous by its absence, and the
teaching of History is usually a dry recounting of facts. Thus, contemporary

architectural education in India hardly equips the architect to critically mediate the
complex issues involved in imparting their creations with an 'Indian' identity.
Outside the Schools, the opportunity to mitigate academic inadequacies does not
exist. Professional debate is desultory. Books on architectural issues that could help
create awareness among practicing architects, are also unable to redress matters,
because, few books are available on the subject, and in any case, their contents are
not intended to engage the professional reader in polemic debate. What is of
greater concern, however, is the fact that these books are invariably cast in the
Orientalist mould.
In the last fifty years, there have been very few attempts to understand the
architectural scene in the country. If one discounts the occasional articles of
interest in the popular and professional journals, it is surprising to note that the
earliest attempts at comprehensive analysis of the contemporary architecture of
India are only from the '80s when two exhibitions on the Architecture of India
were organised. These exercises were undertaken not in response to professional
demand, but because the Government of India commissioned them as exhibits for
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the Festivals of India they were organising in France, USSR, and other countries.
The first of the exhibitions was put together in 1985 for the Festival of India in
France, and was curated by the Delhi architects, Raj Rewal and Ram Sharma. This
exhibition surveyed the variety of historic precedents and models in one section
(Raj Rewal), and in another, the diversity of contemporary architectural practices
(Ram Sharma and Malay Chatterjee). Tradition and modernity were counterpoised
within the over-arching framework of 'Indian Architecture' for consumption by an
intended audience in the West: 'the wonder that was', on the one hand, and our
Indian brand of modernism, on the other. All this was contrasted against the
backdrop of a third section of the exhibition, which was on the works of Le
Corbusier in India. In hindsight, one wonders if placing the great Rational
architect of the west on the same platform as the architecture of the exotic East
did not strike the organizers of the exhibition as somewhat ironic. Then again,
how could it' - such polemic issues were never considered while organising the
exhibition, and such issues continue to be beyond the ken or concern of architects
today.
The second exhibition was for the Festival of India in USSR in 1986, and was
largely the work of the architects in Mumbai and was curated by a team lead by
Charles Correa. The exhibition was titled, Vistara, and it probed the architectural
elements and devices that constituted the 'essence' of the Architecture of India. It
too catalogued the diverse works in decadal stages of development under the
predictable tripartite categories: Roots/Present/Future.
Even though these exhibitions were for foreign consumption, they were influential
within the profession in India, because for the first time, and in a comprehensive
manner, they enabled a wide body of architects to view the grand themes of the
architecture of the country. Besides the wholistic perspective, in my opinion, these
exhibitions also established the characteristics of 'Indianess': the morphology of
Jaisalmer, the North Indian Haveli, low-rise high-density, the interlocking squares
of Fatehpur Sikri, in short, the architectural features of the hot/dry region of the
country to the exclusion of other equally credible and compelling categories. While
issues of tradition and modernity were being mediated in different ways in
different parts of the country, their manifestation in the
Chandigarh/Delhi/Ahmedabad/Mumbai axis was valorised as being exemplary.
These exhibition projects were, of course, primarily exercises in external public

relations, but they served a similar internal purpose as well. Policy-makers in the
early '80s were concerned at the negative image of India abroad, in the wake of
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political militancy, the collapse of the command economy and the incipient
intrusion of globalisation in all aspects of national life. Internally too, it was felt
that a feel-good exercise focusing on the cultural strengths of the country would
invigorate flaccid Nationalist ideals which had been active at the time of
Independence. These influential architectural exhibitions, along with their
explanatory texts, must therefore, be viewed in the light of the overall objectives of
the Festivals. Not surprisingly, one finds that their well-meaning authors were
predisposed to identify and present the 'good' face of the Architecture of India.
Not that one would have expected them to show the 'bad' face, but their
predisposition colluded with the purpose of the Festivals and reinforced the process
of external validation precious to the self-esteem of the architects of India. After
the exhibitions, critics from outside India had only to walk in to find a receptive
audience for appreciative books on 'Indian Architecture'; and many did.
The Exhibitions had mined a rich lode of research material, and biographies on
Indian architects and architecture followed these initiatives. It should be noted,
however, that foreign authors wrote these books almost exclusively. Except for
GHR Tillotson's The Tradition of Indian Architecture,
- which was in any case
not a biography ' none of the new books broke new ground in the understanding
of the Architecture of India. Tillotsons's book was an exception because it focussed
on a willfully neglected area of architectural development - the colonial period. In
doing so, the book challenged several perceptions shared by architects producing
'high architecture', including the one that held the colonial period to be an
unfortunate interregnum in the development of architecture in India.
Tillotson
convincingly demonstrated the contemporary relevance of at least two

architectural formations, one within the Princely States, and the other the
development of British architecture in India. His thesis argued that the methods
and devices used to resolve the architectural controversies in both cases were being
played out in the development of contemporary Architecture in India. These
arguments had little impact on architectural thinking in India because the mindset
of the local architects was such that few could see beyond the paradigms identified
in the Festival Exhibitions, and some thought that his thesis was even 'fatuous'.
10
The foreign authors who were commissioned by publishers to write the biographies
were doing so with an eye on the market abroad. They produced attractive
monographs on important Indian architects, each stressing their 'Indianess':
11
12
Sherban Cantacuzino (1984)
and Hussein-Uddin Khan (1987)
on Charles
13
14
Correa; William Curtis (1988)
on Balkrishna Doshi; Brian Brace Taylor (1992)
15
on Raj Rewal; and Stephen White (1993)
on Joseph Allen Stein. Given the nature
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of the publications, it is not surprising that these monographs were hagiographic
coffee-table books. The book on Stein however, is an exception: it too is
hagiographic, but in its passionate advocacy of the architectural ideas of Stein, it is
an exemplar in architectural biography. The book was clearly written with an US
constituency in mind, but White provides a remarkable analysis of Stein's works in
India, shorn of the obligatory hype on 'Indianess' that such biographies were
expected to deliver.
The substance of my objection to these books is not that the authors or the
intended market were foreign, but that the nature of scholarship they produced
was suspect. The foreign authors writing on Indian subjects were in the same
conundrum as Indian architects addressing a foreign audience: both colluded in
perpetuating the Orientalism project, and failed to come to grips with the complex
reality of architecture-in-the-making.
Other than the book by Tillotson, and the monographs, there have been only two
other attempts at critical writing on the contemporary Architecture of India which
merit serious consideration: I am discounting here books that were merely
catalogues, and the Raj inspired nostalgia on Indian urbanism and architectural
themes. The first was by Vikram Bhatt and Peter Scriver: After the Masters,
Contemporary Indian Architecture.
16
It has become an influential 'text' book
amongst students largely on account of the paucity of books on the Architecture

of India. Critically speaking, however, it did not accomplish anything more than
catalogue 52 projects, once again primarily located within the already identified
'architectural belt', and under the rubric of four, by now tired, categories: Roots
and Modernity; Alternatives for a Developing India; Architecture and the Market
Place; and Emerging Architecture. Also familiar, is the target audience:
'It is our conviction that (the assessment of Indian Architecture) would do much
to renew the passion for the act and art of building with which the current
Architecture of Europe and North America has lost touch in its present state of
complexity and confusion. In more recent buildings of comparable scale and
power, technical and economic limitations combine with a clear sense of purpose
in the face of real needs to produce an architecture that has managed to elude the
malaise and impotence of much current design in the West. It would be a mistake
to confine an appraisal of this architecture within an exclusive Third World
perspective... Our explanation for the present lies in a more accurate appreciation
of both historical and temporal context - global rather than an ethno-centric
reality'.
17
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What is to be noted for reproach in this statement of intent is how explicitly these
authors discount 'ethno-centric reality' in the assessment of the Architecture of
India: this is the problem of Orientalist historiography. No architect however, paid
heed and consequently, no one found this book 'fatuous'.
The second book is a more recent publication, Architecture and Independence, by

Jon Lang, Madhavi Desai and Miki Desai (1997).
18
Its impact is yet to be assessed,
but going by the contents it has all the ingredients for success: depth of coverage,
a focus on 'Indian identity' and a reassuring confirmation of conventional
expectations about the Architecture of India. Its great value is in the encyclopaedic
survey it accomplishes in order to identify the 'general principles' which describe
and explain the use of buildings to convey specific meaning and have illustrated
them with the diversity of the regional examples. But once again, one notes the
two recurrent characteristics of the writings on the Architecture of India - first,
the obsession with pan-Indian categories and themes and, second, addressing their
text to an external audience. Explaining their method, the authors explain,
'These decisions reflect our desire to present an argument which is intelligible to a

broad range of students and scholars across the world rather than to write strictly
for an Indian market.'.
19
Who, then, will 'write strictly for an Indian market'? And
will such a focus make a difference to the way we conceptualise architecture in

India?
The problem inherent in the construction of pan-Indian themes of 'Indian

Architecture', both past and present, is the elision of the many regional narratives.
Attempting to 'write strictly for an Indian market' may avoid this pernicious trap.
The 'regional' needs to be critically examined by architects in India, in the manner
that it has been examined in other disciplines by scholars in those disciplines. In
literature, for example, recent scholarship has conducted thoughtful discussions on
nationalist redeployments of the 'Indian past' needing to assert antiquity,
authenticity, and an unruptured continuity of 'Indian' culture.
20
Such a discussion
in the field of architecture may have an equally salutary effect on thinking

architecture and the architect's propensity to pursue Orientalist agendas in their
works.
Architects who have an opportunity to pontificate (particularly to a foreign

audience) almost invariably cast aside the 'ethno-centric reality' and turn to
Orientalist categories. This characteristic is my complaint. There is no doubt that
a 'deep-structure' unites the diverse forms of ethno-centric artistic expression, but
it has not been plumbed by the gratuitous definitions of 'Indian Architecture'.
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Architects need to view their past and their present as being continuously
mediated in diverse ways by the many regional forces of contemporary
development.
21
Architects and the few critics who have written about the Architecture of India
have viewed a select few practitioners from the 'architectural belt' of the country
and identified their works as interpreting the zeitgeist, but have felt uncompelled
to explain it, and thereby the theoretical principles governing their works. For the
architects themselves, perhaps it is not necessary that they explain these principles,
but to those who interpret, teach, write and reflect on architecture it is important
that they do so. What has been attempted so far is in the nature of information
and opinion, leaving the ground open for incisive criticism.
It is not my intent here to merely 'devalue' the few efforts at writing about the
contemporary architecture of India, but to point out that there are problems in
the manner these writers have gone about trying to define pan-Indian themes. The
fact is that there are many narratives of architectural development that have
unfolded during the past fifty years. The unifying matrix of 'Indian Architecture'
does not do justice to this reality and, in addition, 'precludes the possibility of
seeing tradition as constantly in the making, as strenuously contested and
redefined by different communities?.
22
It also runs the danger of distorting facts,
by either investing a regional architecture with characteristics it does not possess

or co-opting more interpenetrative cultural formations. Neither culture nor
architecture is co-terminus with a national identity: they only share the same
political space. Fifty years after Independence, architects in India need to absorb
this insight, both in thinking architecture, and in their practice.
Under the circumstance, there is clearly the need to reconsider the prevalent
strategy and methodology of architectural theorising from its focus on pan-Indian
themes to examining more regional, context-specific architectures of India. It is
perhaps from such a process of accumulating diverse empirical data that it would
be possible to understand and define the synoptic 'essence' of contemporary
architecture that has eluded the critics so far.
Many regional histories need to be examined before meta-narratives can be

construed. The Architecture of Delhi is one such history that should be examined;
there would be others. Does Delhi constitute a 'region', and if it does, what are its
boundaries? At the TVB School of Habitat Studies, New Delhi (TVB/SHS) we
attempted to construct the history of the contemporary Architecture of Delhi by
focussing our attention within the political boundaries of Delhi, though we are well
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aware of the significant developments which have taken place within the last
decade in the hinterland. We consider this a beginning, and it is the product of the
collective efforts of the students and faculty of the School.
The TVB/SHS is a relatively new School of Architecture; it is seven years old. At

TVB/SHS we have been teaching Architectural Design as a self-conscious, reflexive
exercise. As a deliberate pedagogic strategy, Delhi has been our laboratory and the
focus of our academic attention. It was natural, therefore, that we should consider
the study of the Architecture of Delhi in the context of history writing.
We have looked at the contemporary Architecture of Delhi, the period following

Independence. The roots of this period trace back to the founding of New Delhi in
1912. This was when the actual building boom in Delhi started, and it was also
when the production of architecture became a self-conscious exercise. Thus, at the
TVB/SHS, we decided that, 85 years after the founding of New Delhi by the British
Colonial government, 50 years after the attainment of Independence from British
colonial rule, and seven years after we started this School (without any assistance
or resistance from the British Government), it was appropriate to critically
examine current state of architectural well-being of contemporary Delhi, our
laboratory, and examine several propositions which arise when we begin the
process of disaggregating the constituent elements of the 'Indian Architecture' we
have all been talking about so far.
The reflections accompanying the fiftieth anniversary celebration of India's

Independence was another catalyst that triggered this exercise. The period 1947-97
selected for this study, is under the circumstance arbitrary, but retained with a
view that we expect to extend the temporal boundaries of our research and
examine the 'past' in due course. This paper is an adumbrated view of the project at
present and our 'thinking' at this point in time, but it remains a personal
perspective, addressing issues raised in the exercise conducted by the School but
also some arising out of it. Also to be stated explicitly is the theoretical position
from which I am presenting this Exhibition.
First, as the author of this text, I do not claim that all my colleagues who worked
on the Exhibition support the position I am expressing. The Exhibition is a
collective effort, and though I often switch to the collective 'we' in the body of this
text, the fact remains that the views are personal.
Second, it is possible that some who read this text may point out that this text too,
is suffused with the same Orientalist perspective as the texts I have criticized. This
is inevitable under the circumstance. I have been educated in the English medium
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on texts produced in that language and tradition. Many, who theorise on the
Architecture of India, I am sure, have a similar background. I have had
transformative experiences studying at universities abroad. One's perspective is
inevitably coloured by the discourses one encountered there, and the methods
employed to construct those discourses. Again, several professionals practicing and
teaching in India have had similar experiences. These facts situate people like me
in the Orientalist mould.
However, I have also experienced transformative processes working in India, first,

as part of the collective GREHA, and second, working on urban conservation
projects for INTACH. These experiences were important to mitigate, and even
cast off the Orientalist moorings. I have no alternative but to work from such
positions of complicity and resistance. The complicity was involuntary, but
resistance is necessary to redeem for my self, respectable cultural space. This
Exhibition and text attempts at defining that position, and continue the process
of sifting through the complex legacy of Orientalism.
As an architectural critic, I am therefore, inclined to look for evidences of

transformative processes in the architecture-in-the-making. I look for interpretive
mimesis where the architect transforms memory, history and tradition into a new
reality. To that end, in Vittorio Gregotti's words,
'...architecture must give itself rules capable of cultivating and disseminating the
profession's tradition, of dealing with the new problems and territories of the
project as a discipline, and also of assuming the moral and civic responsibilities
implied in the act of building.?
23
The Exhibition therefore, looks at the architecture-in-the-making both as a process

of civic development and also a reflexive dialogue manifested in the works of
individual architects.
As Frampton has pointed out: this 'layered approach encourages one to

discriminate between a whole range of interconnected polarities, to wit pluralism
versus populism, monumentality versus monumentalism, technique versus
technology, ornament versus decoration, manner versus caricature, consistency
versus homogenization and last but not least, where it comes to legitimizing
theoretical positions, between the description of a confusion and a confused
description'.
24
I offer this elaborate background to the study of the Architecture of Delhi to

emphasise the need to make explicit who writes history and why. One hopes that
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in this manner we can confront the overpowering influences of Orientalism that
has suffused the thinking of Architecture so far.
The Architecture of Delhi

Delhi is an ancient city.
25
It is a city of ancient monuments and traditional
settlements that coexist within a modern metropolis. This history is not manifest
as a continuous narrative, but appears as discrete elements in the urban-scape. Its
ancient monuments have not had a significant impact on the local architectural
26
imagination. The architects in Delhi refer to Jaisalmer and Fatehpur Sikri
more
often than the local monuments of the Khiljis, the Tughlaks, the Lodis or the
Mughals. And pace Tillotson, the events of the past 85 years of Delhi's history
appear more relevant to a majority of local architects than the architecture of the
preceding centuries, though this fact is seldom acknowledged by those who write
history. This is the reality of the 'tradition' of the Architecture of Delhi: its memory
is not more than 85 years old.
Even at the time of Independence the debate amongst architects was on whether
Revivalist ideals or the emerging ideas of European Modernism was appropriate for
a newly independent nation. This dialogue was being carried out primarily in
Government offices and resulted in two styles of architecture being built in
Delhi.
27
Two buildings of this era typify this dialogue and are the Ashok Hotel (1952) and
the Headquarters of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)
(1953). The Ashok Hotel represented the Revivalist position, where architects
sought motifs from the past to embellish buildings being built with contemporary
materials, technology and addressing contemporary functional requirements. The
architect of the CSIR building, on the other hand, followed the tenets of the
International Style which meant that he viewed architecture as volumetric
composition, where structure was the ordering principle, and no applied
decoration were used to identify the character of the building.
The architectural ideology of buildings like the Ashok Hotel can be traced to the
teachings of Claude Batley at the JJ School of Architecture in Mumbai.
28
Most of
the senior architects working for the Government in Delhi at that time were
products of Batley's tutoring, because the JJ School was the only major educational
institute in the country. In fact, it has been pointed out, that until the old guard
from the JJ School retired, and were replaced by younger architects trained at
other Schools, the Revivalist ideology of the Government did not change.
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The Revivalist ideology however, had a wider constituency than the architects. The
use of the 'Ashok Hotel style' in Government buildings had broad appeal amongst
the intelligentsia, and was supported by the engineers, the senior bureaucrats (the
'brown sahibs') and the politicians (the 'nationalists') who administered the design
and construction of those buildings, and by virtue of their hierarchic superiority
could ensure that the buildings reflected their tastes. Thus, even if Government
architects had other ideas, they could do little under the circumstance, because
they were, as they continues to be, low-level functionaries, who usually went along
with their superior's views, and thus became a willing accomplice in the
implementation of the Revivalist style. Naturally, khichri resulted, and this is how
one would describe the numerous Krishi Bhavans and Vigyan Bhavans built by the
Government architects of that time.
Buildings that resisted this menu had enlightened patrons, who recognised the
limitations of an amalgamated style of architecture and were willing to give
modernism a try. A P Kanvinde, who was also a Government architect, working for
the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), credits its head, Dr
Shanti Swaroop Bhatnager, for reposing faith in his 'new' ideas for the design of
the Headquarters of CSIR (1953). Architects like A P Kanvinde were among the
first generation of architects to study in foreign universities and they returned
with the missionary zeal of those who had seen the 'future', and saw that it worked;
they were convinced that the 'modern architecture' would work for India as well.
Much was read into the 'modern' style of architecture and A.P. Kanvinde reflects
these meanings in a speech in 1959, at a seminar on the need for a 'National
Architectural style?:
'Our problems concerning architecture have changed entirely from the past age
because of our changing cultural outlook, namely the political institutions,
scientific and technological development, our knowledge about human sciences,
and our new ideas of aesthetics which developed as a result of the visual arts.
Almost all past periods of architecture came into being as a result of desire for
glorification, as an expression of the vanity of the ruling class and the dominant
religious sentiments. Thus the architecture of the past was essentially feudalistic in
approach. Contrary to this, the present political institutions are democratic in
their approach where the stress is on the economic and social values related to the
common man?.
29
The response to the call for a more 'democratic approach' was the application of
the tenets of modernism. The mood amongst architects like Kanvinde, was that
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they could 'invent the future', reminding one of a similar mood amongst the early
modernists in Europe after the First World War. And as in Europe, this mood
evaporated within a few years to be replaced by pragmatic and utilitarian task of
Nation-building. The imperatives of building in an environment of severe resource
constraints were overwhelming and in time, these imperatives determined the
production of architecture.
Kanvinde left Government service to establish his private practice in 1955. Soon
other architects like J K Choudhary, who worked on the building of Chandigarh,
also set up practices in Delhi. Private sector architects began making their
presence felt, and though the Government continued to be a dominant force in
the architecture scene in Delhi, it was the private sector that began to determine
the terms of the dialogue.
The buildings designed by the architects from the Chandigarh stable naturally
displayed the distinctive bloodlines of their Corbusian pedigree. Their works were
distinguishable from the works of modernists like Kanvinde and Rehman who had
introduced modernism into the Delhi architectural scene in the '50s. Some of the
distinguishing characteristics of the Chandigarh returnees can be seen in
Choudhary's design for the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi (1961) and
Rajinder Kumar's design for the Inter State Bus Terminal at Kashmeri Gate: the
influence of Le Corbusier is visually obvious. For residential buildings at the Indian
Institute of Technology, however, Choudhary relied on the interplay of exposed
brick, exposed concrete and plain plaster developed by Pierre Jeanneret, and this
became a model adopted by many architects of Delhi for both residential and nonresidential buildings.
The architects who set up practice after their Chandigarh experience generally
modified the lessons they learnt there to suit their 'creative' predilections.
However, Shiv Nath Prasad, another Le Corbusier acolyte, seemingly transliterated
the works of Le Corbusier in his architecture. Prasad initially worked in Delhi for
the Government, and stories abound on the uncompromising stands he took on
architectural matters, in striking contrast to the subservient attitude of his
colleagues. These qualities are transparently exhibited in the projects he undertook
after he left Government service, such as the Akbar Hotel (1965-69) (now
converted into the offices of the Ministry of External Affairs, and renamed Akbar
Bhavan) and the Shri Ram Centre (1966-69). These buildings are exemplary for
several reasons, but most particularly on account of the reflexive manner in which
he utilised Le Corbusier's vocabulary to serve his ends. The production of these
buildings demonstrates the intense commitment to architectural principles
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required of an architect to produce compelling architecture.
Prasad's intelligent approach to design is also apparent in the neighbourhood plan

he made for West End Colony where he absorbed the area that would typically be
set aside for the service lanes into the open space network. Each house at West
End therefore, has a better relationship with the open spaces than in colonies with
separate service lanes and arbitrarily defined open areas for parks. Prasad's
disciplined architecture is almost unique, partly because he left to teach in the
United States and partly because few had the self-confidence to transparently
utilise the Master's vocabulary in service of their own architectural programme. He
is sighted occasionally in local architectural Schools where he continues to terroize
the hapless students with his uncompromising commitment to good architecture.
Examples of the application modernism in the manner accomplished by Prasad

must be distinguished from mere derivative architecture. Much of the Architecture
of Delhi is derivative. Derivative modernism soon becomes a formula, because it
lacks the elan vitale of a transformative process. Prasad was able to transform Le
Corbusier's architecture in the finest traditions of classical form-making.
What is identifiable as modern architecture in Delhi can best be described as

utilitarian modernism : genealogically rooted to the International Style, but
constrained by the limited repertoire of the available building technology and an
equally limited budget. These twin constrains continue to bedevil the architecture
of Delhi, because, following colonial imperatives, construction costs are treated as
they are reflected in the budget as 'capital expenditure', to be pared to the
minimum, and not recognized as the generators of economic activity, with a
diverse multiplier effect on the economy as a whole. Consequently the
Government and private clients, are reluctant to spend money on building, and
when they have to, lowering the cost is more important than the quality to be
achieved. This is generally accomplished by compromising on space standards or
reducing building specifications. This, of course, has a deleterious effect on
architecture. Few architects have shown concern for this larger picture within
which they operate. Seen in this light, the 'failure' of the reform-minded architects
after Independence is more significant that their 'achievements' because they failed
to consider as an agenda, the critical issue of how to build and why to build.
The technology of building construction remains a woefully neglected area of

concern to most of the architects of Delhi and only a few have devoted their
professional practice to this aspect of architecture. Neglect has resulted in poor
quality of work, which in turn has resulted in the development of the facade-
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cladding industry. Over the years, the Architecture of Delhi has been characterised
by changes in the use of various forms of stone for cladding the facade. The variety
of stones, slates and marbles, in slabs, tiles and 'butch-work', are basically hiding
bad workmanship. The works of Walter George and Joseph Allen Stein are
however, remarkable exceptions to this trend, because they have focussed their
attention on the quality of construction in the buildings they designed.
Walter George came to India in 1915 to work with Herbert Baker and Edwin
Lutyens, but stayed on as an active practitioner after Independence. His works like
St Thomas' Church (1929) and St Stephen's College (1938) were built before
Independence, but the Tuberculosis Association Building (1950-52) comes within
the scope of this survey. The bold expression of the buildings adjustable,
lightweight horizontal louvers in the facade of this building is an example of his
concern for building well and using innovative technology to transform the 'looks'
of the building. Few have tried to follow his footsteps.
Joseph Allen Stein who came to India in 1952 to head a college in Calcutta, also
stayed on, and established a well regarded professional practice in Delhi in 1955. In
his works, Stein has clearly demonstrated the importance of building technology in
shaping architecture, and his concern for the craft of building is also self-evident in
the manner his buildings have stood the test of time. The India International
Centre (1959-62), the American International School (1962-70), the Ford
Foundation Building (1968), Triveni Kala Sangham (1957), the UNICEF building
(1981), the numerous industrial buildings for Escorts Ltd. over the years (1960- ),
and most recently in the Hall of Technology (1988) at Pragati Maidan, Stein has
convincingly brought out the virtues of paying attention to the physicality of the
construction process and the need to develop a passionate concern for good
detailing. Again, our survey finds, that these ideals have been rarely pursued with
such consummate consistency by other architects in Delhi.
Utilitarian modernism got established by the '60s. T.J. Manikam's School of

Planning and Architecture building is not only a good representation of this genre
of architecture, but would no doubt have influenced several generations of
students who were educated there as well. Other representative examples from this
period are the buildings of Master, Sathe and Bhuta (later Kothari) like the campus
of the National Physical laboratory at Pusa Road, Fiazuddin's ISI building and the
buildings along Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg and Asaf Ali Road which were built in the
late '50s and '60s. It would not be correct to give an impression that all buildings
of this period were of this genre. Kanvinde and Rehman who were operating under
the same constraints that resulted in utilitarian modernism, were nevertheless
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designing buildings of character and quality. Rehman's Rabinder Bhavan and
Kanvinde's CBCI building at Gol Dakhana stand out as exceptions to the trend of
reducing architecture to the repetitive use of the lowest common denominator.
During this period, to relieve the drabness of utilitarian modernism, buildings

displayed murals on their facades. M F Hussein and Satish Gujral were important
artists who got commissions for doing murals on Government Buildings. But the
application of art to architecture was no less superficial than the strategy employed
by the Revivalists, and this practice was soon abandoned. In fact, in an unusual
instance, a mural by M F Hussein was applied to the facade of Kanvinde's CBRI
Headquarters building. Apparently, it turned out to be so incongruous that it was
removed. The Government tried to promote art by insisting on allocating funds
for 'art works'. Architects in Delhi have seldom made much of this requirement.
The virtues of utilitarian modernism were its concern for climatic factors (the
budgets for most of these buildings could not afford expensive mechanical
services), functional efficiency and aesthetic restraint. The over-arching objective
in the production of architecture in this genre was function and economy, and
these objectives achieved the ideological equivalence of those who defended the
virtues of the ubiquitous Ambassador car. This approach to architecture was also
the operative mantra in architectural Schools of the period. The command
economy allowed few extravagances in the construction of buildings, and the need
to cut cost became an important, if not exclusive priority in the design of
buildings. Its effect on the residential architecture of the period was particularly
severe. Wherever one comes across exceptions, they were reaction to this regimen
of austerity, and the results were invariably outlandish. One is lead to wonder why
these constraints were not made the basis of more compelling architecture.
The housing development of this period were characterised by flat roofs, external
surfaces finished in plain plaster with cement or lime wash, with functional sun
shades providing the only relief to an otherwise bland facade. People still slept on
terraces, and the norm of the '2 1/2' storeyed residential building became a
common volumetric model: one floor for personal occupancy, one for rental, and
the '1/2' referring to the barsati for open-to-sky living. In certain up-market
residential colonies of the period like Sunder Nagar, one notices the lingering
influence of art-deco features. The independent bungalow, the semi-detached
house and the row-house were the common housing models, and except for the
size of the dwelling, most residential buildings used similar architectonic features.
The exceptions were the bungalows for the elite.
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The architectural ideals of the elite were realized by the German emigre, K M
Heinz. Heinz's productions of ersatz pallazzos, with pastry icing-like decorations,
pompous ducal crests, baroque mouldings, curlicued metal railings, improbable
Corinthian capitals and other incongruous European architectural elements
obviously satisfied his elite clientele who craved for things 'foreign' in these austere
times. The ascetic ideals of Nehruvian Socialism inadvertently provided an aura to
'foreigness' in architectural design, and many Indian imitators followed Heinz's
architectural footsteps and enjoyed great success because they tapped the fantasy
of the Delhi client. One notices in these fantasies and craving for foreign imageary,
the incipient desire even amongst the middle-class house-owners builders of Delhi
for the flamboyant architectonic gestures. These proclivities soon developed into
the exuberant, if comic, characteristic of Delhi's residential architecture in the '80s
and the '90s, which has been vividly captured in the writings of the Delhi architect,
Gautam Bhatia.
30
Two other developments in residential architecture are noticeable starting from

the '70s. One is seen in the signature designs of Surender Sareen, whose works
highlight the desire amongst the house-owners of Delhi for the unique in
residential architecture. This is not the 'Punjabi baroque' described by Bhatia, but
an eclectic mix of idiosyncratic features which made the design by a particular
architect recognizable and therefore, desirable in the eyes of the owner. Architects
have always indulged in this practice, but Sareen was particularly successful and
sought after.
The other development really took off from the '80s, and can generically be
referred to as 'developer housing'. With the dramatic rise in land values in the city,
it became economically attractive to redevelop the individual bungalows, often
built barely 20 years earlier, into apartment blocks, pushing to the limits (and
usually, beyond the limits) the permissible building regulations. The nexus of the
builder-property developer and the complicit municipal authority became a fact of
life in Delhi. Residential neighbourhoods got congested adversely affecting the
quality of life. This motivated citizens to take matters to Court, and the
pronouncements of Justice Kuldip Singh of the Delhi High Court during the '90s
on these Public Interest Litigations is indicative of the depth of the malaise that
has begun to afflict production of the architecture in Delhi. On the insistence of
the Court Committees were formed to examine the problem and simplify the
complex building bye-laws of Delhi. Nothing has come out of these deliberations,
and in the meantime, Justice Kuldip Singh has retired from the bench, leaving
matters very much status quo ante.
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K M Heinz was also a friend of Zakir Hussein who commissioned him to design the
Jamia University campus where he built, unlike his houses for the rich, reasonably
dignified academic buildings. He also designed the Holy Family Hospital in line
with the prevailing ideology of utilitarian modernism. Heinz, like many architects
practicing in Delhi, reflected the desires of the client in their architecture and had
little of their own to express.
During this period, that is, the '50s and '60s, the Government undertook massive
developments projects in the city through the Rehabilitation Ministry and the
Improvement Trust. Their works had to be undertaken on war-footing and
required dynamic leadership. Ministers like Ved Chand Khanna were key figures
during this phase of the city's development, and he was, in his style of working, the
model for the authoritarian builder-administrators like the NDMC Commissioner
Chhabra and DDA's Vice Chairman Jagmohan. The development of Delhi well into
the '80s is characterised by the 'contributions' made by these authoritarian
administrators, who went about under-mining due process and the value of the
Master Plan. While identifying this proclivity for building by fiat as being
characteristic of Delhi, one must however, point out that Khanna had urgent
building works to accomplish due to the massive influx of refugees to the city
following Partition, and was not going about demolishing buildings as his
successors did in order to beautify Delhi. Khanna established many residential
colonies like Lajpat Nagar and Rajinder Nagar to house refuges. These colonies
have evolved beyond initial expectations, and several studies conducted at SPA and
TVB/SHS have identified the need for incremental housing growth as an important
strategy in housing design for Delhi.
Khanna relied on an enthusiastic group of young architects working for the

Government, who in the process, learnt by doing. There was no Master Plan or
precedents to follow in those days, and one can see how, in this process of on-thespot decision-making, two important characteristics of Delhi's development got
institutionalised: the power of the politician to mediate building activity, and, the
complicity of the architect in this process which lead to undervaluing their
profession responsibility and worth. The imperative that got established as a
mindset was that only immediate action worked, not systematic planning;
consequently, designs had necessarily to be simple for quick implementation in the
field and not the product of contemplation and reflexive thinking; and finally,
secrecy was the best antidote to delays on account of public criticism or resistance.
Much of the Government produced architecture and urban planning of the '50s
and '60s can be rationalised on the basis of this pernicious mindset. Unfortunately
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an imperative understandable in the '50s and perhaps the '60s became, in due
course, the routine practice. As far as the Government's development programme
is concerned, matters have hardly improved. It is now apparent by studying Delhi's
experience, that transparency in governance is an urgent need if we are to improve
the living conditions in our cities.
Nevertheless there were many good architects who worked for the Government
who came into prominence in the '60s. For one, the Batley crowd had retired, and
for another, these architects retained the idealism of the post-Independence
modernists. Shiv Nath Prasad, B G Fernandes, M M Rana, J M Benjamin and many
others produced buildings as competent as any produced by the private sector
architects. After all, they were from the same stock, and it was only the attraction
of a safe Government job in an uncertain economic environment that determined
who chose to become a Government architect.
One possible reason why some Government architects of this period were able to
achieve stature against the odds of working within the PWD culture was perhaps
the fact that they were recruited at senior levels; today the architect working for
the Government rise slowly, and even routinely, in seniority, and more often than
not, by the time they are able to exert their initiative, their architectural idealism
has been wrung out of them. How else can one explain the remarkable difference
in the work of the Government architects then and now?
In the '60s a curious reversal of architectural ideals became noticeable in the

Architecture of Delhi. Whereas in the years following Independence, it was the
Government architect who advocated the appropriateness of using the past as a
model for form-making, and it was the few private architects who tentatively
hoisted the flag of modernism, in the '60s the situation reversed. While the
Government architects became firmly aligned to the ideals of modernism (Rana,
Benjamin et al), it was the private architect who responded to the world-wide
movement against the International Style and developed the imperatives of what
Frampton calls Regional Modernism. The tenets of the International Style had
been questioned even as it was taking root in the '30s, but the decisive break
occurred in the '60s and was forcefully articulated by Robert Venturi in his classic
book, Complexity and Contradiction in Modern Architecture which was published
in 1966.
31
What the Armour show did for Modern Art in the US in 1912, was
accomplished by Venturi in Architecture in 1966.
The reverberations of these changes were inevitably felt in India, carried over by
young architects who returned after studying abroad. Several of them established
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their practice in Delhi in the '60s, and through their works redefined modernism
using for reference, the local physical context,
32
even as 'classical' modernism was
beginning take hold in the works of the Government architects.
Amongst this group of foreign educated returnees were Raj Rewal, Ranjit Sabikhi,
Ajoy Choudhari and Ram Sharma. All of them taught for various lengths of time at
the School of Planning and Architecture, influencing a subsequent generation of
architects. In this process they helped reinforce the primacy of this institution in
the field of education and created a cadre of architects with the 'Delhi' stamp.
Through their architectural projects they explored the deep structure of the 'Indian
identity' which Rewal and Sharma subsequently helped define by curating the
Festival Exhibition in 1985.
In hindsight it is clear that the deep structure they attempted to adduce in

explaining their works was almost exclusively limited to pointing out the almost
literal correspondence with the figure-ground morphological pattern of traditional
settlements particular to the hot-dry regions of north India. This approach did
appear more compelling as an intellectual idea than the earlier attempts at
Revivalism, and, indeed, these projects attracted both national and international
attention.
33
The low-rise high-density housing developments of several Delhi
architects including the YMCA Staff Housing (1963) and Yamuna Apartments by
the Design Group (Ranjit Sabikhi and Ajoy Choudahri), Usha Niketan and Saket
Housing (1973) by Kuldip Singh and Raj Rewal, Asiad Village (1982) by Raj rewal,
Press Enclave by M N Ashish Ganju and several commendable projects by DDA,
have become the preferred typological model for housing development in Delhi. In
architectural terms, however, the buildings were similar to others being built at
that time, and except in rare instances like the later works of Raj Rewal, they failed
to be truly transformative. Was this because of the obvious affinity between their
architectural vocabulary and the western architectural ideals? The affinity to the
western architectural ideals is seen in the expression of the structural grid and the
interplay of volumetric elements to achieve the aesthetic objectives of architectural
composition. Or was it because of the use of indigenous spatial precedents but not
indigenous architectural themes? As Frampton, Bhatt and Scriver, et al, have
already observed, this architecture was a panacea for malaise afflicting the
architecture of Europe and the US, but what we must confront in our context
through a less-laudatory analysis of their works is the difficult question of whether
they were able to truly accomplish their stated objectives have in Delhi.
The interest in structural expressions took an independent turn, and developed

into full blown Structuralism evident in several buildings of the '70s and '80s. In
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these buildings the pivotal role of structural engineers like Mahendra Raj in the
development of the architectural programme became evident. Starting with the
Delhi Cloth Mills factory (1970) by Kanvinde and Rai and the Permanent
Exhibition Complex at Pragati Maidan (1972) by Raj Rewal, the offices of the
National Cooperative Development Corporation (1980) and the NDMC Civic
Centre (1983) by Kuldip Singh the State Trading Corporation (1990) by Raj Rewal
the Baha'i Temple (1986) designed by Fariburz Sahba, the Structuralist idiom has
produced several memorable buildings in Delhi, which have become visual icons
and contributed to the development of both, architectural expression and building
technology. There are several civil contractors in Delhi who are able to produce
excellent concrete work because of the experience they gained building the
structuralist projects. Unfortunately, this experience has not percolated deeper
into professional practice and raised the general level of building technology.
The development of alternate construction technology and low-cost building

materials has however, had a greater impact on the Architecture of Delhi than the
work of the structuralists. The construction of the Development Alternatives
headquarters buildings brought together several young architects who have
continued their commitment to this genre of architecture and widened its
influence in the production of architecture in Delhi. The decisive role of HUDCO
in promoting these developments under the leadership of S K Sharma in the '80s
must be recognized. HUDCO patronised cost-effective architecture and set up a
country-wide network of Building Centres to research and propagate appropriate
intermediate technology and these initiatives have had a significant impact on the
development of architecture. Anil Laul, Revathi and Vasant Kamath, Neeraj
Manchanda and Suresh V Rajan are among the many architects in Delhi who have
devoted their professional careers to this genre of architecture. Anil Laul and
Vasant Kamath have taught at the School of Planning and Architecture, and
Neeraj Manchanda and Suresh V Rajan are teaching at the TVB/SHS. An
increasing number of students are being attracted to their brand of 'Indian'
architecture.
The works of Anil Laul in the area of slum rehabilitation and development of new
construction technologies have a compelling force. Few architects address the
monumental problem of housing the poor with as much creative energy and
dedication. The stark reality of the future architectural scenario of Delhi is that it
will soon have a predominantly poor population, and the character of the future
Architecture of Delhi will be largely determined by how architects address the
problems of the poor, not the elite. Anil Laul and a growing band of younger
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architects are directing their professional practice in this direction. The work of
the Laurie Baker Building Centre in Delhi has also contributed to the development
and dissemination of alternate modes of architectural production. Their own
building at R K Puram has became an iconic landmark because of its obvious visual
appeal. Many buildings in Delhi emulate its aesthetic character.
There were other major forces, unique to Delhi, which have determined the nature
of its architecture in the '60s, '70s and well into the '80s. The three powerful forces
which can be identified in this context are, first, the implementation of the Master
Plan; second, the huge commissions which were awarded for the implementation
of both the Master Plan projects and two ad hoc mega-events: the Asia 72
Exhibition and the projects commissioned for the Asian Games of 1982; and, third,
the practice of conducting architectural competitions to select architects for
(some) major projects. A fourth force, whose influence is more difficult to assess in
explicit terms, may also be mentioned in passing, and that is the role of the Delhi
Urban Arts Commission (DUAC), in controlling the architectural character of
Delhi.
The Master Plan of Delhi made it possible for architects to work on a scale not
witnessed in any other city in India. The Plan envisioned two sub-City Centres, 27
district Centres and several Community Centres, Neighbourhood and Local
Shopping Centres. Besides these massive commercial developments, vast tracts of
lands have also been made available for residential development, largely for Group
Housing Schemes, parks, and industrial development. The Plan has also ensured a
balanced distribution of Parks and Sports Complexes which have incorporated the
hundreds of historic monuments of Delhi in their layout. More than its
architectural character, Delhi is often recognized for its distinctive open spaces,
and road-side plantation. The legacy of Lutyens has been further developed by
DDA through its landscape projects.
All these massive architectural works were not undertaken by DDA themselves. In
an enlightened manner, the DDA has commissioned private practitioners to
undertake the major projects paying standard fees for professional services. This
practices is so rare in Government commissioned projects, that it is remarkable,
and has had a positive effect in the development of architecture in Delhi. The
volume of work involved in these projects have enabled architects to explore
several architectural themes and ideas.
In an analysis of the major characteristics of commercial projects commissioned or

built by DDA, two recurring problems stand out which have defied the
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architectural imagination of the contemporary architect: the architectural controls
proposed by architects are at variance with the manner in which they are put to
use by the public, and second, the significant urban spaces have been designed with
little understanding of the socio-cultural ethos of Indian urbanism. These projects
deal with the imperatives of urban design and have generally addressed
architectural and urban issues in the manner they have been addressed in Europe.
Such methods and devices have become an 'universal' vocabulary for urban design,
though they were developed during the post-Second World war reconstruction of
European towns. To use them as 'universal' principles in the Indian context does
not reflect an understanding of the local ground realities. Thus, inspite of the
massive opportunity that was made available in DDA projects, the great failure of
architecture and urban design in Delhi has been the inability to develop
appropriate indigenous models.
There are two options being explored to tackle the problems which may offer clues
to the directions we need to take in future. In one, Kuldip Singh, for his proposal
for the District Centre at Saket, has suggested a mandatory management strategy
alongwith his design proposal to control and direct project development in
accordance with the intent of the design. This would ensure that the user cannot
'misuse' the building by disregarding the design controls. In the second, in a
scheme I am working on for the Community Centre at Narela, I have applied
lessons learnt from the study of historic towns, and proposed a more organic,
market-directed development strategy, that, while it adheres to the imperatives of
planned development would still accommodate the variety of architectural options
required to satisfy the end user.
The commissions which were awarded for the construction of the two mega-events
held in Delhi generated significant architectural projects, of course, - about which
much has already been written - but, in my opinion, they had a greater impact on
the evolution of the architectural imaginations. The fall-out from these events is
difficult to pin down, but in general, in the minds of the architects, a feeling of
confidence was generated. Witnessing the execution of these projects, other
architects realised that the extraordinary could be accomplished, if the architect
made it their objective. The negative attitude engendered by utilitarian modernism
of the '50s and '60s began to recede. There were few limits to curb architectural
intent. Architects of Delhi began to display greater confidence in developing
innovative architectural themes. But here again, one notices the liet motif in the
development of the Architecture of Delhi: this serendipituous opportunity did not
lead to the development of transformative architecture, but only greater
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confidence in attempting derivative themes and practices. The ponderous
seriousness of utilitarian modernism dissolved in the liminal conditions
surrounding the execution of projects for the mega-events: anything could be
attempted, anything could be accomplished. This is an impression I carry
examining the projects of this period, and it is difficult to trace the explicit causal
relationship between the mega-events and the new confidence in the profession.
All I can point out as evidence is the variety of architectural expression in the '70s
and '80s, which I believe, to be to a large extent attributable to this new found
confidence.
The third force that can be identified as having an impact on architecture are the
many architectural competitions which were held in Delhi. These competitions
often introduced new blood into the architectural mainstream. To the winner of
course, went the spoils, in terms of important commissions, but even those who
participated, or viewed the exhibition of entries to the competition at the end of
the exercise, also benefited enormously in the process. These exhibitions mitigated
the absence of dialogue in journals and books, and contributed to the crossfertilization of architectural ideas. Again it is difficult to trace a direct causal
relationship between the architectural competitions and the nature of the
architecture that followed, but it appears to be almost axiomatic to assume that
there was such a relationship.
The competition for the NDMC City Centre and the R K Puram District Centre
were both won by the firm of Raj Rewal and Kuldip Singh in 1965. Their proposals
were in contrast to the ideology of utilitarian modernism prevalent at that time. It
opened up possibilities. DDA's own design for the Nehru Place District Centre
(1970), started by Dharam Malik and completed by Rattan Singh was free to
explore principles of Civic Design I have commented on earlier. The Chanakyapuri
commercial complex also came up at this time. These proposals were different, but
not necessarily better than the unpretentions examples of utilitarian modernism
tried out in several neighbourhood level shopping centres.
Competitions for large campuses for Jawaharlal Nehru University (CP Kukreja)
and the Indira Gandhi National Open University (Sharat Das) opened up the
competitive spirit in the development of architectural design and enriched the city
with the works of diverse talents. Even the international competition for the
Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts won by the American architect Ralph
Lerner was an important event because while recognizing the compelling spatial
resolution of the scheme, local architects cringed at the blatantly Orientalist
fantasy that it represented as an architectural statement. It was an anachronistic
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Rivalist exercise and obviously no subsequent project has emulated this caricature
of 'Indian architecture'.
The architecture of Delhi is strongly characterised by the strong presence of public

housing. The low-rise high density design option for middle and high-income
residential units has been extensively applied in Delhi both in Government and
private projects. At the School of Planning and Architecture and the TVB/SHS the
potentials of this model has been inculcated in a future generation of architects as
an appropriate typology for meeting the housing needs of the city. Snehanshu
Mukherjee at the TVB/SHS has been conducting design studio exercises to
demonstrate the variations possible within the existing design parameters for
middle and high-income housing which could yield more satisfying results than the
present, by now stereotyped, typological models. As in the case of architectural
competitions, these academic exercises are also contributing to the development
of architectural debate, and bringing to the foreground, the role of educational
institution in the development of critical architecture.
In the field of low-income housing, there have been several competitions

conducted by DDA and HUDCO. In the '70s the competitions for the Dilshad
Gardens LIG Housing scheme (Ram Sharma) and the Kalkaji LIG Housing Scheme
(M N Ashish Ganju) had great influence on subsequent developments in the field.
Ganju went on to develop the idea of inter-locking units as the generative principle
of design in a convincing manner in the design of the Press Enclave housing
scheme at Saket. Again the Schools in Delhi have conducted extensive research in
the area of low-income housing which has conferred a critical edge to its
development in Delhi. Anil Laul at the School of Planning and Architecture and
Neeraj Manchanda at TVB/SHS have trained several generations of architects in
this neglected area of architectural practice. Manchanda is now conducting
exercises with students on participatory design development strategies which
extends the role of architects beyond the present boundaries of physical
architectural design solutions for housing the poor.
The impact of the fourth factor in the development of the Architecture of Delhi,
the role of the DUAC, is still more difficult to assess than the impact of megaevents or architectural competitions. The DUAC is generally considered to have a
nuisance value. The DUAC was set up by an Act of Parliament in 1973 and started
functioning towards the middle of 1974. But soon its impact was blunted. Within a
year of its existence, the Emergency was clamped on the country and the various .
civic and development bodies of the city which had begun to route their projects
through the Commission, suddenly started ignoring it, almost mocking its
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existence. For example, during the interregnum of the Emergency, a 50-storeyed
building was mooted in the walled city at Turkman Gate; this project however did
not materialise, but gave rise to similar proposals in the following years. The
NDMC however, did manage to push through with the construction of the Lok
Nayak Bhavan at Khan Market, and also bulldozed the Coffee House at Connaught
Place to build the Palika Bazaar. The 15-storey Taj Hotel was sanctioned on Man
Singh Road during this period. All this clearly demonstrates the negative
perceptions the civic bodies and architects have on the role of DUAC.
Nevertheless, it is a fact that in a steady manner, the DUAC has contributed to the
establishment of minimum livability standards which were, otherwise overlooked
when civic authorities give their approvals to projects based solely on the
adherence to building bye-laws. Inspite of its indifferent record, the fact remains
that in Delhi, an independent body does exist in Delhi, and sometimes is able to
make a contribution to major projects built in Delhi. Perhaps, the architecture of
Delhi has been spared the excesses perpetrated by the developers lobby in other
cities on this count.
This commendable restraint on the developer determined architectural excesses

from being perpetrated on the Architecture of Delhi has been severely tested in the
wake of economic liberalization and the fall out, as a result, of globalization during
the last decade. Going by the evidence of recent architecture, the force of these
economic changes on the architectural imagination is an incontrovertible fact.
One has only to see the recent works of Raja Adheri, Hafeez Contractor and C P
Kukreja in Delhi to understand its power. The debates of the '50s and '60s appear
inconsequential compared to the architectural amorality in vogue today. One can
perhaps decipher this message in the TVB/SHS exhibition. In conclusion, what are
the messages which come through in the examination of the Architecture of Delhi?
Perhaps these can be expressed by highlighting some recent works of three older
architects, three younger and three still younger architects. Such a cross-section of
the works of Delhi architects would reveal the contours of the architectural
paradigm currently in place in Delhi.
The three older architects whose recent works I have chosen highlight are Raj
Rewal, Charles Correa and Balkrishna Doshi.
In the World Bank building (1994) Raj Rewal's response to the forces of
globalization has been to plumb the depths of his own well-developed architectural
vocabulary and to come up with a meticulously detailed and crafted object. He
continues to explore the use of stone as a structural element and these concerns
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have lead to the innovative development of the use of stone in conjunction with
expoxy glues and steel for the design of the Ismaili Cultural Centre at Lisbon
(1996). Clearly, the elements of transformative architecture are evident in this
work, and his architecture possesses the compelling force of becoming iconic
models for the Architecture of Delhi.
Charles Correa is not a 'Delhi' architect, but the library and Headquarters building
for the British Council (1995) is as much a 'Delhi building' as the Jawahar Kala
Kendra is a 'Jaipur' building. He probes the deep structure of traditional and
contemporary architecture - albeit not necessarily exclusive to Delhi, and relies on
his considerable architectural imagination to yet again surprise and delight the
viewer with his iconoclasm regarding the site context, on the one hand, and on the
other, by accommodating in a convincing manner, both the overpowering mural of
Howard Hodgkin presiding over the entrance, and a massive granite sculpture by
Stephen Cox terminating a formal linear axis. Never mind Correa's penchant to
evoke the 'primordial memory', the building speaks for itself in the contemporary
context. Here the marriage of art and architecture achieves an attenuated level of
resolution not achieved by architects who merely slap on a mural on the facade of a
building. There is no question of any globalization trend overpowering this work.
This integrity is not seen in Balkrishna Doshi's two recent projects in Delhi, the
campus of the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) and the
headquarters building for INTACH. Again, Doshi is not a 'Delhi architect', but the
rationalization he employs to justify his design, locates them firmly in the narrative
of the Architecture of Delhi. But, in both these buildings, the evocation of the past
appears unconvincing and the imageary is unfortunately, determined by
fashionable architectonic gimmicks currently in vogue. At NIFT we are supposed
to recall 'a small beautiful village built of white painted mud walls, with cattle, a
few trees and a central pond surrounded by steps?.
34
The INTACH building seeks
'to become a microcosm, reflecting the quintessence of India's heritage'.
35
Clearly,
Doshi is an architect of undeniable stature, but in the design of the two recent
projects in Delhi, he has succumbed to the lure of post-modern sophistry, and
remind us of how the mighty fall.
The lessons to be drawn from the works of these three older architects
demonstrate the problems of form-making, and place-making in Delhi today. Some
older paradigms continue to produce compelling architecture, while others become
irrelevant. One needs to look beyond, to a younger generation of practitioners to
guage the zeitgeist. Amongst the architects of a younger generation, one could
identify the works of Sumit and Suchitra Ghosh, Ashok B Lall and Anil Laul for
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deeper considerations.
The Ghoshs have recently been awarded the Architect of the Year award by J K
Cements. In their design for the Sitaram Bharatiya Institute of Research, they have
demonstrated a deep understanding classical architectural values of scale,
proportion and spatial experience. Their commitment to these ideals is
underscored by the consistency of their architectural production, and rejection of
fashionable trends.
Ashok Lall is a core member of the teaching facility at the TVB/SHS and has
undertaken to develop a strongly climate-determined architecture both in the
architectural studio and in his practice. Architects have generally treated, climate
as a problem to be mitigated, and not as a potential, as the determinant of form.
Thus, both in the studio exercises and in the construction of a group of houses in
Civil Lines, Lall demonstrates the value of an environmentally sensitive
architecture for Delhi. There are other architects who are also working in this
genre. Sanjay Prakash (Mirambika) and Vinod Gupta (TERI campus) have
accumulated a convincing body of work and are attracting many young architects
to their cause and will have a significant impact on the Architecture of Delhi.
The work of Anil Laul can also be seen in this light, for its potential in
ameliorating the quality of life in the habitat for the poor. He has worked closely
on several projects of the Slums Department and shown the importance of
inventiveness and creativity in dealing with problems of severe resource
constraints. Currently he is working on the development of a massive resettlement
colony at Jaunpur Village in South-East Delhi, where he is demonstrating the costeffectiveness of his approach to problem solving. Like Anil Laul, Delhi has several
'bare-foot' architects who are devoting their professional careers working for nongovernment organizations, foreign aid-agencies and some are even working in
research laboratories of the Government and contributing to this cause.
Amongst the still younger generation in practice, the directions are not yet clear,
and even confusing. The works of Manoj Mathur, Snehanshu Mukherjee and
Neeraj Manchanda come to mind. Mathur has a penchant for the latest aesthetic
gimmick, Mukherjee for developing along the lines of the classical modernist
vocabulary, and Manchanda uses an eclectic mix of alternate technology, materials
and considerations of systemic sustainability to produce convincing architecture.
There are of course, many more trends which have not been identified. But for the
present, the exhibition hopefully demonstrates the proposition underlying this
study, that regional and sub-regional architectures have not received the attention
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they deserve, and need, in order to arrive at a reasonable theory about production
of architecture in the country as a whole. The strategy adopted in the TVB/SHS
study to overcome the tautology inherent in the attempts at theorising so far has
been to pursue an empirical approach to the study of regional architecture, and
focus on specific contexts, events, personalities and circumstances in order to
recognize patterns, and recurring themes.
One of the factors that stands out prominently when we shift the focus to Delhi, is
the decisive role the State has played as 'middle-man' in the production of
architecture. Being an administrative centre of the country, administrative and
political power has always had an overwhelming presence in Delhi. Though there is
now a substantial body of works produced by private architects, one cannot ignore
the agency of the Government in the process of form-making and place-making
whether it is to obtain sanctions or undertaking Government projects. Even in the
abstract, there is still an underlying line of argument justifying the work of private
architects which involves the pejorative PWD architecture as a handy prop. There
has been a sibling rivalry between the architects working in the public and private
sectors, making the catalytic role of the Government as the 'other' in the
production of architecture, a palpable reality in Delhi.
The role of the Government was more obvious in the years following
Independence than it is today. Delhi fifty years ago, was predominantly an
administrative city,and most of the important buildings built in the city were by
and for Government use. While the economic base of the city has changed, even
today, when its economy is completely diversified, the fact remains that
Government departments continue to construct a substantial number of buildings
that are visible. Thus, no study ignoring this massive corpus of works can claim to
have a handle on the concept of the zeitgeist in the Architecture of Delhi, or for
that matter, India.
In terms of the physical development of the city, however, the Exhibition shows
that the near exclusive role of the Government is beyond doubt. This dominance
can be attributed to the implementation of two powerful Master Plans: Lutyen's
Master Plan of Imperial Delhi, and the Master Plan of Delhi promulgated in 1962
which was produced by a team of Ford Foundation experts. The city has received
development funds to implement these plans completely out of proportion to the
amounts allocated for development to other cities of the country. Both Plans
necessitated the acquisition of vast tracts of undeveloped land for the future city.
Consequently, the problem of land consolidation to construct large projects did
not exist in Delhi. This factor alone has been, and continues to be, a powerful
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determinant of the architectural character of Delhi. No other city has such a large
collection of mega-projects conceived as single entities, often by single architects.
However, these mega-projects were constructed in a setting which was a product
of the Western imagination: Lutyen's Baroque city plan, and the poly-nodal city
form envisaged by the Ford Foundation experts.
36
Such paradoxes have seldom
been the focus of architectural concern, resulting in a situation where architecture

of critical importance are like islands in the city-scape, and one considers their
worth with a blinkered vision.
The analysis of the recent Architecture of Delhi reveals three clear directions being
taken by local architects. The first, is a fascination architects have always had for
the physicality of the building as an object.
The second, is predicated on environmental considerations - climate as the

determinant of form, sustainability and appropriate technology.
The third, focuses on the needs of the poor, and an architecture that evolves when
cost is a severe constraint.
Conclusion
The exhibition has recorded the Architecture of Delhi produced during the last fifty
years. In the accompanying text, I have identified the circumstances and external
forces which were instrumental in the production of this architecture. The purpose
for undertaking this exercise was to empirically examine the architecture-in-the
making of a particular region of the country; here it is Delhi.
What we found is that, contrary to the impression conveyed in the literature on

the Architecture of India, 'Indian identity' has seldom been an important
consideration in form-making and place-making in Delhi; at least, not for a long
time. As far as place-making at the city level is concerned, I had earlier examined
the traditions of modern town-planning in India and shown that there is not an
iota of evidence to demonstrate their interest in achieving an 'Indian' identity in
their work; in fact, quite the contrary was my conclusion, because indigenous
settlement patterns are regarded as 'problem areas'.
37
The question of
transformative place-making strategies does not arise in the practice of town

planning in India. Thus, the irony of its quest in architecture is that its setting is
totally 'western'. There is little relationship between architecture and town
planning, therefore buildings have been conceived as islands within a site, and no
two adjacent building acknowledges each others the presence.
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The issue of an Indian identity in form-making, was debated for only a few year
after Independence, and today, it does not appear to be a matter of concern at all
amongst the architects in Delhi. Only a few die-hards including Raj Rewal and
Charles Correa, continue to fly the flag of 'Indian identity' in the face of the
unfolding of Ricouer's prediction of an universal civilization, leaving one to wonder
if such concerns are a dated obsession.
We found that the role of cultural memory has not been crucial to the process of
form-making in Delhi for quite some time. This memory was consciously evoked in
the period following Independence, first in the manner of literal transliteration of
historic motifs used to decorate the facades of buildings, and later as abstract
architectural desiderata derived from morphological studies of traditional
settlements. The choice of models in both situations were examples from
Rajasthan, and not local monuments or settlement patterns. What tandoori
chicken is to 'Indian' cusine, the architecture of Rajasthan is to 'Indian'
architecture.
What is the 'local context' for an architect working in India? Are the colonnades of
Tamil Nadu temples of equal significance to the intersecting squares of Fatehpur
Sikri or the figure-ground characteristic of Jaiselmer? How does one establish the
ownership of heritage and the choice of models one employs to generate form in
contemporary architecture? Considering the fact that we cannot wipe out our
colonial heritage, can we claim access to historic European models as well?
Architects have never felt compelled to examine these questions. One of the
intriguing questions that has emerged from this survey is, why the architects in
Delhi were unable to achieve a transformative architecture when its potential
existed at the time of Independence. Did they lack the skill or the will? Some of the
writing of the period indicates that while the desire for transformative architecture
was present, the results were invariably at variance with this objective. An editorial
from an issue of Marg Magazine of 1950 explains the problem facing
art/architecture:
'For many years nationalism has been a growing creed in this country. The
attainment of swaraj has accentuated it. With swaraj there has been a marked
tendency to revive everything Indian and exclude everything foreign, irrespective
of the merits and demerits of the case. In such an atmosphere there is bound to be
a good deal of confused thinking. There is a genuine desire for an Indian
Renaissance. Whether the renaissance will be positive or negative, healthy or
otherwise, will depend on what we mean by renaissance and how we approach it.
38
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In hindsight how can we explain the failure of the architects to develop the
potential to produce transformative architecture?
It would be instructive to compare the situation in Delhi after Independence with

two other historic events of comparable nature: the debate in Russia after the
October 1917 Revolution, and the achievements of the artists in Santiniketan who
consciously developed a modern idiom in art during the three decades prior to
Independence.
In Russia after the Revolution, the architectural community was in a ferment.

Constructivists and other radicals of the '20s sought to create agitprop art for the
Bolshevik cause. In the end, of course, they did not succeed, not because they
lacked the will, but because they confronted head-on the exigencies of national
reconstruction. As Naum Gabo wrote in censure of the Constructivist's project :
'Either build functional houses and bridges or create pure art, not both. Don't
confuse one with the other'.
39
The polemic force of the constructivist's Manifesto
even today, is perhaps on account of the fact that for several years after the
Revolution there was no work and architects 'could only dream on paper'.
40
The mood of the architects in Delhi was similar to the situation in Moscow in 1917,
but they differed from their Russian counterparts in that to begin with they were
far less idealistic and also, the fact was that they always had enough work. Unlike
the Constructivist manifesto, the call for architectural renaissance rang hollow. To
understand this, one must recall that Independence in India was in the nature of a
transfer of political power, and not as it had been in Russia, a Revolution.
Architects had no cause to rebel against, and therefore, there was no ideological
grounds to seek architectural transformation. Architects had always collaborated
with the colonial project, so where was the question of rebelling against it on
achieving swaraj? The talk of establishing continuity with the past was merely selfflagellation. Naturally, only Revivalism was achieved.
It was much more natural for the modernists, Kanvinde, Rehman, et al. to develop
on the base of the colonial legacy and attempt to produce an architecture of
'transformative modernism' in their quest for the Indian renaissance. The term is
of course, an oxymoron, but it was attempted by the early modernists in Delhi, and
explains the mindless quality of post-Independence modernism. Again, in
hindsight, it is clear that what they achieved was to merely flavour the modernism
derived from the colonial period with an International vocabulary.
The ontological significance of a modernism imposed by the coloniser was never

the issue in their rationalization; the post-Independence modernists had only
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discovered more appealing models to pursue, almost invariably as a result of a
foreign encounter of a personal kind. The relevance of applying the 'Harvard', or
'MIT' or 'Liverpool' brand of modernism to the situation at hand was never in
question, because the answer was known to the foreign educated messiahs before
they returned to understand the problem.
In this context, the example of the Santiniketan artists is relevant, because they
faced a similar conundrum but were able to achieve a compelling art for their
times. Artists like Ram Kinkar were able to relate in equal measure to both an
Indian tradition and the modern Western development in a manner that was
organic and human. Primary among the ideas these artists shared was the belief in
the need for a comprehensive rethinking, not a revival of the past in form or spirit
or the adoption of foreign models. Such a vision of comprehensive rethinking was
absent amongst the architects - both the Revivalists and the Modernists. The roots
of the problem lay in the sociology of the profession and its development during
colonial times.
41
The development of the profession in India was such that it has resulted in the
architect becoming a low-level functionary in Government service. This has been
particularly evident in a bureaucratic city like Delhi. It has had a deleterious effect
on the 'image' of the architect in society - at-large. Further, the methods and
devices employed by the architects to accomplish their tasks isolates them from the
regional mainstreams of cultural dialogue. Architects working in their metier in
contemporary India certainly do not have the same relation with their clients that
contemporary writers writing in regional languages have with their respective
regional readers. Even cross-regional art forms like classical music and dance are
able to address a cultivated audience to sustain their art; contemporary architects
do not have a cultivated constituency with whom they could dialogue in a common
architectural language. A constituency has to be developed by disseminating
information and it is here that 'writing architecture' becomes critical to the
process of cultural formations. Though few architects have attempted to address
this task, we find that in Delhi it has been attempted by others.
Patwant Singh for many years valiantly supported the publication of Design
Magazine. In the '60s and '70s he was an outspoken advocate of conservation,
classical modernism and railed against the many unprincipled projects initiated by
DDA and other public agencies in Delhi. He supported the establishment of DUAC
and was severely critical of its marginalization in subsequent years. While Patwant
Singh and Romesh Thaper - the editor of Seminar magazine, widened the arena of
debate on design issues in general, they were primarily addressing a Delhi centred
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constituency. Their impact on influencing public opinion was however minimal,
and in hindsight one realises that the brand of aesthetic culture they promoted was
an Ikea-like craft development. The 'Golden Eye' project of Rajiv Sethi of the '80s
was the natural outcome of this line of thinking.
42
Lacking a sound theroretical
base there was only an amorphous, desire for 'appropriate' architecture, leaving it
to individual practitioners to go about accomplishing this task in their own
manner.
Public opinion amongst the intelligentsia in matters architectural, swung from the
Revivalist ideals of the post-Independence period to a general disillusionment with
'modern architecture' and nostalgia for 'traditional architecture'. The setting up of
INTACH and their focus on architectural conservation reinforced the value of
'traditional architecture' in the minds of the public and architects alike. But the
evidence of the Architecture of Delhi shows that such perceptions did not leverage
transformative architecture.
The publication of Architecture + Design from 1985 has contributed to the

architectural debate country-wide, but since it is based in Delhi, the magazine has
often drawn upon local talent and focussed on local issues. The agenda of the
magazine is largely confined to the imperatives of a coffee-table publication with a
bit of gravitas thrown in for good measure. Being a popular coffee-table
publication, the magazine has given exposure to the new and the exotic to satisfy
the expectations of its intended clientele, and have therefore, been complicit in
valorising the exoticization of architecture.
The only other significant attempt at communicating architectural issues to the

public in Delhi has been the publication of books by Gautam Bhatia. He has had an
enormous impact on the public's ability to distinguish the stylistic foibles of Delhi's
residential architecture. His 'serious' writings are laced with the sharp edge of
satire, and in them he has poignantly potrayed the Kafkaesque predicament of the
contemporary architect's quest for fulfillment in Delhi. In his writings we get an
inkling of the pathos, and the deep structure of the Architecture of Delhi.
Under the circumstance what lessons can we draw from this exhibition? To begin
with, I suggest that there could be four possibilities we could consider.
First, we must appreciate the dated significance of pan-Indian constructions to

categorise the Architecture of India. The evidence of the architecture-in-themaking in Delhi has illustrated the complex factors that determine the act of formmaking and place-making. The issue of an 'Indian identity' is not a significant
concern in this process.
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Second, it appears that the imperatives of transformative architecture are seldom

addressed in the production of architecture, because increasingly, the younger
generation of architects are subscribing to the notion of the 'universal civilization'.
The issue of cultural identity is seldom raised in the explanations offered for their
works. When they use the term 'Indian', they are referring to the fact that their
design responds to Indian contexts: climate, technology, material and
anthropological conditions. These buildings 'look' different because they address
these local characteristics of production. Thus by 'Indian' their understanding is in
terms of the local material culture, and not its historic symbolic elements. Perhaps
one could accept this proposition, if it produced compelling architecture. However,
the evidence is that in its architectonic imageary it remains derivative and merely a
poor imitation of original models. The example of the works of Shiv Nath Prasad
stand out as exceptions and demonstrate how it is possible to pursue the ideals of
any architecture, and, achieve excellence through integrity and depth of knowledge
of the architectural vocabulary in which one works. This is seldom achieved in
today's search for instant answers.
It is an irony that architects in India have been practicing 'post-modern'

architecture all along, and it is only recently that this process of architectural
production should consume the western imagination. Architects in India have
always placed diverse architectonic elements in the composition of the 'looks' of
their buildings. While Gautam Bhatia has perspicaciously brought this process to
our attention, no one has attempted to theorise it and therefore, develop its
creative potential in a determined manner.
Third, we need to polemicise our architectural predicament into a conscious

culture of resistance - resistance to the hegemonic forces of universal civilization.
This resistance has to be rooted in our experiential reality, and in this regard I can
think of few opportunities or challenges to match the imperatives of architectural
and urban conservation in India. The debates which are taking place in this
discipline have a compelling force and relevance to the production of
contemporary architecture in India.
The problem is that the directions being taken in this nascent disciplinary area are
leading to the museumification of our architectural heritage and firmly aligned to
Western ideology. The creative potential offered through taking a contrary - and I
have argued, an appropriate - point of view both for the production of 'Indian
architecture' and conserving our unique cultural heritage, is being ignored in our
attempt to 'catch-up' with Western practices.
43
One can view modernization as an
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universal phenomenon; but is it necessarily a process of 'Westernization' as well?
While it is true that the development of the phenomenon of modernization is
rooted in European history, there is now enough evidence to indicate that it has
several manifestations which distinguish the central concept on the basis of
cultures, political ideology and other contextual circumstances. Professionals in
India offer disregarded the teleological intent in their purpose and thus forget
their connivance in the convenant of 'westernization'. This needs to be resisted. I
cannot find a more compelling reason to cultivate a conscious culture of resistance
in the production of Architecture in India than the pursuit of urban conservation.
The strategies of resistance and their objectives would vary from region to region
depending on local imperatives creating thereby as diverse an architectural pallette
as one could invent.
And finally, the focus of attention must shift to architectural education. Education
has always received the lowest priority in architectural reform - in the profession
this is the outcome of a debilitating attitude that subscribes to the view that those
who can't practice, teach. Consequently, architectural education has exclusively
addressed narrow vocational objectives and has never attempted to determine the
architectural debate in the profession and thereby influence practice. The evidence
of this exhibition shows the limiting nature of the old perceptions about education,
and how TVB/SHS, a Delhi School, is attempting to remedy the situation. Other
Schools must also begin to reassess their raison d'etre if they expect to participate
in the development of architectural culture, and bring it into the mainstream of
National consciousness, and redeem the expectations of 'cultural Independence'.
Important questions need to be addressed in the Schools of Architecture. What is

the architect's role in the development of the construction industry? The kind of
architecture that has been attempted in the last fifty years is complicit in
contributing to the deteriorating standards, either by ignoring its imperatives or
encouraging the process of deterioration by focussing on external cladding as the
means of achieving their 'finish'.
What is the attitude of the architect in a situation where his 'success' is built on the
backs of bonded labour in quarries and brick kilns, and poorly paid, illiterate
manual labourers, particularly women, and often, children? While architects have
argued their right to reasonable remuneration in an environment of ammoral
business ethics, is it also not their obligation to argue for the rights of those who
are crucial to the realization of their projects?
What is the attitude of the architect towards the question of gender biases both in
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professional practice and in the configuration of space? At a conference on Gender
and Architecture at the TVB/SHS on March 8, 1996, several aspects of this
'problem' were discussed, which students in the School are beginning to examine
in their research projects. Certainly more work needs to be carried out in this area
of great concern.
How will architects adjust to the imperatives of economic and material

sustainability' Fortunately, research in this area is being undertaken by NGO
activists in the field and in specialist research laboratories in IIT, Delhi and SPA,
Delhi. The TVB/SHS has also committed itself to pursue this direction of research
in collaboration with SPA and the Oxford Brookes University, UK. The findings
from this research is being applied to studio exercises at TVB/SHS in a sustained
and critical manner as an explicit educational agenda in the training of an
architect. Obviously, much more work is required to be undertaken at other
Schools.
These and other questions would find their way into the agenda of education if we
view architectural education as a discipline and not as a vocational training site.
What emerges is the picture of an architectural scene in great ferment, where

several identities are jostling together and attempting to assert their stamp on the
development of architecture ideas. This is to be expected, because Delhi has
developed into a cosmopolitan metropolis, and at the level of the production of
ideas atleast, it has attracted architects of diverse backgrounds who have enriched
the architectural debate. Consequently there is a lack of cohesiveness or
camaraderie amongst the architects of Delhi, unlike what one finds amongst
architects in Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Chennai or Calcutta.
Sociologists have drawn a parallel from the concept of economic capital, to infer
the idea of 'social capital' to explain the success or failure of societies to adjust to
conditions of global competitiveness.
44
Social capital is an index of the strength of
socio-cultural associations which build trust and prepare people to work cooperatively in large companies. It would appear that the very basis of architectural
creativity militates against the construction of an analogous proposition regarding
'architectural capital', but implicit in any theorising or critical analysis is in fact,
that it should exist. It could be explained in terms of the zeitgeist, or 'Indianess' or
any of the numerous attempts at formulating manifestoes, Schools or stylistic
affinity. The development of the Architecture of Delhi is singularly lacking in the
declaration of manifestoes, and there is, in the sociology of the profession in Delhi,
what sociologist Edward Banfied referred in the context of an under-developed
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village in Southern Italy, an ethos of 'amoral familism', which is to say, 'I'll look
after my own, because no one else will, and others be damned'.
45
What this insight
brings to the fore is the need to engage ourselves in critical debate as a

professional imperative in order to build 'architectural capital'.
In 1974 a loose group of architects in Delhi felt motivated to 'think the present'
46
and define the 'problem'
confronting architecture. In time this group
consolidated more formally as a Society called GREHA in 1984, and undertook
several research projects for HUDCO and INTACH.
47
One of these projects was
the setting up of the Habitat Polytech for HUDCO in 1989. While the GREHA
proposal for the Habitat Polytech did not materialise, it bore fruit with the
establishment of the TVB/SHS in 1990. In many ways the genealogy of this
Exhibition project can be traced to the concerns articulated by GREHA and its
attempt to develop 'architectural capital' through its activities.
These initiatives and ideas require wider currency.
1.
See for example, Interrogating Modernity, Culture and Colonialism in India, Edited by
Tejaswini Niranjana, P. Sudhir and Vivek Dhareshwar, Seagul Books, Calcutta, 1993.
2.
GHR Tillotson, The Tradition of Indian Architecture, Continuity, Controversy and
Change since 1850, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1959, pp 29-33.
3.
Mukta Tandon, Architectural Education in India, Unpublished Dissertation Report, TVB
School of Habitat Studies, New Delhi, 1996.
4.
Akhtar Chauhan, Profession Today : The Immediate Tasks, Indian Institute of Architects
Convention Papers, Nagpur, 1988.
5.
Cho Padamsee, The Studio Project Revisited, in Architecture + Design, New Delhi, Vol X,
No 4, July-August 1993, pp 50-53.
6.
According to Edward Said, Western Scholars 'discovered' and explained the orient in
terms which were familiar to the West. In this manner the East was 'appropriated' by the
West at the intellectual level as it was simultaneously being appropriated politically.
Contemporary scholars, from both East and West, who perpetuate this tradition of
'understanding' the East in terms of Western scholarship are termed 'Orientalist'. See
Edward Said, Orientalism, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1978.
7.
The Exhibition for the Festival of India in France was documented and published under
the title, Architecture of India, by Electa Moniteur, Paris, 1985. The Exhibition was in
three sections: Traditional Architecture, Commissioner: : Raj Rewal; Le Corbusier in
India, Commissioner: Jean-Louis Veret; and Contemporary Architecture, Commissioner:
Ram Sharma. The book contains three essays on the Architecture of India to which I make
reference in my essay: Raj Rewal, The Relevance of Tradition in Indian Architecture; Ram
Sharma, The Search for Roots and Relevance;, and Malay Chatterjee, The Evolution of
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Contemporary Indian Architecture. The exhibition for the Festival of India in the USSR
was called Vistara : The Architecture of India and was curated by a team headed by
Charles Correa. A brochure was produced, but it was not widely circulated. An article
explained the exhibition brief form in the Journal of the Indian Institute of Architects,
Vol 51 No 4, October-December 1986, pp 26-33.
8.
GHR Tillotson, ibid.
9.
Raj Rewal for example, refers to only pre-colonial models as 'traditional'. See Raj Rewal,
The Relevance of tradition in Indian Architecture, in Architecture of India, ibid.
Balkrishna Doshi has this to say about the colonial period: 'Unfortunately, in the last two
centuries, our concepts and lifestyles have undergone considerable change. Initially this
was due to internal strife, then a result of foreign rule ...' Balakrishna Doshi, Social
Institutions and a Sense of Place, in Contemporary Architecture and City Form, the
South Asian Paradigm, Edited by Farooq Ameen, Marg Publications, Mumbai, 1997, pp 13-
24.
10.
Satish Grover, Review of GHR Tillotson's book in Architecture + Design, New Delhi, Vol
VII No.6 Nov-Dec 1990 pp 104-106.
11.
Sherban Cantacuzino, Charles Correa, Concept Media, Singapore, 1984.
12.
Hussein-Uddin Khan, Editor, Charles Correa, Concept Media, Singapore, 1987.
13.
William Curtis, Balkrishna Doshi : An Architect for India, Rizzoli, New York, 1988.
14.
Brian Brace Taylor, Raj Rewal, Mapin, Ahmedabad, 1992.
15.
Stephen White, Building in the Garden : The Architecture of Joseph Allen Stein in India
and California, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1993.
16.
Vikram Bhatt and Peter Scriver, After the Masters, Contemporary Indian Architecture,
Mapin Publishing, Ahmedabad and Grantha Corporation, Middleton, NJ, USA, 1990.
17.
ibid pp.7-10.
18.
Jon Lang, Madhavi Desai and Miki Desai, Architecture and Independence, The Search for
Identity - India 1880-1980, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1997.
19.
ibid Preface, p-XVII
20.
Susie Tharu and K Lalitha, Editors, Women Writing in India : 600 BC to the Present,
Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1991. See Introduction for a discussion on nationalist
redeployment of the 'Indian past'.
21.
AGK Menon, Conservation in India, A Search for Directions, Architecture+Design, New
Delhi, Vol VI No.1 Nov-Dec 1989 pp 22-27.
22.
Interrogating Modernity, ibid, p.5
23.
Vittorio Gregotti, Inside Architecture, translated by Peter Wong and Francesca Zaccheo,
The MIT Press, Cambridge, USA, 1996 p 93.
24.
Kenneth Frampton, Foreword, in Inside Architecture, ibid. p xiv-xv.
25.
A recent listing of monuments undertaken by the Indian National Trust for Art and
Cultural Heritage (INTACH), New Delhi, has identified over 1200 extant monuments,
38/41
7/7/2014

including many from the colonial period.
26.
Raj Rewal, The Use of Tradition in Architecture and Urban Form, in Contemporary
Architecture and City Form, The South Asian Paradigm, Edited by Farooq Amen, Marg
Publications, Mumbai, 1997 p 52-63.
27.
Architecture and Independence, ibid. This book has surveyed the development of
architectural thinking in India in a comprehensive manner. pp 75-79.
28.
Lang, Desai and Desai, ibid. p. 143
29.
A P Kanvinde, Speech delivered at the Seminar on Architecture, March 1959, Lalit Kala
Akademi, Jaipur House, New Delhi, 1959, p.12.
30.
Gautam Bhatia, Punjabi Baroque, And other Memories of Architecture, Penguin Books,
New Delhi, 1994.
31.
Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, The Museum of Modern
Art, New York, 1966.
32.
See for example Kenneth Frampton, Place-Form and Cultural Identity, in Editor:John
Thackara, Design after Modernism, Thames and Hudson, London, 1988, Chapter 3, pp 51-
66.
33.
Kenneth Frampton, ibid, Modern Architecture : A Critical History, Thames and Hudson,
London, 1992.
34.
Balakrishna Doshi, National Institute of Fashion Technology, New Delhi, in
Architecture + Design, New Delhi, Vol X No 5, September-October 1993. p. 27.
35.
ibid. p 35
36.
A G K Menon, Imagining the Indian City, Paper presented at the Theatres of
Decolonization Conference, Chandigarh, January 6-10, 1995.
37.
ibid.
38.
Marg Magazine, Mumbai, vol 3 No 1, p 4.
39.
Kenneth Powell, Modernism Divided in Editors: Catherine Cooke and Justin Ageros,
The Avant-Garde Russian Architecture in the Twentites, Academy Editions, London,
1991, p 7.
40.
Catherine Cooke, Professional Diversity and its Origins, in The Avant-Garde Russian
Architecture of the Twentities, ibid. p.13
41.
AGK Menon and M N Ashish Ganju. The Problem, In Seminar, new Delhi, August 1974
pp 10-13.
42.
AGK Menon, Design, Designers and Revival of Crafts: Three paradigms, Architecture +
Design, New Delhi, Vol iii no2, Jan-Feb, 1987, pp 77-85.
43.
AGK Menon, Rethinking the Venice Charter: The Indian Experience, Journal of South
Asian Studies, Cambridge University, # 10, 1994.
44.
See for example, Edward Banfield's 1958 classic, The Moral Basis of a Backward Society
and the recent (1993) book on the same theme by Robert Patnam, Making Democracy
Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy.
39/41
7/7/2014

45.
Gurcharan Das, 'Civic Engagement': The Blessings of Social Capital, in Times of India,
New Delhi, November 17, 1997, p.13.
46.
AGK Menon and M N Ashish Ganju, ibid.
47.
GREHA, Guidelines for Conservation, Research Paper Commissioned by INTACH, 1988.
GREHA, Innovative Approaches to urban Development, Research Paper Commissioned
by HUDCO, 1987.
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The Contemporary Architecture of Delhi: a Critical History | Architexturez South Asia

The Contemporary Architecture of

but surprisingly, not in architecture,

Architects in India innocently traipse through the minefield of cultural

The Contemporary Architecture of Delhi: a Critical History | Architexturez South Asia

and more explicitly, by restricting educational

support subjects to architectural design are drawn predominantly from the

The teaching of architectural design itself, has perhaps

Theory is conspicuous by its absence, and the

teaching of History is usually a dry recounting of facts. Thus, contemporary

The Contemporary Architecture of Delhi: a Critical History | Architexturez South Asia

These exhibition projects were, of course, primarily exercises in external public

The Contemporary Architecture of Delhi: a Critical History | Architexturez South Asia

- which was in any case

convincingly demonstrated the contemporary relevance of at least two

The Contemporary Architecture of Delhi: a Critical History | Architexturez South Asia

It has become an influential 'text' book

amongst students largely on account of the paucity of books on the Architecture

The Contemporary Architecture of Delhi: a Critical History | Architexturez South Asia

The second book is a more recent publication, Architecture and Independence, by

Its impact is yet to be assessed,

'These decisions reflect our desire to present an argument which is intelligible to a

Who, then, will 'write strictly for an Indian market'? And

will such a focus make a difference to the way we conceptualise architecture in

The problem inherent in the construction of pan-Indian themes of 'Indian

in the field of architecture may have an equally salutary effect on thinking

Architects who have an opportunity to pontificate (particularly to a foreign

The Contemporary Architecture of Delhi: a Critical History | Architexturez South Asia

It also runs the danger of distorting facts,

by either investing a regional architecture with characteristics it does not possess

Many regional histories need to be examined before meta-narratives can be

The Contemporary Architecture of Delhi: a Critical History | Architexturez South Asia

The TVB/SHS is a relatively new School of Architecture; it is seven years old. At

We have looked at the contemporary Architecture of Delhi, the period following

The reflections accompanying the fiftieth anniversary celebration of India's

The Contemporary Architecture of Delhi: a Critical History | Architexturez South Asia

However, I have also experienced transformative processes working in India, first,

As an architectural critic, I am therefore, inclined to look for evidences of

The Exhibition therefore, looks at the architecture-in-the-making both as a process

As Frampton has pointed out: this 'layered approach encourages one to

I offer this elaborate background to the study of the Architecture of Delhi to

The Contemporary Architecture of Delhi: a Critical History | Architexturez South Asia

The Architecture of Delhi

It is a city of ancient monuments and traditional

The Contemporary Architecture of Delhi: a Critical History | Architexturez South Asia

The Contemporary Architecture of Delhi: a Critical History | Architexturez South Asia

The Contemporary Architecture of Delhi: a Critical History | Architexturez South Asia

Prasad's intelligent approach to design is also apparent in the neighbourhood plan

Examples of the application modernism in the manner accomplished by Prasad

What is identifiable as modern architecture in Delhi can best be described as

The technology of building construction remains a woefully neglected area of

The Contemporary Architecture of Delhi: a Critical History | Architexturez South Asia

Utilitarian modernism got established by the '60s. T.J. Manikam's School of

The Contemporary Architecture of Delhi: a Critical History | Architexturez South Asia

During this period, to relieve the drabness of utilitarian modernism, buildings

The Contemporary Architecture of Delhi: a Critical History | Architexturez South Asia

Two other developments in residential architecture are noticeable starting from

The Contemporary Architecture of Delhi: a Critical History | Architexturez South Asia

Khanna relied on an enthusiastic group of young architects working for the

The Contemporary Architecture of Delhi: a Critical History | Architexturez South Asia

In the '60s a curious reversal of architectural ideals became noticeable in the