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British Colonial Architecture - Towns, Cantonments & Bungalows

Urban Design
While British supremacy did not change the fact that India was
becoming rapidly urbanised, it did lead to new alignments and
priorities, since the controlling power was now different. A
number of new towns and new suburbs were built to house the
British, and the pattern of new town planning changed. India
was still divided into administrative districts as under the
Mughals, and the towns which functioned as district headquarters
were the ones where most of the new architecture was built.
The planning and urban design policies of the British followed
certain principles a. their perceptions of the nature of the Indian
city, b. the fear of further revolts along the lines of the Mutiny of
1857, c. Haussmanns plan for Paris which had become so
popular in Europe and which advocated cutting through and
demolishing old city centres to make space for new construction
and boulevards, and d. planning techniques already in use for
Britains industrial cities.
In the main the effort was to physically and socially separate the
Europeans from the indigenous populace the so-called White
and Black towns of Madras being an example. This being done
an effort, though sometimes belated, was also made to enforce
sanitary and developmental guidelines on the old towns, though
these had little effect as in the main they failed to take into
account traditional ways of community life. In some cases new
urban design smacked of retribution Delhi and Lucknow in
particular, being the centres of the Mutiny of 1857, lost large
parts of their historic areas to new British planning and city-core
demolitions.
The economic boom of the later half of the 19 th century translated into frenetic building
activity in British India. The application of urban design guidelines resulted in the unified
character that old British settlements in India still possess. These urban design projects could
not fail to be influenced by precedents in Britain: the Royal Crescent at Bath by John Wood,
and the Quadrant in Regents Park, London by John Nash were particularly influential,
translating into Elphinstone Circle (now Horniman Circle >>>) in Bombay. As pressure on
space grew, British architecture progressed from single buildings set in open surrounding to
more densely packed urban schemes, as in the cities of Calcutta and Bombay.
In addition to major urban design schemes, it was the civil lines and the cantonments which
remain today a major evidence of 19th century British presence, and which in turn have
influenced much middle-class housing development in modern India. This stems from their
perception as the colonies of the elite. The cantonments and civil lines both were generally
laid out as gridiron planned communities with central thoroughfares (the famous Mall
Roads), with tree-lined streets, regularly divided building plots and bungalows as the main
housing type. Churches and cemeteries, clubs, race and golf courses, and other trappings of
an easy civil life were soon to follow.

The Cantonment and the Bungalow

Kabul Cantonment
The Cantonment was a British military settlement which was to spread out all over India
wherever the British were present in sizable numbers. Originally conceived as a military
base for British troops, the cantonment also began to house civilians who were associated
with servicing the military, and developed into a full-fledged mini-city of its own. The
second half of the 19th century saw this transformation complete. Bangalore cantonment had,
for example, a population of 100,000 by the early 20th century and consisted of public offices,
churches, parks, shops and schools. It was an entity distinct from the old city traffic
between the two had to stop at a toll-gate and pay entry tax. The cantonment thus developed
into a European town in India, whose main house type was the bungalow.
The bungalows design evolved as a type over a hundred years. While the actual model for a
bungalow remains controversial, it appears to have dual origins: the detached rural Bengal
house sitting in its compound (from the word root bangla from Bengal), and the British
suburban villa. It was a fusion of these two types that led to a building form which would
later become an enduring symbol of the Raj.

Early Colonial Bungalow (Sanatarium in Kinnur)

The first bungalows inhabited by the East India Company agents were initially the same as
the kutcha local ones, but gradually outstripped their origins to become an accurate reflection
of hierarchy amongst the English community. The typical residential bungalow for the
wealthy, for example, was set back from the road by a walled compound. The amount of land
enclosed was a symbol of status. For a senior officer a ratio of 15:1, garden to built form,
was appropriate, while for a beginning rank it could even be 1:1. In this sense the British
showed a hierarchical system no less developed than the complex caste system which they
ascribed to India.

Colonial Bungalow, Kotageri (1896)

The early bungalows had long, low classical lines and detailing. The Gothic revival in
England brought about a corresponding change in bungalow design spawning buildings
with pitched roofs and richly carpentered details including such features as the monkey tops
of Bangalore. The Classical bungalow with its Doric, and later, in New Delhi for instance,
Tuscan orders became a symbol not only of an European heritage but also of the military and
political might of Britain. That the bungalow continues to evoke associations of wealth and
power is evident from its continued relevance as a building type in India today.
Ashish Nangia, September 12, 2004