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or about the last three decades, there has been a special focus in various Governments policies on the
development and improvement of our
cities across India. In 1988, the National
Commission on Urbanization under the
chairmanship of Charles Correa, made
detailed recommendations in the areas
of land, housing, water and sanitation,
transport, urban poverty, urban form
and urban governance. In 1992, the 74th
Amendment to the Constitution was
broadcast which sought to decentralize decision making in cities and towns
through creation of elected urban local
bodies as institutions of democratic self
governance. Then in 2005, came Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission
(JNNURM), a countrywide programme
which provided assistance to state
governments and urban local bodies
in selected cities for development and
improvement.

With the present Governments strategy

of maintaining the focus of development
on our cities, urban issues and concerns
dominate governmental action and
discourse within the public domain and
FLUFOHVRILQWHOOLJHQWVLD,QWKHSUHVHQWnancial year budget, the government has
allocated around seven thousand crores
for two central schemes Atal Mission
for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) and Smart Cities Mission.
The democratization of decision making
process in spatial planning and design,
conservation of urban environment and
natural resources, sensitive approach
towards history, strengthening role of
municipal bodies, inclusive public spaces
with utmost respect for pedestrians,
HQYLURQPHQWIULHQGO\DQGHIFLHQWWUDQVport policies are some of the broad steps
forward that are crucial in the context of
urbanization.

While there is a need to forge ahead on

a pace to re-infuse vibrant urban life in
our crowded and polluted cities, at the
same time, it is also important to take in
account the aspirations of the population
across the economic spectrum - those
living in closed enclaves and gated
communities, but also those living in
resettlement colonies, low cost housings
and slums, and everyone in between. Our
cities need to be safe and secure across
all ages as well - for our children and
senior citizens and at the same time, be
models of dynamism and vibrancy for our
younger generation.
According to a report prepared by
the Sustainable Development Solutions
Network (SDSN) and Earth Institute at
Columbia University this year, When
countries single mindedly pursue individual
objectives, such as economic development
to the neglect of social and environmental
objectives, the results can be highly adverse
for human wellbeing, even dangerous for
survival. Many countries in recent years
have achieved economic growth at the
cost of sharply rising inequality, entrenched
social exclusion, and grave damage to the
natural environment.
We are sure with the ingrained character
of respect for nature and democracy in
RXUFRXQWU\ZHZLOOVRRQEHDEOHWRQG
our right answers, on our way to further
development, for this unprecedented
phase of urbanization.

EDITORS | contact: lajournalindia@gmail.com

THIS PAGE: India Gate areaand its water fountainsare one of the most vibrant open public spaces in the city of New Delhi. Photo credit: Jitendra Pawgi
COVER PAGE: A part of the city of Hyderabad, Circa-1772. Sketch Credit: 4-Seminars, Design Magazine, April-June 1982

E D I T O R I A L

47

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contents

47
2

6
10
22

feedback | announcements

50

INDIAN URBANISM: HERE AND NOW

60

MAPPING NEW DELHIS FUTURE

reports |

THE ESSENCE OF TRADITION

IN MODERN ARCHITECTURE
CYRUS JHABVALA MEMORIAL LECTURE 2016

30

66

KHIRAJ-E-AQEEDAT
AN EXPRESSION OF TRIBUTE
SAYED SAEED-USH SHAFI

Jamal Ansari
remembrance |

33
36
42
45

ADIEU TO A GENERATION
Om Prakash Mathur

JOGINDER KHURANA | NARENDRA JUNEJA

THE MANY FACADES OF LUTYENS BUNGALOW ZONE

view from within |

CONSERVING & ENGAGING WITH NATURE

Geeta Wahi Dua
landscape design |

70
77
82

CONSCIOUS KEEPER
TEMPLE OF CONSCIOUSNESS, ALIYAR, TAMIL NADU

GREEN RETREAT IN THE CITY

AAREY BHASKAR PARK, PUNE

EXPERIENCING SOUNDSCAPE
SHABDO A FILM BY KAUSHIK GANGULY

Anjan Mitra

cities |

book review |

SMART CITIES

90

TENDER SURE
SPECIFICATIONS FOR URBAN ROADS EXECUTION
IN CONVERSATION WITH SWATHI RAMANATHAN

Adit Pal Landscape Architect | USA

ADVISORY BOARD

Savita Punde Landscape Architect | Delhi NCR

Rohit Marol Landscape Architect | Bangalore

DESIGN TEAM
ADMINISTRATION
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VISUAL HOMES, IMAGE WORLDS

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THE HOUSE OF PICTURES

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ADVISORY EDITOR

INDUSTRY COORDINATOR

THE WORLD AS PICTURE

Review by Trisha Gupta

Jana Urban Space Foundation, Bangalore

Urmila Rajadhyaksha Landscape Architect | Mumbai

Sriganesh Rajendran Landscape Architect | Bangalore
Nishant Lall Urban Designer | New Delhi
Shivram Somasundaram Landscape Architect | Pune
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06KDK$ODP0RKDPPDG-DYHGJUDQLWL
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Atul Naahar Paramount Printographics

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OWNED, PRINTED & PUBLISHED BY Brijender S. Dua, C-589, Vikas Puri, New Delhi 110 018 INDIA
2016.04

IN CONVERSATION WITH
K T RAVINDRAN & MOHAN RAO

Joginder J Khurana

PANEL

seeing the unseen |

MY JOURNEY

EDITORS

Nupur Prothi Khanna and Nidhi Madan

Iftikhar-Mulk Chishti
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tribute |

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QRWQHFHVVDULO\UHHFWWKRVHRIWKH(GLWRURUWKH3XEOLVKHU7KH(GLWRUVGRWKHLUXWPRVWWRYHULI\LQIRUPDWLRQSXEOLVKHGEXWWKH\
GRQRWDFFHSWUHVSRQVLELOLW\IRULWVDEVROXWHDFFXUDF\1RSDUWRIWKHMRXUQDOPD\EHUHSURGXFHGRUXWLOL]HGLQDQ\IRUPRUE\DQ\
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D I G I T A L V E R S I O N A V A I L A B L E A T http://in.zinio.com

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A CONTEMPORARY INVENTORY
BAOLIS OF BUNDI: THE ANCIENT STEPWELLS

Review by Kiran Kalamdani

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feedback

announcements

53RD INTERNATIONAL IFLA CONGRESS

TASTING THE LANDSCAPE

TURIN, ITALY | APRIL 20-22, 2016
Tasting the Landscape, the theme for the 53rd International IFLA (International
Federation of Landscape Architects) Congress, calls for the interpretation
of the landscape project as an expression of a greater consciousness of the
transformation processes and as an opportunity to improve the places where
populations carry out their life.
The expression Tasting, according to its meaning of savoring, experiencing,
trying applied to the landscape, implies an attention given to the sensorial
dimension of a place, a consideration of slowness as a value: it urges us to not
forget the emotional and perceptive aspects as creative agents for the project.
Furthermore, it refers to the experience of discovery, to an inventive attitude
that leads to in depth investigating, seeking to understand, to evaluating and reelaborating images, practices, and signs that can orient the inevitable change of
regions and landscapes according to a shared and communal feeling.
$QLOOXVWULRXVSUROLFDQGH[FHSWLRQDOOLIHHQGV
Mohammad Shaheers multi dimensional contributions to education, thoughts and practice of
landscape architecture go much far and beyond,
for generations to come. A fittingly beautiful
cover with his sketch on your last issue.
R Kumra, Ambattur
With a general lack of thorough research in the
GHVLJQDQGODQGVFDSHHOGVE\PRVWSUDFWLFLQJ
professionals in India, Anuradha Mathur and
Dilip da Cunhas studies and processes assume
LQYDOXDEOHVLJQLFDQFHDVLQWHOOHFWXDOSURYRFDteurs, knowledge resource banks and direction
pointers to the ways forward for interventions
and design, and for society at large. Hope we are
able to look beyond just projects.
B S Draboo, Puducherry

Thus, Tasting the Landscape intends to emphasize the landscape project as

an instrument that produces quality, wellness, resources, the common good,
as well as the central role of the landscape professional in the processes of
UHJHQHUDWLRQDQGUHFRQJXUDWLRQRISODFHVDQGUHJLRQV
Starting from this platform of general direction, the IFLA Congress is structured
DFFRUGLQJWRIRXUVSHFLFOLQHVRIWKHPDWLFLQYHVWLJDWLRQLGHQWLHGZLWK
the objective of investigating some emerging questions in the practice of
Landscape architecture Sharing Landscapes, Connected Landscapes,
Layered Landscapes and Inspiring Landscapes.
Details on:
www.ifla2016.com

PHOTO CREDIT
The photograph of VS Gaitonde
featured in the article Gaitonde: The
Spirit of his Painting by Narendra
Dengle in LA-44 (Quarter-2, 2015) is
credited to SHALINI SAREEN.
Editors

landscape

47 | 2016

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Report by Shiny Varghese

THE STATE OF ARCHITECTURE

PRACTICES & PROCESSES IN INDIA
NATIONAL GALLERY OF MODERN ART, MUMBAI
06 JANUARY - 20 MARCH, 2016

he State of Architecture (SOA) exhibition could not have happened in

any other city but Mumbai. A city that did
not fear critique, looked development in
its eye and showed how it could be done
better for the masses, swayed to fox
trot and did the tango, and gave birth to
the angry young man. Be it through the
Journal of the Indian Institute of the Architects, the inclusive housing schemes
of the 1920s, or the 1980 Saeed Akhtar
0LU]D OP Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon
Aata Hai? there is only one reason why
Mumbai is reverentially called Bombay
by purists; it wears its heart on its sleeve.
$QG 62$ GLG WKDW ULQJ RQ DOO DUFKLWHFtural cylinders.

10

landscape

47 | 2016

Curated by architect Rahul Mehrotra,

Domus Editor Kaiwan Mehta and art
theorist and author Ranjit Hoskote, the
75-day exhibition was largely divided
into sections The State of the Profession, Nation-Building experiments
and Charted Vectors. Mehrotra wasnt
wrong when he said, The intent is to
compensate the silence around architecture, show the states role as a patron,
and contemplate the role of an architect
in contemporary society. In Mustansir
Dalvis interview in Domus with the curators, Mehta candidly says its about
understanding the living chaos of the
present.

CURATED BY

Rahul Mehrotra, Ranjit Hoskote, Kaiwan Mehta

The National Gallery of Modern Art, the

venue for SOA, was possibly hosting such
a large compendium on architecture for
WKH UVW WLPH LQ LWV QHDUO\ WZRGHFDGH
history. For that matter, any museum
in India is yet to see such a generous
spread. It was an architects jamboree,
ZLWKOPVERRNODXQFKHVWDONVDQGH[hibitions, across various venues in the
city, involving colleges and cultural institutions, and annual art events like the
Kala Ghoda Festival. Democratic in its
reach, for nearly three months, Mumbai
witnessed a roll call of the whos who
of architecture (both domestic and international), who gave keynote lectures,

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celebrated legacies, and placed buildings in the context of history. And for the
UVW WLPH WKH LQWHUQDWLRQDO &XUU\ 6WRQH
Design Prize was announced in India,
won by Sheela Patel of the Society for
the Promotion of Area Resource Centre
(SPARC), for their work in legitimising
slum communities across India. Inside
NGMA, for many non-professionals (non
architects), the exhibition gave an insight
into buildings they never knew existed.
What makes SOA count is its foundation,
quite literally, Level One of the museum
floor. Here a visitor could bite into welltoasted statistics on the state of architecture from number of colleges to
architects salaries; government-driven
planning projects to privately funded
large-scale projects; women in architecture; number of colleges to those profes-

12

landscape

47 | 2016

sionals registered with the Council of

Architects through well-mapped infographics. Never before has there been
such data on a single floor that points
its arrow head at the state of affairs. For
instance, it is a mystery why when nearly
58 per cent schools have launched in the
ODVWYH\HDUVWKHUHLVEDUHO\SHUFHQW
students pursuing doctoral research?
Why the boom in real estate luxury boom
is loud on the streets but its almost a
graveyard silence when it comes to actual housing? If architectural competitions
raise the level of experimentation and
qualitative public spaces, India cannot
boast beyond its three notable competitions in the last 10 years, compared to
47 in China, followed by the US with 34.
Coupled with the idea of the magazine
as forumWKHUVWIORRUVKRZHGZKDWLV
in store the levels above.

Nation building cannot be divorced from

the contribution of Indian architects
such as Charles Correa, B V Doshi, Achyut Kanvinde, Raj Rewal, Habib Rahman,
I M Kadri, and international names such
as Le Corbusier, Joseph Allen Stein, Otto
Koenigsberger, and Louis Kahn. There
were houses to be built, institutes to be
developed and factories to be oiled. Political will and fervour to fashion the future of an independent nation took the
form of panels and wall-to-wall photographs by these well-known names. The
love for Wiki-like timelines across two
floors and repetitive information may
have killed the purpose of showing the
idea of India, but it ironically stated the
obvious we had stagnated somewhere
in our search for a modern language.

report

Soon there would be assembly line

structures, and a mad scramble to show
how we have arrived. Steel and glass like
cocktail gowns worn for any occasion
arrived on the ramp, baring its cleavage
at anybody who would buy into it. Therefore, Charting Vectors happened with
the only optimism the exhibition could
afford classify projects under headers such as Counter Modernism, where
many religious buildings were mapped
because they moved away from ancient
traditions; Local Assertions were presented as being conscious of the land on
which they were built; Alternative Practises, where anything solar and energyHIFLHQWZHUHJLYHQIXOOPDUNVDQGTravelling Images comprised airports and
shiny towers.

14

landscape

47 | 2016

A lack of critical selection made one wonder why certain buildings were clubbed
under these headers. Did the curators
buy into the image of architecture after
all? It was further accentuated by the curated projects on the top-most floor, with
a wall installation that reinforced how
gimmicky Indian architecture had become. Sometimes selection is also about
rejection. The question is what did they
reject? What it should have also done is
given room for new ideas that are yet to
be executed, allowing praxis supremacy
over the end product.
SOA aspired to be an observatory,
turning its lens toward what is wrong
with the profession. It lifted the mirror
to every practicing architect, making it

uncomfortable for many to stay in the

same room and not be affected.
,Q WKH QDOH FRQIHUHQFH RQ FRQWHPSRrary architecture in South Asia, Sunil
Khilnanis questions can quite sum up
the exhibition: How does architecture
respond to history and the concerns of
society? What does a project say to the
region and the world? Does architecture
help question? Can architecture create
an environment that makes it more dissent ridden?
SOA did all of this in through its many
expressions, and in that lies its success.

Photographs courtesy
Urban Design Research Institute UDRI

report

Report by Maithily G Velangi

WATER AND SOCIETY

EXPANDING THE BLUE REVOLUTION
11TH ISOLA ANNUAL CONFERENCE
BANGALORE | 2223 JANUARY, 2016

he 11th edition of
the Indian Society
Of Landscape Architects
(ISOLA)
Conference
2016 was conceived to
be more than a mandatory annual event
for the profession. It was built on a process of curating a culture for the landscape discipline within its professional
and academic limits; aligned to allied
disciplines and its relevance with the
city as an institution at large. Such an
outlook resulted in orienting the notion
of the conference to three focus areas
Institutional collaboration, City level exposure, and Delegate participation all
contributing towards a profession in the
making.

Hosted in the city of Bangalore, the twoday conference was more a culmination
of events, termed as habbas (festivals
in Kannada), that were conducted by the
ISOLA Bangalore Chapter over the pre-

16

landscape

47 | 2016

ceding six months in collaboration with

DFDGHPLFLQVWLWXWLRQVLQWKHFLW\7KHUVW
habba, in collaboration with the Indian
Institute of Human Settlements, Bangalore
was Thesis Open DayDUVWRILWVNLQG
platform for recently graduated landscape architecture students, to present
and deliberate on their thesis projects in
a public forum. This was followed by the
Professional Speak, hosted by the BMSCE,
Bangalore where eminent landscape
professionals and academicians from
the city Rohit Marol, Mohan Rao and
Mahalakshmi Karnad reconstructed the
landscape profession for undergraduate
architecture students. Next, it was the turn
of landscape professionals to be the audience at the Experts Perspective. Invited
speakers Dr T V Ramachandra and Hita
Unnikrishnan dissected the notion of ecosystem services from diverse perspectives
from pure sciences to social sciences,
GHQLQJDODUJHURSHUDWLRQDOHOGIRUWKH
landscape profession to work within.

Habba Presentations at the Thesis Open Day and the Student Interface
Conference Workshop sessions and the Blue Rhymes exhibition

The theme of the conference Water

and Society, Expanding the Blue Revolution was purposefully left open ended.
It was meant to engage with the critical
resource through varied lenses ecological, social, and political to help address
contemporary development challenges. It
was meant to question the professions
understanding, role and response to crucial development issues. The very idea
of water allowed for a far more interdisciplinary approach, learnings from which
WKHSURIHVVLRQFRXOGEHQHWIURP7RKHOS
structure the debate, the theme was categorized as Water as Natural Resource,
Water as a Socio Cultural Attribute, and
Water and Design. Each sub-theme allowing for focused deliberations, but open
ended enough for creative interpretations.
As a parallel activity to the habbas, the
Bangalore Chapter introduced online
engagements directly related to the
conference theme. These were open to

18

landscape

47 | 2016

ISOLA members as well as the interested

public, with the intention to eventually
produce a substantial body of research.
One such was the Call for Papers an
open, national and international invitation
to professionals and students to submit
papers addressing any of the sub-themes.
Evaluated through a peer review process,
eighteen papers were selected that discuss, question and opine on the relation
of water and society. Panorama a visual
perspective based engagement that
has been part of ISOLA conferences over
the last few years, was initiated online
with the same thematic background,
but its domain was expanded to include
artistic impressions, poetry, photography,
caricatures as well as videography. The
habbas, thus, succeeded in initiating the
discussion on the theme in a productive
manner and served well as a forerunner to
the conference both in terms of engagement and enthusiasm.

In the main conference, the invited speakers were not from within the landscape
profession fraternity, but were whose
engagement with the profession and academia intersects closely with the domain
of landscape based on the relevance of
their work in the global south. This ensured the presentations and discussions
remained rooted and relevant to the Indian
context. As the convenor, Mohan Rao
introduced the conference presenting the
critical nature of the theme in contemporary society and positioned the conference as a framework for learning. Aromar
Revi, Director, Indian Institute of Human
Settlements, delivering the keynote, extended this introduction and the argument
of water being the most critical element
of biosphere, dominating our planet; his
provocation being that our planet should
have been called Water and not Earth. He
constructed his talk on an overview on
associations between livelihood, culture
and resource through various cases of

THIS & FACING PAGE, LEFT TO RIGHT |

Mohan Rao, Aromar Revi, Dilip da Cunha, Anthony Acciavatti, Tency Baetens, Dr Harini Nagendra, Dr Fabio Masi and Alejandro Eccheverri

cities; on the manner in which land and

waterscapes have moulded cultures;
and concluding with the need to design
for environment and conservation rather
than design for living.
Dilip da Cunha, Adjunct Professor, School
of Design (Penn Design), University of
Pennsylvania, and Anthony Acciavatti,
Principal, Somatic Collaborative, New
<RUN SUHVHQWHG WKH UVW WHFKQLFDO VHVsion. They discussed and argued from
their own perspectives on the associations and understanding of water from
its regional perspective. Dilip extended
his current research and opened up a
different perspective on looking at our
land on whether is it a river terrain or a
rain terrain. Anthony Acciavatti discussed
in detail his decade-long association
with the river Ganges and the differential
atlas required to map and understand the
temporality of shifting landscapes. This
sessions highlights were some engaging
cartographical illustrations on the repreVHQWDWLRQDQGLGHQWLFDWLRQRIZDWHUDQG

20

landscape

47 | 2016

subsequently shifted the focus on more

intangible association of water and the
community.
In the second technical session, TencyBaetens explained in depth the science
behind treatment and management of
waste water and idea of the vortex Dewats treatment. The much larger debate
he addressed was the idea of water security towards a sustainable habitat. Extending this argument, Dr Harini Nagendra,
Professor of Sustainability at Azim Premji
University, Bangalore, oriented her discussion on the socio-cultural association of
water within the landscape of Bangalore
and the very notion of understanding
lakes as urban commons.
The second day of the conference was
driven by the more tangible imprints of
ZDWHUDVDUHVXOWRIVSHFLFLQWHUYHQWLRQV
Alejandro Eccheverri, director of URBAM,
0HGHOOLQ DUWLFXODWHG KLV WDON VSHFLF WR
the Medellin geography and discussed
at length experiments within neighbour-

hoods. The objective of creating sustainable models of performance from a social

and physical environmental perspective
brought forth ways of direct engagement
with the political landscape. Dr Fabio
Masi, Technical Director, R&D Manager,
IRIDRA concluded the speaker sessions
with a crafted and a highly detailed presentation on sustainable urban drainage
systems that provided the audience with
probably the most tangible output for
professional engagement.
The interactive workshops in the conference allowed delegates to engage with
speakers as well as invited moderators.
Each workshop session witnessed intense
discussions and deliberations, that lasted
cumulatively for an entire day of the twoday event. Though the workshops had
SUHGHQHGSURYRFDWLRQVWKH\HYHQWXDOO\
resulted in very varied outcomes, not always critical but certainly engaging and
entertaining. From groups discussing the
profession at large, to deliberating on the
idea of water, the workshop presentations

had it all, even an impromptu dance and

a wonderfully scripted satire on the challenges of the profession.
This year also witnessed a curated exhibition based on the theme of the conference
Blue Rhymes whose content was researched by LA, Journal of Landscape Architecture and designed and produced by
the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology. The exhibition was a collection of
narratives reflecting the prodigious body
of work from across the subcontinent,
engaging with one of the most challenging issues of contemporary urbanization
water. The exhibition brought together
both built and unbuilt contexts, narratives
from the past and present, works from
practice, academia as well as traditional
practices. The stories highlighted diverse
thinking and values in maintaining an
evolved and symbiotic relationship with
water across varied geographies. The exhibition was an attempt to bring together
varied perspectives of looking at idea of
water in the realm of nature and culture.

The ISOLA Bangalore Chapter also hosted

a public exhibition at the Rangoli Metro Art
Center. This was a collection of students
works and their perspectives on Water and
Society, Expanding the Blue Revolution.
The exhibition displayed an eclectic mix
of ideas, strategies, visions, narratives,
as well as analysis of the notion of water
and its correlation and interface with the
urban. The perspectives displayed in the
exhibition were an outcome of a rigorous engagement and introduction of the
architectural student fraternity to the
landscape profession. The engagement
was conceived as a platform to generate
a productive dialogue with public agencies of the city to address development
initiatives imperative to current trends of
urbanization. The exhibition was meant
to bring together diverse perspectives,
experiences and skills that connect water and the landscape profession and to
critically examine the multiple facets of
water as the determinant for interventions
at all scales.

,QDGGLWLRQKHULWDJHZDONVZHUHVSHFLcally curated on the theme of Water and

Society that allowed delegates to explore
the natural, cultural and social history of
Bangalore.
The conference was also an opportunity
accorded to each one of the delegates to
explore ideas, experiences, thoughts and
perspectives. The process allowed the
profession to engage in productive activities for the past few months across many
forums, institutes, public agencies and
within the professional body. If ISOLA as
an organisation aspires to be the preeminent forum working for the profession
and its role in the public realm, it should
continue to curate a culture for interdisciplinary learning and engagement.

Photographs courtesy
Rahul Paul, ISOLA Bangalore Chapter

landscape

47 | 2016

21

memorial lecture

THE ESSENCE OF

TRADITION IN

Photo courtesy: Renana Jhabvala

MODERN
ARCHITECTURE
C

yrus Jhabvala, a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects

taught at the Department of Architecture at the Delhi Polytechnic
in 1949 for almost a decade. Later, under his aegis as the Head of

the Department of Architecture in the mid-sixties, the institute had many

eminent professionals as teaching faculty. A legendary teacher who taught
generations of architects in the city including Raj Rewal, Ram Sharma, Kuldip
Singh and late Satish Dawar amongst others, his contributions to architectural
education in India, especially in the initial years of a young independent nation,
are widely acknowledged by his students and contemporaries. His practice,
spanning over three decades covered more than 400 projects of varied scale
and nature including layout plans of many parts of Delhi, institutional buildings,
cultural centres, housing societies and pavilions at National and International
exhibitions. In his later life, he sketched many parts of the cities of Delhi and of
New York, which have been published as books including Delhi: Stones and Streets
(Ravi Dayal Publishers, 1990), Old DelhiNew York: Personal Views (Lustre Press,
2008) and Delhi: Phoenix City (Ravi Dayal and Penguin Studio, 2012).
From this year, an annual lecture series in his memory has been started by
the Jhabvala family supported by School Planning and Architecture, New Delhi.
the theme of The Essence Of Tradition In Modern Architecture was delivered by
Raj Rewal on 20th February 2016 at India International Centre IIC, New Delhi.
An exhibition of professional works of AAJ (Anand Aptey and Jhabvala) was also
conceived and curated by I M Chisti for the occasion.

22

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47 | 2016

memorial lecture

Iftikhar-Mulk Chishti

he story of Ustad Cyrus Jhabvala an unusual and a multifaceted man, as a professional

architect is synonymous with that of
AAJ Anand, Aptay and Jhabvala a
Delhi based irm of which he was a
partner along with R G Anand and
Aptay an absentee partner. Taking
over from expatriate British architects
like Walter George and Bloomield
brothers who continued to practice
in Delhi ater Indias independence,
AAJ belonged to the irst generation of
post-independence Indian architects
of Delhi along with Bhawa/Bhatia,
Chaudhury/Gulzar Singh, Kanvinde/
Rai, Stien/Bhalla in private sector and
Habib Rehman and Mansinh M Rana
in the public sector. Along with them,
AAJ were the irst modern architects,
bridging the colonial legacy and the
imperatives and exigencies of a new
democratic state.

It may come as a surprise to most of us,

in this time of instant communication,
that the irm through thirty ive years
of its existence never tried to archive or
publicize their work and it was generally believed that they had let no records
behind. herefore, ater Ustad Cyrus
Jhabvalas demise year and a half back
when original tracing paper rolls came
almost tumbling out of cabinets, they
revealed an astonishing number and
range of projects that they had handled
cuting across domains and scales to
include urbanism, architecture, interior
and exhibition design.
An exercise of listing and categorization was undertaken followed by pho-

Godrej Pavilion, New Delhi and Yashwant Place, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi, 1965-72
Architects: Anand, Aptay and Jhabvala AAJ | Photos courtesy: Renana Jhabvala

tographic documentation of the selected projects. With the information

gathered from the very few surviving
members of the AAJ team, an idea began to emerge about the kind of work
AAJ had been involved with. he revelation wasnt surprising on account of
the quantity but the quality of the body
of their work as well, which when seen
collectively turned out to be coherent, competent and conident. Despite
some odd bits here and there, their
buildings were true to their purpose
and need, sensitive to cost and context,
conscious of climate and local traditions. hey were characterised by exposed frame construction, exposed patterned brickwork, rubble masonry and
jaali inill made out of locally available
materials. Interestingly the architectural vocabularies and idioms employed
by AAJ were quite similar to those of
their contemporaries the early moderns of Delhi.
However, AAJ stood out from other
contemporary practices for three reasons:
1. As urbanism consultants to Delhi
Leasing Financing (now famousor
infamousDLF) in the early years
of their practice, their contribution in
shaping up the urban-scape of good
part of planned urban neighbourhoods

of Delhi that include Model Town,

Rajouri Garden, Panjabi Bagh, Adarsh
Nagar, Sundar Nagar. South Extension, Hauz Khas, Kailash, Greater
Kailash etc.
2. heir sensitivity and lair for interior and exhibition design exempliied
by the original warm and inviting Cottage Industries Emporium on Janpath
and the narrative based scenography
of their exhibition pavilions at the
trade shows at Pragati Maidan and
overseas.
3. he coincidence that both the partners had interests that went beyond
architecture and were serious parallel
activities for them. Sketching /painting for Ustad Cyrus Jhabvala and theatre in case of R G Anand, glimpses of
which are there in the exhibition.
It is hoped that this small retrospective exhibition of AAJs works will
help in reminding us that there is an
urgent need to make a special efort
in archiving and making available to
the world the work of early post independence architectural practices of
Delhi and elsewhere, like that of AAJ.
Hope this is only a curtain raiser.

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47 | 2016

23

memorial lecture

Raj Rewal

rofessor Jhabvala was a much

loved teacher who helped shape
thinking and atitudes of a generation of architects who came to study
at the SPA located in Kashmere Gate
during the mid-ities.
He had a lively personality and an original way of bonding with students. For
me, the most memorable interaction
with Jhabvala was in Fatehpur Sikri
where we had travelled with him for
three days. He structured the study of
Fatehpur Sikri such that the irst day
was devoted for construction techniques, second day for spaces between
the buildings and third day for the
complexs functional and expressive
concerns.
During the day, we were encouraged
to wander about, sketch and observe,
but it was during the night, ater dinner, that real discussions took place.
We were allthirty studentslodged
in the outhouse of Fatehpur Sikri, all in
one room, with Jhabvala in the middle.
I remember it was winter and quite cold
and we were all tucked in blankets and
rajais. Jhabvala would initiate discussions and encourage us to think and
remunerate how simple elements like
stone brackets to support sun shades
were built, how the stone was carried to
the site and how the notches were cut
in the stone. he structures of the variety of domes were discussed. We were
made to think as if we were the mistris
& masons and imagined the whole
process of building. Jhabvala was him-

24

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47 | 2016

self conjecturing and introspecting the

whole process of building along with
us. Some of us stayed up with him discussing the intricacies of building and
design right up to the midnight. hese
were lively and joyful conversations
where we were made to think for ourselves. he idea of spaces between the
buildings was discussed at length, and
he provoked us to consider if the building spoke to us in any manner.
So, I suppose if some of us still carry
the passion for architecture and design,
the seeds were really sown by Jhabvala
at an early stage when we were around
seventeen and he himself around thirty
years of age.
Besides provoking us into thinking
fresh ideas and values, Jhabvala had
another prominent quality. He was
against any kind of humbug or hypocrisy. I remember that for a design for a
house located in Daryaganj, one of the
students had copied a Richard Neutras
design, complete with Californian foliage. Jhabvalas criticism was to amplify
the design with shading devices and
confront the situation of surrounding
garbage and roaming bulls in Daryaganj. With this, he had pointed out an
important lesson of facing Indias harsh
realities of heat and dirt.
Is it possible to create modern architecture which has links to tradition in
terms of culture and climate and solve
our problems of exploding population
and development requirements?

While curating the Indian exhibition

on traditional Indian Architecture in
Paris in 1986 with Ram Sharma, we had
studied several examples of our heritage to discover the common thread in
which the fabric of Indian architecture
has been woven in the past and its signiicance for our time.
During the course of my work, I have
tried to ind an architectural language
which amalgamates the essence of traditional wisdom with technology of
our times to create a humane, ethical
and sustainable architecture. Passive
energy saving systems learned through
traditional methods can go hand in
hand with smart buildings based on
state-of-the-art technology. In this context, I would like to present some works
which try to solve problems of rapid urbanization for a society where paterns
of living are in the process of evolution.
I am, of course, aware of global currents
but I feel we have to ind our own solutions.
he irst and foremost lesson from past
is that we can fuse architecture, urbanism and landscape in our larger projects for low-cost housing, universities,
public and cultural institutions. We can
achieve all the functional requirements
of today without losing sense of poetry
and underlying rasa.

memorial lecture

&,'&2/RZFRVW+RXVLQJ
NAVI MUMBAI | 1988-1993

arge scale migration of rural populations to urban areas

has brought to the fore the issue of mass housing in the
metropolitan centres of India. Building the lowest level of
housing is a challenge that is not usually posed to the professional architect, the argument being that not much can be
done for one or two-room dwelling units.

Building for large numbers is like writing a long novel. War

and Peace can be read through from beginning to end with its
diferent chapters and sub-plots sustaining interest. Similarly,
the Mahabharata is a string of stories woven into the fabric
of one major composition. he challenge of mass housing,
likewise, can be either approached like one long story or as
a series of interconnected episodes. Instead of building large
monolithic parallel blocks of grim dimensions, we opted for
a diferent kind of setlement patern. he design for the large
number of dwelling units is fragmented into smaller aggregations enclosing a variety of spaces which can be cohesively
arranged on the sloping site of a hillock and strung together
with pedestrian pathways. Our atempt was to provide harmonious development while modulating and changing cluster formations based on space standards for diferent dwelling units: like changing episodes in a long narrative.

he sloping site of the hill posed speciic problems of location

and site planning. Small villages in Afghanistan and Ladakh
where dwelling units merge unobtrusively with the surroundings served as precedents. It was important to anchor the building blocks on the gradient of the site to save costs and to fuse the
physical form of the construction with the slope of the hill. It is
not possible to increase the space standard for social housing in
terms of the built form due to cost considerations. Nevertheless
a design vocabulary can be framed to provide for outdoor living
spaces which can be private or for the community. Cities of Rajasthan and Mediterranean villages have important lessons in this
context for high density developments.
he internal spaces within the scheme are free from traic and
their coniguration is generated by the surrounding housing
units or blocks which are three to four storeys high. he programme of loor areas for dwelling units or apartments varies from 20 sq.meters to 100 sq.meters, promoting diversity of
block types. he combination of blocks forms a patern of development which has an element of repetition as well as change,
resulting in outdoor linked enclosures.

landscape

47 | 2016

25

memorial lecture

1DWLRQDO,QVWLWXWHRI,PPXQRORJ\
1(:'(/+, | 1983-2000

esearch and educational complexes are part of the development process of any city. Located in New Delhi, the NII
project allowed us to experiment with the idea of building a
research institute with clusters based on courtyards varying in
scale and function to accommodate the government norms for
professors, lecturers and research scholars.
Each of the clusters retains its identity as its architectural forms
and internal spaces are diferent. However, the overall unity of
the complex is maintained as all the buildings are interlinked
with paved pathways and the spaces between them are carefully
organized. he framed views from one cluster to another create
a visual link along the pathways. Perhaps the most important element of urban design is the surprising discovery of almost hidden interior courts along the central and diagonal axis. A circular
peripheral road connects various buildings along the landscaped
contours at the base of the undulating terrain.
Externally the buildings are clad with sandstone grit applied
insitu in panels. he colors of the sandstonered and beige

26

landscape

47 | 2016

deine the structural beams and echo the colors of the rocks
lying around the site. he complex of buildings is designed
to merge with the surrounding landscape and to create an
ambience in harmony between nature and scientiic research. It closely follows the typology of the site. he aim of
the building is to be part of the natural environment, and act
of coexistence rather than confrontation.
In the second phase of the housing, we tried to mix diferent
types of units into one uniied ensemble. he hierarchy of
norms is modiied so that students, professors and lab assistants can live together within interlocking courtyards. he
sequence of courtyards and their varying scale on an undulating site is an important element of design. he morphology of spaces is based on the traditional Rajasthan cities.
he intimate scale of the courtyards is successful in difusing
harsh sun light and providing community space.

memorial lecture

6WDWH8QLYHUVLW\RI3HUIRUPLQJ 9LVXDO$UWV
52+7$. | 2008-2014

he project ofered us a unique opportunity to deine a

new urban complex in terms of traditional values and
at the same time allowed us to take a quantum leap of fusing photovoltaic panels as an integral part of its design. he
aim was to generate nearly 15% of power requirements by
renewable energy. his campus design draws upon the precedents of Nalanda archeological ruins as well as Oxford University in England and Bologna University in Italy.
he concept is based on a series of four distinct quadrangles
which give identity to the disciplines of ine arts, architecture, fashion and ilms & television. An external peripheral
road gives way to the entrance of each component and all
the four courtyards are grouped around a series of central
interlinked pedestrian enclosures. hese spaces are deined
on two ends by common activity hubs. One of these houses
an auditorium on ground loor, a conference centre on the
irst loor and a central library on the topmost loor. his
circular building with its ascending staircases forms one of
the anchors of the urban complex. he roof of the library at

topmost level is covered with a solar disc with photovoltaic panels at a slope to generate maximum solar energy. he ascending
staircase around the common activity cylinder has echoes of the
Sanchi Stupa encircling parikrama which relates to the Buddhist
scriptures. he idea of ascending steps has also been followed in
the monasteries of Began in Burma and the famous monument
of Borbodour in Indonesia.
he other anchor of the central enclosure is an amphitheater
covered with a glass and steel roof. he structure is reminiscent
of basket weaves and cane works. he glass roof is lited above
the columns that allows fresh air to ventilate the theatre.
Here in this project, we chose to draw upon Indian typological
precedents and historic symbolic concerns but at the same time
address the concern of global warming and sustainability.

landscape

47 | 2016

27

memorial lecture

/LVERQ,VPDLOL&HQWUH
PORTUGAL | 1995-2000

rchitects in the past had a clear understanding that besides

fulilling the functional and structural requirements their
buildings were to be imbued with the rasa or spirit of religious
fervor, royal power or colonial imperialism. For the Lisbon Ismaili Centre, based on an international competition, our concept was to draw upon Islamic philosophy and vocabulary and
assimilate Iberian Peninsulas building traditions. At the same
time, we searched for an expression based on innovative construction technology.
he design is inluenced by morphology of traditional spatial arrangements as observed in Alhambra in Spain based on the ideals of paradise garden. he faade of the buildings reinterprets
the Islamic paterns in a bold structural system. Stone has been
used as a basic structural element in conjunction with steel for
supporting the roof. he garden of paradise occupies a central
place in Islamic culture, providing pleasure enhanced by plants
and running water which are endowed with spiritual and ecological connotations. Our design for the Centre is based on three
interconnected enclosed gardens fulilling distinct functions.
he entrance courtyard is designed to welcome the visitor and
is derived on the principle of char bagh with lowering plants
and running water to transform the mood of the visitor from the

28

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47 | 2016

external stress to internal calm. he community courtyard

functions as an enclosure between the social hall and the
multipurpose hall. It is also an extension space for cultural
and community activities. he jamatkhana courtyard is an
extension of the prayer hall surrounded by a cloister with
an ambience of serenity. It is at the head of the complex but
isolated from it by change in level and a gateway.
he doctrine of cosmic unity where one is a part of the
whole is central to the Islamic philosophy and spiritual
concerns. Islamic art is essentially a way of depicting and
discovering this unity through geometrical paterns. he
supporting walls and roof of the prayer hall of the Centre
are designed as a jaali (latice) in prefabricated natural stone
elements which are joined together and braced with stainless steel members.
he faade design of all the halls is based on modern stone
fabrication and construction techniques combined with the
analytical power of contemporary computer sotware. he
decision to use stonefundamentally strong in compressionin conjunction with steel which is strong in tension,
results in a logical structural patern, evocative of the Islamic
values and ideal being one is part of the whole.

memorial lecture

/LEUDU\IRUWKH,QGLDQ3DUOLDPHQW
1(:'(/+, | 1989-2003

he design for the Parliament Library posed the diicult

problem of building in harmony with the existing complex of Lutyens and Baker which exudes imperial power and
at the same time expressing the democratic values of contemporary India. It is probably the most challenging project
as we had to reconcile two conlicting values.

than competing with the power of the Parliament. he analogy of

a relationship between a guru and the king may not be far fetched
while comparing the new library with the existing Parliament. Visually and symbolically, the central hall of the existing Parliament
denoting peoples power, consensus and democracy is linked to
the central core of the complex, symbolizing knowledge.

he central function of the complex is a librarya house

of knowledge and symbolically a place of enlightenment.
he design concept relects a speciic preference for serene
spatial enclosures, modulated with light, rather than forms
of grandeur. Based on the context of the site, functional requirements, appropriate structural systems, technical considerations and democratic values of modern India, the design atempts to seek an architectural expression in harmony
with the existing buildings designed during the British period. Externally, the same materials of red and beige sandstone from Agra and Dholpur have been used to conceive
a formal structure in tune with classical symmetry of New
Delhis planning criteria.

he roof of the library building has a series of low-proile bubble

domes siting on a steel structure to complement the existing
surrounding domes of masonry on the Rashtrapati Bhawan. he
main entrance is directly linked to one of the gates of the Parliament. It leads to an atrium covered with a circular roof allowing
muted light. Its roof structure is designed as a latice of stainless
steel members of octagonal forms with glazed inill squares. he
primary structure of steel is roofed with ibre reinforced cement
concrete bubbles and its ribs support acoustic tiles. he glazed
panels allow difused light to dance around the hall.

he exterior structure is designed to compliment the Parliament building with smaller circles strewn together in the
form of a mandala or a cosmograph. Internally, the building
is imbued with a diferent spirit signifying sagacity rather

he focal centre of the complex is built with sun relecting, stateof-the-art, structural glass and stainless steel. It is composed of
four petals. hese petals are tied together with delicate
tension rods. he upper part of the glass dome has
a symbol of circle representing the Ashok Chakra.
Photographs courtesy Raj Rewal Associates

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47 | 2016

29

tribute

Jamal Ansari

KHIRAJ-E-AQEEDAT
AN EXPRESSION OF TRIBUTE
SAYED SAEED-USH SHAFI
1

t is hard to believe that Professor S. S.

Shai whom I and many of his close
acquaintances knew as Shai Bhai is
no more. It was not mere coincidence
that he who was so used to travelling
abroad and staying there for long periods to be with his daughter Afshan and
granddaughter Alia in Rome and son Nadim and his family in USA up to his last
days came back to his ancestral Nawab
House in Old Delhi his birth place to
depart to his eternal resting place. More
so, perhaps it was his intense love and
admiration for his wife that drove him to
Delhi just two days before his death so
as to be buried besides his wifes grave in
Delhi Gate Qabarastan a wish that God
helped him to fulil as a reward for all of
his good deeds. He passed away peacefully in the morning of 22nd December
2015 and laid to rest next morning.

I irst met Professor Shai way back in

the year 1963 when I was working as

30

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47 | 2016

a temporary lecturer at my alma mater

Aligarh Muslim University ater graduating in Civil Engineering. I was teaching
Town Planning and since I was new and
barely had any experience, Professor
Shai was invited by the university as an
external faculty to extend his expertise.
I met him then and immediately got
mesmerised by his magnanimous personality. This impression was further
reinforced when he started delivering
lectures. His aristocratic presence, very
articulate expression, simple and luent
speaking mannerism, sophistication in
choice of words and suave mannerism
of interacting with the students were the
qualities that I still remember and adore.
His teaching was backed by his academic
credentials and professional experience
that he had already accumulated at the
then young age of less than thirty ive
years. A masters degree in planning
from the famed MIT in USA (1955),
experience of working in the Detroit

Metropolitan Development Authority

(1955-56), study of Urban Planning and
City Renewal Projects in France aided
by the award of French Government
Scholarship (1960) were the major
learning experiences abroad.
His work experience in India had begun
in as early as 1956. Barely nine years ater
India gaining Independence when Town
Planning profession was in shambles, he
joined the group of young Indian Town
Planners on whose shoulders lay the
responsibility of uplifting the profession, consolidating planning institutions
and contributing to the task of nation
building. His irst job as Associate Planner was in erstwhile Town Planning
Organisation (TPO), presently Town
and Country Planning Organisation
(TCPO), which was the irst post independence premier organisation of
Planning in India and he joined it in its
founding year. Right away, along with a

tribute

team of Regional and City Planners that

the Government of India had recruited
from foreign universities and the group
of Ford Foundation experts he got
involved in the exciting task of preparing an innovative Master Plan for Delhi
the irst of its kind. Earlier, during his
studies at MIT he had writen a Masters
level thesis on A Planning Framework for
National Capital Region (NCR) wherein
he had elaborated the concept that large
cities cannot exist in isolation, they have
influence over the immediate region
around it and vice versa and hence the
two entities need to be planned in an
integrated manner. Professor Shai used
the concept of NCR in proposing a new
approach of city planning process that
involved delineating the metro-region
around Delhi and also developing the
applicability of the concept of ring
towns and counter magnets for the
planning of the National Capital and its
development in a regional context.
his was Professor Shai I met at Aligarh
at a time when the irst Master Plan for
Delhi of which he was one of the makers
had begun its implementation phase just
a year ago in 1962 and the concept NCR
of which he was the author had become
a reality. His lectures to the students
which I had the opportunity to atend
were marked by eloquent explanation
of the methodology and elements of
the Delhi Master Plan and the concept
of NCR let a lasting impression on me.

Listening to his lectures, I developed an

interest in Town Planning. Whenever, he
came to Aligarh for his lectures, I used
to borrow his writings, study them over
night, make my own notes (there were
no Xerox machines then), and return it
to him next morning. Seeing my interest,
he suggested to me to take regular education in planning by geting into Delhis
School of Planning and Architecture
(SPA). I, who was till then interested in
pursuing graduate studies in Structural
Engineering, got immediately turned
on to the suggestion by him and joined
SPA next year.
he early few months at SPA were quite
tumultuous for me. I, whose education
was initiated in madarsa and later in
non-descript small town Hindi medium
schools of Eastern Utar Pradesh, found
myself in the midst of a serious problem
of almost total inability to write and
speak in English. My professors used to
reject my reports for wrong construction of sentences and bad grammar. I
used to run to Professor Shai who was
working in the TCPO located just across
the road from SPA. He would console
me, motivate me and even sometimes
correct my reports. He had become my
saviour, mentor and godfather and as I
progressed in my professional life also
my role model since I was eager to be
like him in all forms of communication.
It was due to his blessings that I not
only completed my studies at SPA with

distinction but was also ater graduation taken in as a permanent faculty to

progress gradually and retire as Director
achievements that I dedicate entirely
to Professor Shai.
In 1966, soon after I graduated from
SPA, Professor Shafi was selected to
work on the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to help assist
Iraq in appraising and evaluating the
master plans being prepared by a team
of Polish Planners for Baghdad and later
for other cities. While there, he was also
engaged in other works such as establishing Planning Department within the
College of Architecture at the University
of Baghdad; a full- ledged City Planning
Department in Baghdads Municipal
Authority; and a center for Urban and
Regional Development.
In 1978, he rose to the position of Chief
Town Planner in TCPO and from this
position, Professor Shai took voluntary
retirement in January 1983 to join the
Makkah Planning Team in Saudi Arabia
as Planning Coordinator of an elevennation team to develop a Perspective
Plan for the Holy City of Makkah and
the Haj Region. It was surely a unique
honour for any Indian to be associated
in such a key role.
Ater his return from Makkah, I had the
opportunity to work with him. He and
I had common alma mater the Aligarh

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31

tribute

Muslim University. During visits to the

university, he found that its campus
was developing in a haphazard manner.
He convinced the then Vice chancellor
Sri Hamid Ansari, who is now Indias
Honourable Vice President, that it was
necessary to prepare a master plan to
ensure planned development of the
campus. Professor Shai was invited to
prepare the plan. He took me along and
suggested that we being alumni of the
university should treat the opportunity
of contributing our litle bit for our alma
mater. I readily agreed. He did not stop
there. Whatever money was saved from
the expenditure fund provided to us, he
donated that too to the main mosque on
Aligarh University campus for its upkeep
and maintenance.
I had an opportunity to pay back my
gratitude towards him in a small way
during early 1990s. As Head of the
Department of Physical Planning, I
requested him to accept the position
of Visiting Professor and help raise the
academic standards in the Department
which was newly created. He readily
agreed and made lasting contribution
to the development of the Department.

Professor Shais contribution to planning profession and planning education

is so wide ranging that it is not possible
to recount all in a couple of pages. A
series of anecdotes can be cited about
his outspokenness, even during the
emergency era; his bold stands in defence of interests of planning profession
without bothering about which powerful authoritys feathers he may rule; one
against a proposal to demolish Canopy
at New Delhis India Gate under which
once stood a Statue of King George V
are just a few.

In the end, it can be justly said that Professor Shai was a great communicator,
a powerful motivator, a perfectionist to
the extent that only times I saw him loosing temper were when he would notice
an act of extreme incompetence, uncivilised or rude behaviour on someones
part. He himself never used a unkind
language even for those he did not like;
a widely read, sophisticated person and
a great visionary.
To end this tributary note for Professor
Shai, I cannot resist quoting a couplet
from Allama Iqbal...

For a thousand years the narcissus has been lamenting its blindness,
With great diiculty the one with true vision is born in the garden.
Allama Iqbal

The Author would like to acknowledge ITP publication Know Your President series for referring a large part of factual
information about late Sayed Shafi.

32

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47 | 2016

remembrance

Om Prakash Mathur

ADIEU TO
AGENERATION

LEFT TO RIGHT |&XMNXM'TXJ0(8N[FWFRFPWNXMSFS23'ZHM(MFWQJX(TWWJFFSI8F^JI88MF

eaths of Ashish Bose (April 2014), K C Sivaramakrishnan

(May 2015), M N Buch (June 2015), Charles Correa (June

2015DQG6D\HG66KDDecember 2015) has taken away

from Indias space, the like of an entire generation of urban giants who
spent much of their lives studying the phenomenon of urbanization,
writing about its myriad facets, and contributing to the urban thought
processes. There is a void, a strange kind of void, with individuals like
me who belong to the same generation, plus-minus a couple of years,
unable to think who to go to for a reminisce of an event that took place
in 1960s or the 1970s or to decide if their deaths should be mourned or
celebrated for the intellectual legacy that they leave behind.

remembrance

Ashish Bose, my senior in the Delhi

School of Economics, was an urban
demographer who worked with population census numbers like no one
else, wrote his Ph.d dissertation on
Indias urbanization with Bert Hoselitz
(University of Chicago) as his mentor,
guide, and examiner, and produced on
his 80th birthday, a book under the title
Headcount, with a sub-title, Memoirs of
a Demographer, adding to the Preface
his is not an autobiography but a collection of random pieces of my writing
on several episodes in my life. Fond of
coining acronyms, he shocked the then
establishment by calling Bihar, Madhya
Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Utar Pradesh
as BIMARU States and subsequently
came up with other acronyms such as
GEMs (Generators of Economic Momentum) in the context of the report of
the National Commission on Urbanisation.
K C Sivaramakrishnan, a West Bengal cadre IAS, developed interest in issues of urbanisation early in his career
at the Calcuta Metropolitan Planning
Organisation (CMPO). Tutored at the
CMPO in looking at a metropolitan
city, the complexities of managing multiple cities that formed a metropolis
like Calcuta fascinated him. Indeed, it
was his obsession which saw its culmination in a book, the last one that he

34

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47 | 2016

wrote, Governance of Megacities: Fractured hinking and Fragmented Setup.

KCs interest in urban issues strengthened over the years, notwithstanding his posting to the Department of
Supplies where as he once said, he was
asked to give his considered decision
on whether the Department should
purchase round-holed mosquito nets
or the square-holed ones! He was the
principal architect of the Constitution
(65th Amendment) Bill which got defeated in the Rajya Sabha by three votes
KCS documented the entire journey
to the Bill in his Power to the People.
One of the events in his career which
he called as the most extraordinary was
his transfer from the Ministry of Urban
Development to the Ministry of Sports
a Ministry where he openly admited
to several of us, he would have found it
diicult to distinguish between hockey
from cricket! He took leave and spent,
at my special request (and to the chagrin of the Ministrys oicials), the interregnum at the National Institute of
Urban Afairs. His spirited moment was
he Enduring Babu: Memoirs of a Civil
Servant which, in his own words was
not the memoirs of a civil servant in the
conventional sense. here is no intention
whatsoever of burdening the readers with
account of what the government or I, did
or did not do. here is no post-mortem of
any government action. here is no advice

or exhortation to anyone in the government on maters relating to administration. Several other civil servants of repute
have endeavoured to do this through their
autobiographies, books and critical essays.
If their eforts have not had the desired effect, it is unlikely, mine will.
Like KC, Mahesh Buch was an IAS
oicer of the Madhya Pradesh cadre.
He belonged to a family of administrators and he believed, unlinchingly, in
the primacy of his class and in its astute
decision-making capacities. A contemporary of Dr Manmohan Singh at Cambridge, he came to the urban forefront
initially in Bhopal with his undivided
atention to urban environment and development of lakes and forests and subsequently at the Delhi Development
Authority (DDA). He laid the foundations of the National Institute of Urban
Afairs (NIUA) the tenure of the irst
Director was not long enough to give
it a status that it deserved. He was outspoken; soon ater the 2002 Gujarat
riots, he wrote to Narendra Modi, then
the Chief Minister of Gujarat, to remind him that the Prime Minister of
Pakistan had undertaken to reconstruct
the Hindu temples in Karachi which
had been destroyed and urged him to
do the same in Gujarat to assuage the
wounds that had been inlicted on its
Muslims.

remembrance

in whatever way this generation may be

looked at and appraised, there is,
for all of us, a phenomenal storehouse of
knowledge and fearless expression
Charles Correa, a product of Michigan and MIT and globally recognized
as an architect with a diference, earned
his fame as much with the design of
Bharat Bhawan in Bhopal as with the
National Commission on Urbanisation
which he chaired. Charles Correa with
Mahesh Buch as his deputy, and Ashish
Bose as a key team member produced a
seven-volume report which set out, for
the irst time, what needed to be done
to address issues of urbanization, urban
planning, urban land, urban poverty,
urban inance and management, urban
form, urban housing, urban conservation, urban transport, water and sanitation, energy, legal framework, peoples
participation and information system.
It is a magnum opus which guide the
young scholars and would serve even
today as one for those who currently
hold responsibility for urban sector initiatives.
6D\HG 6 6KD a student of Lloyd
Rodwin at MIT, who passed away
in December, 2015 joined the Town
and Country Planning Organisation
(TCPO) upon its establishment in
1956 and rose to become its Chief Planner. His seminal work at the TCPO (together with a team of planners) was the

preparation of the irst Master Plan of

Delhi (1962-82). He came to be known
in public life for his evidence before the
Justice Shah Commission which had
been set up to investigate the excesses
during the Emergency. Shai, a suave
and urbane and an original resident
of old Delhi his ancestral house was
the Nawab House close to Jama Masjid,
prided himself in being a part of the
team that prepared a plan for Makkah,
the holiest of the cities for Muslims. His
contribution where he put his heart and
soul was the preparation of a volume
on Jawaharlal Nehrus writings on art,
architecture, heritage, cities and city
planning to mark Nehrus Centenary.
Planned as an anthology, the selections
over which Shai and myself poured
our heads for close to six months, were
in the form of an arabesque, a construct of several habitat related issues
Nehru was personally involved with
the planning of Chandigarh. Nehrus
enthusiasm and the egocentricity of
Le Corbusier, as we noticed from the
literature meshed well. In Nehrus own
words, Chandigarh was to be symbolic
of a new India, unfetered by the traditions of the past an expression of the
nations faith in the future. To Nehru, as
recounted in the volume, Delhi was like
no other city in India, epitome of Indias

history with its succession of glory and disaster, and with its great capacity to absorb
many cultures and yet remain itself A
city where even the stones whisper in our
ears of long ago and the air we breathe is
full of the dust and ragrance of the past, as
also of the resh and piercing winds of the
present. We face the good and bad of India in Delhi city which has been the grave
of many empires and the nursery of a new
republic. An avid listener and ever eager
to know of new things, Shai records,
Nehru wanted to know how the agesex ratio is relevant to the planning of
cities? What is meant by day-time and
night-time population? What is heightzoning? And what is that planners call
origin-destination survey. Shais last
picture postcard to me (September
2014) from Rome was in anguish but he
remained commited to being an Indian
to the core.
In whatever way this generation may
be looked at and appraised, there is,
for all of us, a phenomenal storehouse
of knowledge and fearless expression
be it the theoretical underpinnings
of GEMs, be it a model for governing a
metropolitan area with multiple municipalities or a simple exhortation expediency should not govern urban design of
such an important area (Jama Masjid).

A condensed version of the article titled The Smart Men for the Smart Cities by the Author was published
in The Indian Express, 15 February 2016

landscape

47 | 2016

35

J
remembrance

Joginder J Khurana

MY

JOURNEY
JOGINDER KHURANA | NARENDRA JUNEJA

Joginder J Khurana and Narendra Juneja

Original photos courtesy: Ravindra Bhan

andscape architect, late Narendra Juneja, worked for more than a decade with Ian McHarg, and
his name appears next to Lewis Mumford in the dedication note in McHargs seminal book Design
with Nature. Each year, a Gold Medal in his name is conferred to the best student at the Department

of Landscape Architecture at School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, while University of
Pennsylvania, USA awards a Narendra Juneja Medal and a Narendra Juneja Scholarship. Juneja passed
away in 1984, and hardly any information is available about him and he remains a bit of an enigma. We
had conversations about him with Ram Sharma, Ravindra Bhan, who both were his colleagues as fellow
VWXGHQWVDWWKHWKHQ'HOKL3RO\WHFKQLF%KDQDOVRZRUNHGZLWKKLPDW0F+DUJVRIFHLQ8QLYHUVLW\RI
Pennsylvania in 1960s. Recently, we interviewed Joginder Judge Khurana, Junejas friend who also

knew him from their Polytechnic days. Sadly, Khurana passed away in February this year. We feature here
our conversation with him remembering his life journey along with a bit of Junejas...

36

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47 | 2016

remembrance

Early 50s and

knowing Narendra Juneja
My association with Narendra goes back
to the early ities from our college days
at the Delhi Polytechnic, Kashmiri Gate,
School of Architecture (now SPA). We
were close friends. We used to bicycle
together to the college at Kashmiri Gate.
His father had a job in the Northern
Railways. In 1952, our close batch mates,
to name a few from a class of twenty ive,
were Ajoy Choudhary, Ranjit Sabikhi,
Ram Sharma, Shiban Ganjoo, Sewa
Barmi, Raj Rewal, Ramesh Khosla,
Shubroto Bose, Krishan Ahilawadi, Mohinder Kalra and irst time ever admited
in Delhi Polytechnic, were the three girl
students Manju Chakraverty, Krishna
Sen and Urmila Arora. We had CSH
Jhabvala teaching us design studio and
construction and Elizabeth Ghuman,
a British origin lady settled in Delhi,
as the Head of the Department. M M
Rana had joined only recently in 1953,
a young and fresh fellow returning
ater graduating from the Frank Lloyd
Wright Foundation, Wisconsin in the
US to teach us design. From a diploma
course earlier, we now were to graduate
with a degree Bachelor in Architecture
(B.Arch) under Delhi University.

TPO years and then seeking

higher education abroad
Narendra got his B. Arch in 1957. Ater
graduating, he worked for the newly
created Town Planning Organization
(TPO), which was setup by Pandit

Nehru for conceptualizing the Master

Plan of the City of Delhi (irst time in
Independent India). Ater graduating in
1958, I had also joined the same organization ater a three short summer stints
at Stein and Polk Architects. he heads
of various departments in the TPO were
all young Indians having returned ater
their higher studies in the US and the
UK. he irst Master Plan as prepared
at that time was idealistic as it seemed,
also quite realistic in many ways for
improving and expanding urban Delhi.
Narendra must have worked there for
more than a year and then let for the
UK for work experience, while ater a
year of work at the TPO in 1959, I had
got admission at Harvard in its twoyear Masters program in Landscape
Architecture. Ram Sharma, ater having had worked in the TPO also, had
gone to Harvard for an earlier one-year
program in Landscape Architecture.
Ater its completion, Ram went for his
Masters in Architecture at Prat Institute
in New York.
he MLA graduate program at Harvard
was under the chairmanship of Hideo
Sasaki, a great academician (a JapaneseAmerican), also having an interdisciplinary practice (Sasaki & Associates) and
Charles Harris as Professor. Sasaki was
the irst one to start a two-year MLA
program that concentrated much of the
design studio on tackling Urban Landscape and Environmental Design issues,
a departure from the earlier syllabus in
Gardening and Topiary Design.

In 1961, I graduated and received my

MLA degree with distinction and was
awarded the coveted Jacob Wiedenman
Award for best bridging landscape and
architecture design during our studio
projects. he monetary award helped me
to buy a used VW Beetle, learn driving
and take of on a grand tour across the
US along with an architect colleague
and friend from Denmark to experience
great American National Parks, architecture of Mies van der Rohe, Frank
Lloyd Wright, Saarinen, Richardson
et al and residential gardens across the
breadth of US (almost 3,500 miles) oten
camping where ever possible. I had also
saved funds for joining later the newly
started one year Urban Design program
at Harvard.
Winds of change
the 50s and 60s
In 1960, I was in the second year of
MLA program at Harvard Graduate
School of Design (GSD), when Professor Charles Harris took us students on
a ield trip within New England Region
of the Eastern US to show us various
signiicant urban parks, urban squares
and residential gardens. We also visited
Philadelphia among a few other cities.
Philadelphia Urban Center was then
going through planning and urban
redevelopment process under Edmund
Bacon as the head of the Philadelphia
Redevelopment Agency and had produced great urban design ideas. Boston
and Baltimore too were similarly going
through urban renewal and redevelop-

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47 | 2016

37

remembrance

master planning and urban design and its

eventual implementation processes. We
had visited the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) and saw the construction
of the iconic towers of Medical Sciences
designed by Louis Kahn.

Ian McHarg.
Photo source: www.andywightman.com
Cover of Design with Nature

ment planning processes and were each

headed by strong planning, design and
management professionals tapping on
the research on planning and urban
design being produced at Harvard and
MIT.
Juneja had not yet joined as a graduate
student there as he was still in the UK
and may have been in the process of applying to come to the US. Urban Redevelopment movements were taking place
during that time. Charles Centre in Baltimore was already under construction
and its master plan was a breakthrough
in terms of inancing, land acquisition,

38

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47 | 2016

One day there, we visited the Landscape

Department which was under the chairmanship of Ian McHarg. I remember
that evening very vividly. During that
same evening, we students from Harvard
had a joint session with the UPenn LA
students with McHarg speaking on his
research and theories regarding ecology
and environment as the new force for the
profession of landscape architecture as it
spearheads towards regional landscape
and planning issues. He explained why it
was necessary to preserve and conserve
natural environment starting from a
regional level down to the city and local
level for a healthy and wholesome future
for mankind. He also tried to explain
how the world could be a beter place
and how even the moon could be tamed
through such an approach. We were kind
of dumb-struck because we had never
heard that kind of talk before. We, at
Harvard, were mainly concerned with
the design of urban landscapes and the
role various hard and sot landscape elements could play in the shaping of urban
spaces, parks and gardens, institutions
and residential landscapes.
We were witnessing large scale urban
redevelopment of various American
cities such as Boston, Philadelphia and
Baltimore, and in terms of new cities,
several developing countries were in
the process of building new capital cities Chandigarh in India; Islamabad
in Pakistan and Brasilia in Brazil; New

Town of Milton Keynes in the UK. I

remember visiting Chandigarh during
my years at the School of Architecture
in early ities. Le Corbusier, the great
French architect was its Master Planner and our visionary Pundit Nehru,
on behalf of an Independent India, his
patron and client. During the same
period Bhakhra Nangal Dam was also
being built to generate hydro power
for the existing towns with burgeoning
population and new urban habitats being
built in North India. Nehru aptly termed
projects of such magnitude as the New
Temples of a Modern India.
Through our Dean at the Harvard
GSD, Jose Louis Sert, himself a great
architect and urban designer (originally
from Spain) was a keen admirer of Le
Corbusier and had inluenced the University, in bringing Corbusier to design
the Visual Arts Center building related
to the GSD. It is now an iconic building
form over a campus priding itself in its
three hundred year old history where
most of its buildings are mainly in brick
much covered with Boston Ivy. Several
buildings had been designed by wellknown architects like Eliel Saarinen early
1900s. Corbusier, never a traditionalist, designed the building in concrete
and glass and as a sculptural form
landmarka departure from anything
traditional on the campus. During one
of his visits to our GSD, a reception was
held for him to interact with the faculty
and the students in Robinson Hall, our
GSD building then. I remember meeting
him and shaking hands with him without
realizing that the man, posthumously,
was to be declared Architect of the 20th
century within a few decades.

remembrance

Over in Philadelphia, Ian McHarg was in

the process of his research and theories
on enlarging the scope of the landscape
architecture profession through analyzing and planning regional landscapes,
their environmental and ecological
considerations to enable sustainable
urban development over large areas.
hus, the landscape profession was in
a process of progressing from design of
gardens and topiary back in the 1800s to
a one of landscape architecture through
the eforts and works of Frederick Law
Olmsted during early 1900s, to now
with infusions from McHarg to a scope
in regional landscape planning with the
publication of Design with Nature in
1969 authored by him with major inputs
from Narendra Juneja as McHargs right
hand man. It was a groundbreaking
publication.
Harvard was the first University in
the world that started a Department
of Landscape Architecture (1900s)
through the inspiration and effort of
Frederick Law Olmsted (creator of the
famous Central Park in Manhattan,
New York) and Boston Common; irst
to start a Department of Urban & Regional Planning (1930s); and the irst
to start a Department of Urban Design
(1961). Department of Architecture
had already existed and was functioning
since 1800s. Urban Design was started
through the efforts of the dean Jose
Luis Sert, Walter Gropius, the retiring
Dean and Jacqueline Tyrwhitt who
was the right hand person of the great
planner Dr C A Doxiadis for the Ekistics
Magazine (devoted to planning of cities
and design) published from Athens,
Greece. Doxiadis was a contemporary
of Corbusier. He was the Master Plan-

India pavilion at the Montreal Expo 67 by Mansinh M Rana. Photo courtesy: Mansinh M Rana

ner for Islamabad, the New Capital for

the newly created and independent
Pakistan. Like Landscape Architecture
program, starting of the Urban Design
program in 1961 was also a irst.

was the Montreal World Expo 67, a

huge undertaking by the Canadian
Government to celebrate Canadas two
hundred years of becoming a dominion
having its own government.

The 60s..

Montreal Expo 67 was to be a

mammoth project to open in June, 1967.
At that time Narendra and Ravindra
Bhan were both in Philadelphia. I was
irst based in Toronto and later moved
to Montreal to be Project Designer
on behalf of PPAL to carry out
assignments related to the planning and
design of most public and semi-public
areas of the exhibition grounds and
the coordination of external site work
for various pavilions from participant
countries and their architects. It was
then that I met M M Rana in Montreal
when he was designing the India
Pavilion for the Expo.

Narendra had joined UPenn in early

60s, for his graduation in Landscape
Architecture
under
the
great
environmentalist Ian McHarg, then the
Departments Chairman. He must have
graduated in 1964 or 1965 and had
joined McHargs oice.
In 1963, I had joined Harvard again for
a one-year Masters program in Urban
Design and soon ater graduation in
1964, I migrated to Canada having
been sponsored for immigration by
Macklin Hancock, President of a wellknown and a large interdisciplinary
irm Project Planning Associates Ltd.
(PPAL) in Toronto to work as an
urban designerlandscape architect.
My irst assignment through the irm

hereater, I was involved as an urban

designer and landscape architect on
various large scale projects in Canada
such as the Urban Renewal of East

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47 | 2016

39

remembrance

Calgary, Alberta; Meadovale New

Town in Mississauga, Ontario; Glen
Abbey New Community Planning and
Design in town of Oakville, Ontario;
and Neighbourhood Improvement
Programs
(NIP)
for
various
municipalities in Ontario.
Narendra and Ravi (Ravindra Bhan)
by now were both working at McHargs
oice. Oten, we would keep in touch
with each other socially. During the
late sixties, Narendra and Ravi from
Philadelhia, Sewa from Detriot and
Mohinder from New York would all
come to Montreal to visit us, myself
and Romesh Khosla and our families
in Montreal. At other times we would
all visit Philadelphia (Narendra and
Ravi) or New York (Mohinder) and
sometimes assemble in Birmingham
near Detroit, Michigan (Sewa Barmi).
We would have picnics, sometimes
preparing food, pitching in, Narendras
appetizers used to stand out as they
were prepared with such inesse.
By the late sixties (1969), Ravi had
returned to India. Narendra had to go
through a heart bypass surgery. Ater a
few months, he was up and running and
playing his usual lead role on projects
and studies at McHargs oice along
with occasional teaching of landscape
studio at UPenn. Narendra never
married.
In 1977-78, McHargs oice in
Philadelphia had got a project in
Toronto for its large island in the
Lake Ontario connected by a road-

40

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47 | 2016

pedestrian bridge across the waterway

to the Eastern part of the City of
Toronto. he irm was entrusted with
the responsibility of doing an extensive
ecological and environmental study
of the island. Narendra, who was
working with McHarg as an associate
partner was entrusted with job as a
Project Leader. I was based in Toronto
then having my own newly started
practice under UDEP Ltd. (Urban
Development and Enviro Planning).
So we would meet very regularly.
Even ater his heart bypass surgery,
Narendra had remained quite intense
in his work. He used to oten travel to
the project sites, collating scientiic
data on climate, geology and soils,
geography, sub-surface and ground
water, vegetation, natural heritage and
existing social and physical conditions
and features etc. from various sources
including
specialist
consultants
engaged on the projects. He produced
an excellent report on the Island Project
for the Metro Toronto. I last met him in
beginning 1979 in Toronto.

Late 70s
I was in the process of moving to Saudi
Arabia as I was on a short assignment
to work in Cambridge, MA with a local
architect consultant on site planning
and landscape design of the irst
neighbourhood of a New Industrial
City of Jubail on the eastern coast in
Saudi Arabia on the Arabian Gulf. he
overall Master Plan was prepared by
Walter Gropius irm he Architects
Collaborative, Cambridge, MA (TAC)

and overall project and construction

management was under the Bechtel
Corporation from California, USA.
Local Saudi ArchitectsConsultants
were to be the project managers
(planning and design) on a Gulf
Marina project (with a program for 900
boats of a mix of sizes, Marina Club and
all ancillary buildings and land/water
related facilities) located adjunct to the
irst neighbourhood of Jubail.

Narendra in Tehran and back

Mid 1979, Narendra, on behalf of
McHargs oice was in Iran for a Master
Plan of a large Zoo Project which was
to involve a thorough ecological and
environmental study of a much larger
area in and around the site. It was the
time of Iranian revolution. here was a
huge turmoil and bloodshed and anger
against not only against the Shah of
Iran, but also his supporter, the USA.
hrough this violent revolution, Shahs
regime was overthrown, and most
Westerners, particularly the Americans
bore the brunt. All Americans in
the country were being air-lited in
emergency. Narendra, too had to
abandon the zoo project.
Ater that, he most likely would have
worked on assignments from McHargs
oice as well as teaching occasionally at
UPenn. I was back in Toronto in 1981
ater a year and half in Jeddah, Saudi
Arabia. We inished the Gulf Marina
project from its schematic design,
detailed design to working drawings
and contract documents.

remembrance

In June, 1981, while in Toronto, I was

asked to be part of a design team as a
Senior Urban Designer member of
the Toronto based CCCL (Campus
Consortium Consultants Ltd.) for
preparing a Master Plan for the King
Abdulaziz University (KAU, 650 Ha.)
in Jeddah. Having spent a year with
the team, composed of the three wellknown Canadian Architects- Zarafa,
Erickson and Hancock, I joined the
University in Jeddah in the Landscape
and Urban Design Department, School
of Environmental Design (SED), King
Abdul Aziz University. From 1982
onwards till 1996, I remained at the
University teaching and having a few
consultancy jobs within the then under
construction KAU Campus.
During this period, I was able to carry
out a 200-page applied research on
Central Urban Spaces Downtown
Jeddah; won a National competition on
artworks project involving sculptural
arches in a landscape seting within
a kilometer long and 30 meter wide
median strip of the main access road to
the newly built King Fahd International
Airport (KFIA) in Dhahran, Eastern
Saudi Arabia; and, Planning and design
of a new community of OBhor near
the OBhor Creek, West of Jeddah
along the Red Sea Coast.

1984
Narendra has passed away
In 1984, I was in my second year of
teaching at the KAU that I heard the
sad news from McHargs oice that

A gold medal in Narendra Junejas name is conferred to the best student at the Department of
Landscape Architecture at School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi each year.
Photo courtesy: Manjusha Ukidve Anand, Gold Medalist, 1996

Narendra had passed away. He had

sufered another massive heart atack.
At such a young age (below 50), I had
lost my friend and batch mate who had
contributed so much to the profession
of Landscape Architecture through
his unwavering stamina and capability
in understanding the uncharted
dimensions of the natural and physical
environment and bring forth his
indings and recommendations as
guide for any new large or small urban
development.

Back to India
Ater fourteen years of teaching at
the KAU, I inally made a move back
to my own country India and setled
down in Chandigarh. I taught at
Chandigarh College of Architecture
for seven years. I was also involved in
planning and landscape design of a
much widened corridor in Anandpur
Sahib. he design scope consisted of
designing the central area connecting
the two historical gurudwaras and the

access from the main road at a T-Point

up a steep slope on 300 meters length
to the entrance gate of the Gurdwara
Keshgarh Sahib. With an average
width of the corridor being about
30 meters, it provided a challenging
design opportunity to accommodate
the clients requirements and create
visually interesting walk between
the two gurudwaras by thousands of
pilgrims who were expected during
the tercentenary celebrations on the
baisakhi day in 1999 on the occasion
of the birth of Khalsa panth by Guru
Govind Singh at that location.
I moved to Gurgaon in 2004 and
started teaching as a visiting faculty
at the Sushant School of Art and
Architecture, under Ram Sharma as the
newly appointed Director with MM
Rana as an Emeritus Dean still active
and visiting twice a week for design
studio. Finally, I called it quits about
two years back.

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47 | 2016

41

cities

CITIES
he steady pace of global population growth is corresponding to
migration towards urban areas,
leading experts to predict that the worlds
urban population will double by 2050. In
India, the urban population is currently
31 per cent of the total global population and contributes over 60 per cent to
the GDP of the country. he cities are
referred to as the drivers of economic
growth. It is expected that three-fourths
of Indians will live in cities by 2030.

With its urban population set to rise by

more than 400 million to 814 million by
2050, India faces the kind of mass urbanization witnessed in China. Many of its
cities are already bursting at the seams.
he new Government has initiated an
urban development programme of transforming existing Indian cities into 100
Smart Cities by 2022 to accommodate
rapid urbanization in which cities must
be equipped with a coping mechanism
to manage inlux from rural areas, in-

42

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47 | 2016

crease productivity and eiciency, reduce strain on resources and improve

the quality of life. In short, cities must
become smart. Technology has a
major role to play in this new endeavour of the present Government. It is
proposed to help maximize utilization
of resources by leveraging data collected from sensors, controls and real
time data analytics, so to be used to
improve key segments like buildings,
utilities, healthcare, governance, transportation and education.
According to the Smart Cities website
of the Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India the Smart
Cities should be able to provide good
inrastructure such as water, Sanitation,
reliable utility services, health care; attract investments; transparent processes
that make it easy to run commercial activities; simple and online processes for
obtaining approvals.

Smart Cities Council India that has

been formed to promote development
of Smart Cities in the country, is part of
the US-based Smart Cities Council, a
consortium of smart city practitioners
and experts, with over a hundred members and advisor organizations operating in over 140 countries. he mission
of building one hundred Smart Cities
intends to promote adoption of smart
solutions for eicient use of available
resources and infrastructure with the
objective of enhancing the quality of
urban life and providing a clean and
sustainable environment.
he Union Government plans to spend
a staggering `48,000 crore on creating
these Smart Cities over the next ive
years. For now, Gujarat International
Finance Tec-City (GIFT), is being
launched as the irst such model city.

cities

Benchmarks for Smart Cities

Transport

Electricity

Maximum travel time of 30 minutes

in small and medium size cities and
45 minutes in metropolitan areas.
Dedicated bicycle tracks with a width of
2 meters or more, one in each direction,
should be provided on all streets with
carriageway larger than 10 meters (not
ORW).
High quality and high frequency
mass transport within 800 meters
(10-15minute walking distance) of all
residences in areas over 175 persons /
ha of built area.
Access to para-transit within 300,
walking distance.

100% households have electricity connection.

24x7 supply of electricity.
100% metering of electricity supply.
100% recovery of cost.
Tarif slabs that work towards minimizing waste.

Health Care Facilities

Availability of telemedicine facilities to 100% residents.
30 minutes emergency response time.
1 dispensary for every 15,000 residents.
Nursing homes, Child, Welfare and Maternity centre
25 to 30 beds per lack population.
Intermediate Hospital (Category B)
80 beds per lakh population.
Intermediate Hospital (Category A)
200 beds per lakh population.
Multi-Speciality Hospital 200 beds per lakh population.
General Hospital 500 beds per lakh population.

Greater Mumbai, Thane, Kalyan-Dombivali, Navi Mumbai, Nashik, Amravati, Solapur, Nagpur, Pune, Aurangabad, New Town
Kolkata, Bidhannagar, Durgapur, Haldia, Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot, Dahod, Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior,
Jabalpur, Satna, Ujjain, Sagar, Madurai, Tiruchirapalli, Chennai, Tiruppur, Coimbatore, Vellore, Salem, Erode, Thanjavur, Tirunelveli,
Dindigul, Thoothukudi, Belgaum, Shimoga, Hubli-Dharwad, Tumkur, Davangere, Kochi, Greater Hyderabad, Greater Warangal,
Vishakhapatnam, Tirupati, Kakinada, Belagavi, Moradabad, Aligarh, Saharanpur, Bareilly, Jhansi, Kanpur, Allahabad, Lucknow,
Varanasi, Ghaziabad, Agra, Jaipur, Udaipur, Kota, Ajmer, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar, Muzaffarpur, Bhagalpur, Biharsharif, Karnal,
Faridabad, Guwahati, Bhubaneshwar, Rourkela, Dharamshala, Dehradun, Ranchi, Namchi, Imphal, Port Blair, Pasighat, Chandigarh,
Raipur, Bilaspur, Silvassa, Diu, Delhi (NDMC), Panaji, Kavarrati, Shillong, Aizawl, Kohima, Oulgaret, Agartala
Names in red denote cities designated under phase-1 of the Smart Cities Mission.

cities

Spatial Planning

Water Supply

95% of residences should have daily

needs such as retail, parks, primary
schools and recreational areas accessible
within 400m walking distance.
95% residences should have access
to employment and public and
institutional services by public transport
or bicycle or walk.

24x7 supply of water.

100% household with direct water
supply connections.
135 Liters of per capita supply of water.
100% metering of water connections.

Pre Primary to
Secondary Education
Pre Primary/Nursery School for every
2,500 residents.
Primary School (class to V) for every
5,000 residents.
Senior Secondary School (Class VI to
XII) per lakh of population.

Higher Education
College per 1.25 lakh population.
Technical education centre per 10 lakh
population.
Engineering college per 10 lakh
population.
Medical college per 10 lakh population.
Other professional college per 10 lakh
population.
Paramedical institute per 10 lakh
population.

Storm Water Drainage

100% coverage of road network with
storm water drainage network.
Aggregate number of incidents of
water logging reported in a year = zero.
100% rainwater harvesting.

Solid Waste Management

100% households are covered by daily
doorstep collection system.
100 % collection of municipal solid
waste.
100% recycling of solid waste.

Sewerage and Sanitation

100% households should have access
to toilets.
100% schools should have separate
toilets for girls.
100% households should be connected
to waste water network.

100% eiciency in the collection and

treatment of waste water.
100% eiciency in the collection of
sewerage network.

Telephone Connections
100% households have a telephone
connection including mobiles.

Wi-Fi Connectivity
100% wi-i connectivity.
100 Mbps internet speed.

Fire Fighting
1 ire station per 2 lakh population /
5-7 km radium.
1 sub-ire station with 3-4 km radius.

Others
Use of renewable energy in all sectors.
Rootop solar panels on all public,
institutional and commercial buildings
as well as multistoreyed residential
housing.
Adherence to green building norms.

The feature is based on information referred from the article Transforming Cities, Transforming India in
Indian Perspectives, July-August, 2015, a Ministry of External Affairs publication.

44

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47 | 2016

cities

TENDER

SURE
SPECIFICATIONS FOR URBAN ROADS EXECUTION

I N C O N V E R S AT I O N W I T H S WAT H I R A M A N AT H A N
JA N A U R B A N S PA C E F O U N D AT I O N , B A N G A LO R E

Swati Ramanathan is the co-founder of Jana Group and

chairperson of Jana Urban Space (Jana USP), a professional services
social enterprise, delivering transformational work on the spatial
dimension of cities. Jana Urban SpaceLVDQRWIRUSURWHQWLW\DSDUW
of a clutch of purpose-driven organizations under the umbrella of Jana
Group. Jana USP has four inter-disciplinary studios Urban Planning
Studio; Urban Design Studio; Spatial Mapping and Analytics Studio;
and Architecture and Design Studio. Its Policy Division engages with
policy reforms across studios with a view towards scale and replication
of proof of concepts on the ground.

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47 | 2016

45

cities

look back in history of Indias

urban settlements shows that
traditional paterns of road networks responded to the use of that timeroads and lanes were used as networks
for localized movement, community
interaction, and thriving markets. hese
patterns created compact city forms
and mixed-use neighbourhoods where
work and home were closely located.
With the advent of automobiles and
the far-lung growth of the major cities, these paterns have been replaced
with an equally far-lung and haphazard
road network. Walking and cycling as a
means of mobility, have been sidelined
at an alarming rate. Aspirations of an
economically-empowered middle class
and the failure to provide public transport alternatives have further worsened
the situation.

Our city roads are not planned in a clear,

networked hierarchy of connectivity.
hey are not planned to integrate public
transport networks: local buses, city
buses, rail, and mass rapid transit. hese
do not provide a continuous network of
pedestrian and cycling pathways, thereby
ignoring the mobility needs of above 30%
of the population. heses are constantly
under assault by multiple agencies with
no planning or coordination between
each other. Network utilities beneath
and above the roads drains, telecom
lines, power lines, sewage, water, electric
poles, transformers are haphazardly
laid, resulting in a sense of chaos and
unusability of much of the road and
footpaths. hese have a poor life cycle,
with inadequate quality assurance on
execution, and maintenance.

Secondly, the manuals for roads currently referred to in India mainly pertain to highways and rural roads. he
MoRTH standardized the procedure
and process for building a road and
published the Speciications for Road
and Bridge Works in 1973 that were
revised thrice. he latest edition is in
the year 2001. his is based on a system
of road classification, building and
maintenance, from a time when India
was predominantly rural in nature. he
Indian Road Congress (IRC) has published a set of guidelines for roads, but
these too do not adequately address the
requirements for building and managing
the urban road network. he reality is
that urban roads have been neglected
thus far. No speciic standards have been
devised for building, space allocation, or
a hierarchical classiication. In contrast

cities

to rural areas, urban areas have a higher

density of population and street and
highway networks and visitors. he existing guidelines and road speciication
primarily focus on national and state
highways, major district roads and village roads. Field-planners, engineers and
contractors adopt these standards while
implementing urban road projects, but
interpret them subjectively with great
variation and inconsistency.

Set of Manuals for Tender S.U.R.E works

;TQZRJ7JKJWJSHJKTWIJXNLSXYFSIFWIXFSIXUJHNHFYNTSX
Volume II Template of a typical Contractor Agreement

How India copes with urbanization will

ultimately be about the details. So, there
is a dire need to look at urban roads
with a fresh perspective of making them
eicient, and functional, aesthetically
pleasant and live urban elements. Roads
are also the stage where the tableau of
urban society can share space equitably
pedestrians, cyclists, hawkers, buses,
motorists.
Tender S.U.R.E. (Speciication for Urban
Road Execution) is a set of standards for
road design that not only provides for a
more equitable allocation of the right
of way and an orderly system of pathways for laying underground services,
but also lays out guidelines for proper
maintenance and upkeep so that any
improvements undertaken would have
a lasting impact on citizens quality of
life. It intends to streamline the road
elements with its working to provide a
smooth low for pedestrians and cyclists,
while enhancing the experience of the
streets with landscaping, kerb drops,
allocations for street vending, paving,
etc. Under the endeavour, we are looking
at urban roads of Bangalore with fresh
eyes with technical expertise to conceive
proposals to redesign them, integrating
them with the existing conditions and
addressing the present needs of the
urban neighbourhood areas.

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47 | 2016

47

cities

Core design team

he design of the roads, especially in
an urban realm is a complex process.
You have a multiple set of underground
services and overground elements like
surface drainage, sewer lines, telecommunication lines, outdoor lighting,
street furniture, that also located in a
live city with existing running roads,
which makes the situation more critical.
You need a multidisciplinary team of
consultants to address these problems.
I myself hold a Masters degree from
Prat Institute of Design, New York ater
working for many years in architecture
and design in US and UK. We have
architects, urban designers and urban
planners in our team. Initially, we took
the help of horticulturist and people
with knowledge of plants but later on we
did planting of the roads on our own as
it was fairly simple and for small areas.
We would like to state here that we are
not reinventing the wheel after all,
world-over governments are managing
to build good roads in their cities. We
have studied all the documents we could
lay our hands on, visited road engineering and transport departments of other
countries and adapted these to our local
context and needs, with deliberate intent
to use our own existing templates and
standards where possible.

Design and getting started

The two elements in planning road
networks for new extension are mobility and access. A clear network of roads
that provides easy access between places
must accompany a clear hierarchy of

48

landscape

47 | 2016

roads for mobility. Such a network reduces the distances to travel and gives
incentive to walking and cycling in
neighbourhoods over motor vehicles.
The third element that impacts both
existing and new parts of the city, is the
standardized specifications for urban
roads in the network. Urban roads
across the city are rendered ineicient
due to uneven right-of ways, frequent
intersections on major thorough-fares,
unchecked parking, encroachment, etc.
causing traic botle-necks and delays.
Hence standardization of speciications
for road design is the third critical element. herefore, we have developed a
detailed document Volume I is a reference for design standards and speciications and Volume II is a template of a
typical Contractor Agreement. I would
like to state that the Contractors Agreement is a unique document in the sense
that it is a uniied single contract document which means that all sub contracts
Telecommunication cables, electricity
lines, water supply lines, civil works and
others are being headed by a single
contractor. So he is the main person who
is accountable to the authorities.
In determining planning standards and
execution speciications, the irst step
is to deine the hierarchy of the road
network that will determine its required
usage. he hierarchy used is based on
principles of planning and efficient
land-use for creating an optimal connectivity. his can be modiied based
on the carrying capacity appropriate
for the density of the city. he resulting network of streets integrates public
transport, non-motorized transport
and private transport. Urban roads are

broadly organized into ive categories

Arterial, Sub-arterial, Collector, Local
and Sub-local. Once the hierarchy and
use is deined, planning and designing
for the range of R-o-Ws (right-of ways)
becomes much more eicient and easy.
he collector road is central for both
mobility and access, linking individual
neighbourhoods to the larger network of
mobility in the city, while providing the
access to the lower order roads that provide access within the neighbourhood.
The six key design priorities are pedestrians; cyclists; public transport;
parking; and traic calming measures.
For example, pedestrian and cyclists
are prioritized on the higher order
roads namely arterial, sub-arterial, and
collector. Parking is restricted on higher
order roads, but may be provided for on
judiciously on collector and residential
streets within the neighbourhood to
facilitate residents and provide restricted
parking to visitors. While maintain trafic low is essential in the arterial and
sub-arterial networks of the city, traic
calming measures are an essential feature
for safety in neighbourhoods and are
indicated for collector and local streets.
Every streetscape has its own character.
Till now we have restricted our scope of
work and thinking from footpath to footpath. But yes, we have tried to respond to
the surrounding buildings like creating
adequate pavements in front of schools
and reducing traic bays there, creating
parking bays near shopping areas, seating spaces near historical monuments
and all.
Based on our core idea and studies, we
presented a proposal of a road (around

cities

St. Marks Road, Bangalore

Before and after design interventions

800 meters) to the Chairman of Prestige

Group that was leading to one of its
newly developed residential property in
Bangalore. Convinced with the design
ideas, he decided to go ahead with its
implementation. That set the tone for
the entire process. So, inally State Government decided to allocate few roads
to us, all less than 1 kilometer in length.
One can say that its a piece meal work
with few selected roads till now. he St.
Marks Road stretch is among the seven
other roads being improved and upgraded
by the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) under the Tender S.U.R.E
project. he St Marks Road and Vital
Mallya Hospital Road, developed under
the Phase 1 of Tender S.U.R.E, were
thrown open to the public in June 2015.
Now, ity roads will be developed under
Tender S.U.R.E in the future.

Landscape pause points and street furniture

It has been very diicult to integrate the

new proposals with existing schemes,
especially underground sections of
drainage etc. here are multiple agencies
involved. One of the main scopes of our
works has been coordinating with all
these agencies and bringing them on a
common table for unanimous decisions
on multiple issues. It requires a lot of
patience and perseverance. But looking
at the success of the already executed
design models for existing roads, it is
increasingly catching up with other areas. We have been now geting enquiries
from local councillors and politicians to
take up roads in their constituencies as
well. Gradually, it will be part of a larger
system.

Redevelopment of
St. Marks Road, Bangalore
St. Marks Road, named after St. Marks
Cathedral, the oldest Anglican Church in
Bangalore, is a landmark street of the city. The
0.9 km road is part of the urban core, linking
MG Road at Anil Kumble circle in the north and
Residency road at Cash Pharmacy junction in the
South. It was a vehicular travel collector road
of varying widths, discontinuous footpaths and
unorganized parking that has created a chaotic
XNYZFYNTSKTWUJTUQJFSIYWFH9MJWJIJXNLSJI
section proposed a uniform vehicular travel lane
YMFYFQQT\XKTWHTSYNSZTZXYWFHRT[JRJSY
with designated on street parking. The proposal
ensures that there is a 2 meter wide designated
cycle track and footpaths along the entire
stretch of the road, landscaped pause points,
street furniture, a bus bay and strategically
placed ancillary amenities.

Photographs courtesy Tender S.U.R.E. and Deekshitha Kaushik

landscape

47 | 2016

49

cities

HERE
NOW
AND

In conversation with K T Ravindran, urban

designer and Mohan Rao, landscape architect
about present day modes of urbanization in a
democracy and related aspects of environment.

50

landscape

47 | 2016

Photo credits: K T Ravindran from http://photodivision.gov.in | Mohan Rao by Rahul Paul

INDIAN
URBANISM

cities

Q&A
'R\RXWKLQNWKHSUHVHQWWLPHLVDGHQLQJVWDJHLQWKHSURFHVVRIXUEDQL]DWLRQLQ,QGLDUHJLRQ",I
\HVLQZKDWZD\V":KDWXQLTXHIHDWXUHVGR\RXVHHZLWKWKHSKHQRPHQRQRI,QGLDQXUEDQL]DWLRQ
DVLWLVKDSSHQLQJLQWKLVGHFDGH"
KT: In his irst speech as Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh
on15th August 2004, declared that urbanization will one of
the seven pillars of Indian economy in the years to come. hat
was the irst time when the idea of City really got a thrust in
terms of a signiicant role in Indian economy. Of course, the
basis remained of that of the National Urbanization Commission report by Charles Correa that came in 1998. Subsequently
came JNNURM, which was a part success. Urban renewals as
intended by the scheme didnt take place due to many reasons.
Despite huge amount of money being pumped in, the capacity
building of local municipalities in terms of technical expertise,
bringing reforms, evolving participatory methods were not
developed. here was no atempt to change the Planning departments, which are working in their traditional planning mode.
here was no atempt to bring in Urban Design and Landscape
Design disciplines in the development process. here was no
atempt to equip the local governing bodies to tackle these huge
challenges of infrastructure and growth in the implementation
stage. he agencies hired consultants. DPRs were made. he
whole process was too much bureaucratized. So inally, neither
the money was spent nor got the projects implemented. In a city
like Delhi, where one has a very close working relationship with
DDA, it didnt make a diference. Leave aside smaller towns.

he good things was that JNNURM insisted on 74th Constitutional Amendment where a democratic and participatory mode
of decision making, funding and implementation of all public
development related works is called for. It ensured that a consistent mechanism for planning and decentralization across urban
local governments is in place with active citizens participation
with time bound projects. he municipalities were unable to
work under these conditions. So the conditions were waived.
he projects never took of on the implementation level.
he new government has made some improvements on how the
administrative and delivery structures can be revamped. Heritage Cities now is a separate component HRIDAY. he real
challenge will come when the projects get into implementation
stage, when the process starts challenging the local bodies. We
need more structured review of delivery mechanism. Now SPVs
(Special Purpose Vehicles) have replaced 74th Amendment,
which is a corporate mode rather than democratic mode. It lies
outside the democratic frameworks. here is still no up gradation
of local bodies in terms of capacity building.

landscape

47 | 2016

51

cities

the unique feature of this stage of urbanization is that we have two

contesting methods of urbanization. one is of large investments
supported by huge bank loans, multinational projects, mega
developments, infrastructure planning, it parks, business corridors,
where the texture of development, hence money, is big. on the another
side, we have grassroots urbanization... reclaiming public space, big
move to fight automobile industry, reclaim roads for pedestrians, larger
concerns of climate change and pollution awareness.
KT

We need to ind answers to the kind of inertia in our own systems. It has to play itself out in the whole process. It is a big opportunity for India to evolve new methods of implementation,
which are rooted in democracy. We need to create deliverable
projects.
he unique feature of this stage of urbanization is that we have
two contesting methods of urbanization. One is of large investments supported by huge bank loans, multinational projects,
mega developments, infrastructure planning, IT parks, Business
corridors, where the texture of development, hence money, is
big. We have exclusive domains, gated and a kind of public space
which is inaccessible to a larger mass. On the another side, we
have grassroots urbanization of parties like Aam Aadmi, reclaiming public space, big move to ight automobile industry, reclaim
roads for pedestrians, larger concerns of climate change and
pollution awareness. he characteristics of the urbanization will
be deined by how these two major forces negotiate each other.
hey cant do without each other. hey need to work at tandem.
Both are contesting the same public space. Till date, it has not
become the main part of the discourse. Not much research has
been done in this area. here is no knowledge creation, no design
process in which we can convert the knowledge in practice. We
need to recognize this negotiation, analysis it, understand it
and then put it to use. he political force has to negotiate that
contest. It is the most important and unique feature. In recent

52

landscape

47 | 2016

times, it has become evident. We all have been writing about

public space, pollution since the 80s, but nobody is confronted
this in discourse or in practice.
So, the economic forces and the democracy need to work in
tandem with each other.
MR: Certainly. We are at a critical stage in the urbanization
process in India. A combination of factors increased social
and economic mobility has meant an unprecedented rate of
urbanization. More Indians are living in urban areas than at
any other point in our history. Studies clearly forecast a drastic
increase in the trend.
he most unique challenge we face amongst several others is
the fact that, unlike most other countries that have dealt with
this challenge in the past, our urbanization is almost exclusively
compounded on existing towns and cities. Many of these have
a rich historical past and are being overlaid with demands they
are simply not equipped to deal with. his holds true not only
from infrastructural and inancial capacities but also from spatial
and ecological point of view.

cities

traditional knowledge systems are neither well documented nor

appreciated as having anything of value to offer. other than a few
exceptional cases, much of traditional systems understanding is limited
to buildings and monuments. to create models of habitation in positive
sympathy with the past, it is essential to first acknowledge such value
systems. the resilience of old towns and cities, conceived and built in
sync with natural systems, needs a careful and nuanced understanding.
MR

In the all rush and speed, can we carry forward traditional values and systems and address the
HPHUJLQJUHVRXUFHDQGFXOWXUDOFKDOOHQJHVWRFUHDWHPRGHOVRILQKDELWDWLRQWKDWKDYHDIQLW\
ZLWKRXUSDVWDQGSUHVHQWDVSLUDWLRQV"+RZ"
KT: his is a very complex question. In practice, you can actually
make this happen. We need to develop that overriding concern
about our present. Everything exists in present - heritage and
cultural networks of cities. he moment you talk about past, it is
viewed as anti development. Past is present in present. We need
to develop the right kind of sensibilities about present. Culture is
not static thing. It is continuously changing. Do we have a inger
on the pulse of the people about how they change? No. So past is
no diferent. At the same time, how can you discount the beauty
of the past? We have been not able to create many beautiful
things in present. So we look at past. We have not been able to
stay honest to our present. he question is how sensitive are we
to our present? How well we understand the actual present? Of
course in the process are embedded many memories and our
potential. We need to negotiate this idea of past, present and
future by our actions. It has nothing to do with time.

MR: his is certainly desirable but far from actualization. Traditional knowledge systems are neither well documented nor
appreciated as having anything of value to ofer. Other than a few
exceptional cases, much of traditional systems understanding is
limited to buildings and monuments. It is an altogether diferent
challenge to balance aspirational values too.
To create models of habitation in positive sympathy with the
past, it is essential to irst acknowledge such a value system. he
resilience of old towns and cities, conceived and built in sync
with natural systems, needs a careful and nuanced understanding. Present day models of development that value speed and
quantity over quality simply does not allow for such interventions. Each intervention needs to be not only culture speciic
but more importantly respond to the speciicities of the biogeo-region they are situated in. Lacking that, any atempt will
merely be seen as window dressing, a tourist version of heritage.

landscape

47 | 2016

53

cities

...not so much a contradiction as a paradigm shift in how we define our

environments. while Correas understanding of and the way forward for
our cities is certainly sensitive and appropriate, it was driven by specific
lenses of sufficiency, equity and justice. the same, however, cannot be said
of the emergent idea of smart cites where each is merely an economic
entity, all urban processes reduced to numbers based on efficiency.
MR
In his seminal essay The New Landscape, the late architect Charles Correa described Indias
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DVHFRQRPLFJHQHUDWRUV"'R\RXVHHDFRQWUDGLFWLRQKHUH"
KT: hese are two completely diferent notions. Social engineering is what modernism of 40s-50s was all about. It has gone
completely wrong. I dont subscribe to the idea. It is fascist, top
down thinking. Societies change by activities of people, not be
designers. hey cannot change by manipulation tactics. his
notion sought to engineer society. Designers of modernism
believed that they can alter the peoples lifestyles, their thinking,
their habits so the cities.
he cities as economic generators are another problematic notion. In Charles Correa commitee report, cities are referred as
Generators of Economic Momentum GEMs. It is the atitude
of looking at cities from the perspectives of bankers, planners
and investors. I dont think we should look at cities with mechanized views. hey are much more complex and nuanced. hese
all are catch phrases that become bandwagon through which
the bankers, who are obsession with GDP come to play. In this
process, environment is the irst victim. We need a diferent imagination to look at our cities. Cities are great places of economic
growth. So are rural areas, which are so fundamental to survival.
So these terminologies need to be seen in a more nuanced way.
Ater modernism, there is a general awareness amongst designers that we are geting devoid and removed from people and
nature. We need new ways to connect with them. So there are
so many writings by them and other experts on new themes
vernacular forms, energy eicient architecture, traditional
practices, community crats and all. here are ways to connect
to the lost world, recapture the lost cities.

54

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47 | 2016

Furthermore, the history of growth of landscape architecture

and urban design and conservation points to this direction
more speciically. hese disciplines are fundamentally contrary
to the concept of modernism, which objectiies buildings and
cities. hese disciplines show new ways of looking at a region
land forms, region, people, vegetation and climate. hese
movements have challenged the idea of Modernism. Where
Le Corbusier observed House is a machine for living in, Ian
McHarg, Richard Neutra, Joseph Allen Stein - all questioned
the idea of mechanized world. Now, these professions are being
recognized as qualitative professions, adding value to built form
in many positive ways.
MR: his is not so much a contradiction as a paradigm shit in
how we deine our environments. While Correas understanding
of and the way forward for our cities is certainly sensitive and
appropriate, it was driven by speciic lenses of suiciency, equity
and justice. he same, however, cannot be said of the emergent
idea of Smart Cities where each is merely an economic entity,
all urban processes reduced to numbers based on eiciency.
In the current context, it is actually quite futile to deine a Smart
City, at least I would like to desist from doing so. It is the same
as defining the most antibiotic without understanding the
disease one is ighting. he answer may or may not be right,
depending on ones stand point, but the bigger issue is that the
question itself is wrong. In my opinion, it is a classic case of
fallacious thinking.

cities

there is a bit of village in cities, a bit of city in villages. people value

this association and respect it. if we have more urban agriculture,
gardening on rooftops and other ways of spatial expression of rural
areas in cities, our urbanscapes will be much healthier and happier.
looking at development as purely urban or rural obscures the view of
knowing what is really an indian city or a village.
KT
The word rural is hardly talked about in discourses on Indian urbanization. There is a false
divide in this regard in the minds of Indian intelligentsia. This symbiotic relationship seems to be
totally out of focus and perception in any of our intellectual discourses amongst professionals,
policy makers on urban development.
KT: he idea of urban is deined as not rural. hey are two
mutually inclusive entities. here are many areas in the city
which are inhabitated by villagers. here are many rural related
economic activities which ind their spatial expressions inside
the cities. here is a celebration of urbane and rural happening
simultaneously in the cities. here is a bit of village in cities, a
bit of city in villages. People value this association and respect
it. If we have more urban agriculture, gardening on rootops
and other ways of spatial expression of rural areas in cities,
our urbanscapes will be much healthier and happier. All of the
culture and arts, except for cinema and photography, are being
generated in rural areas. Our music echoes rhymes with sounds
of folklore and songs of rural people. So, looking at development
as purely urban or rural obscures the view of knowing what is
really an Indian city or a village.

MR: I couldnt agree with you more. Citizenshipand the

rights and opportunities it bestows on usis neatly packaged in
neat silos urban, rural, tribal, and so on, efectively destroying
any sense of understanding the intrinsic and symbiotic nature
of the larger organism called society. Even oicial technical
standardssanitation, drinking water, energy, access to health,
educationbelie any sense of equity. Our mainstream pedagogy
continues this divide for every rural development professional,
we probably produce a thousand or more urban professionals.
he clear messages here being that neither are the problems
of the rural serious enough nor do they deserve any atention.
Witness the continuing suicides of desperate farmers for over
two decadesenough to be termed a genocide in any civilized
societyand the atention they are accorded in our institutions
of higher learning.

From the villages a rally at Ramleela Maidan, New Delhi. Photo source: https://commons.wikimedia.org

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47 | 2016

55

cities

urbanization is a secondary layer and nature is the primary layer

in any development process. nature and people are two crucial
things. all other things are secondary.
KT
With a holistic view about the growth of Indian democracy in spatial terms, tell us about few
ideas that you would suggest to the Government for trends of urbanization in a developing
country with all their complexities.
KT: First of all, we need to ensure that democracy survives. It
survives as a process of development which is participatory in
terms of planning, connecting the people with the planning and
development process. here will be contesting communities
since we dont have a proper structure. here is a gradual start in
planning circles. Secondly, which is more crucial, is acceptance
of the fact that urbanization is a secondary layer and nature is the
primary layer in any development process. Our perspective will
change drastically. We need to address the way we live. We need
to address the depletion of natural resources as consequences
of our activities, develop more organic way of living. We need
to develop a practical approach of living with nature.
So, nature and people are two crucial things. All other things
are secondary.
MR: he challenges of the urban across the country are as
diverse as our culture is. Each urban setlement has also been
deined by hundreds in some cases thousands of years of
continuous habitation. Rather than a wish list of what to do,
I can easily think of ive points that highlight what not to do.
Do not enforce non-contextual standards / visions across settlements. A combination of economic liberalization, unrealistic
projections and impatient capital has meant random application of development visions, aesthetics and performance criteria
with absolutely no regard to the context, needs and challenges
of each city. his is true of both governmental policy as well as
professional design inputs.
Do not atempt to conceive, build and populate cities in
unreasonably short time spans. Cities are built over decades,

56

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47 | 2016

even generations. To fast track the process renders them merely

infrastructural projects, nothing more. A city is not the sum
of its built infrastructure. he process needs to acknowledge
both the diversity as well as the dynamic nature of Indian settlements, without which, we will keep trying to it citizens in
cities rather than the other way round. Failed cities in as diverse
contexts as Spain and China stand in mute testimony to support
this observation.
Do not dissociate cities / setlements from their natural environments. he most resilient and liveable cities are a product of
nuanced responses to the larger natural environment. Unless we
recognize the inherent capacities that nature can accommodate,
our cities will become increasingly parasitic and unsustainable.
Do not imagine cities as static entities that can be designed to
function in speciic ways. Technologies of the past three decades
have wrought an immense change in lifestyles, neither acknowledged not captured in our imaginations of future cities. Rather
than second guess these possible changes, it is critical that they
be envisioned to accommodate future opportunities. Our cities
need to be future ready and this needs recasting some very basic
assumptions, which at the moment are considered de facto.
Do not address urban problems as divorced from the regional / rural. Cities as organisms feed on and in turn support
a much larger hinterland. his co-dependence is critical at
social, ecological, economic and cultural levels and as such
needs acknowledgement in the urban visions of urban development authorities. Failure to do so will increase the deep divide
between the urban and the rural; it will also render the cities
extremely vulnerable.

cities

it is imperative that planning and design professional recognize this

in the very formative parts of the intervention process to create an
effective and beneficial dialogue in the creation of our cities
MR
In the foremost meeting of Progressive Arts Movement in December 1947, just few months
after independence, while discussing its vision, art critic Rashid Hussain declared the necessity
of the artists taking initiative in developing a conscious art patronage among the masses with
deliberate social purpose in their art. What are your views on the suggestion in context of spatial
SURIHVVLRQDOV"
KT: Let us not make any distinction between private and public.
Both can have narrow or broad objectives. he main questions are Are we generating larger public good? What are we
damaging in the process? If these two questions are answered,
I dont have any moral problem. Designing for the poorest or
richest, is an act of design. Moral problems can be addressed
contextually. hat is for every designer to balance out. I wont
like to preach on that. I feel these mental barriers and contrasts
that we create are not helping us see the real issues. We need
to develop more clarity about ourselves and arrive at a point of
comfort within ourselves.
If one doesnt develop a positive atitude towards design, then
one shouldnt enter it. hat is not a ixed threshold. It is a shiting threshold. Design is for optimists and not for pessimists.
Diferent ways of looking at private and public works is due to
our emotional behaviour, which is embedded in the subjectivity that we have. I would like to quote an example here. For
the Rajiv Gandhi Memorial project at Sriperumbudur, it was
important for me to be in a positive frame of mind before I start
conceptualizing the design. It was not easy for me to enter it.
Too many toxins were there in the body. It was an important
work which I wanted to do - to deine a nationally signiicant,
symbolically charged project. It took me months. I just read
poetry, philosophy and theoretical physics. he continuous
reading helped me extract the good things about his persona
environmentalist, pilot, a person with a scientiic temper,
photographer, who was trying to cast the nation in a diferent
progressive mode. Some of these things informed the way, our
team developed the programme and set of design principles relationship between sky and the monument, conserving natural
ponds, sense of arrival and all.

During my irst visit to the site, there was a natural pond where
there was a beam of sunlight and shimmering water. Suddenly I
saw a frog jumping into it. It created a ripple on the water surface.
And I remembered a Haiku poem writen by Matsuo Basho, a
Japanese writer which ends on the same note. It just covered
the silence of the place and at the same time created a sense of
transparency, which was later very critical to the concept. It is a
very intangible thing. Inspired, I conceptualized the memorial
as an open monument with minimum paved area. I was able to
bring the context of nature to help me deine the order. I had
buried all my buildings but the columns. hey came ater the
idea of light moving in the ripple.
herefore, it is the designer who deines the purpose of the
project. here are many more dimensions to it other than just
physical brief.
MR: Rashid Hussains observation is as relevant today as it
was seventy years ago, if only more critical. Citizens variously
bracketed as users, stakeholders, etc., are critical participants
in the urban process. It is imperative that planning and design
professional recognize this in the very formative parts of the intervention process to create an efective and beneicial dialogue
in the creation of our cities. For too long, users have been seen
as a nuisance who need to be educated in using curated spaces,
rather than designers curating spaces for user needs. his is all
the more relevant in democratic and diverse societies like ours,
where the needs of both, the articulate and the voiceless, need
to be addressed in an equitable manner.

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47 | 2016

57

cities

the profession has failed fantastically to engage with social,

economic or environmental processes processes that
literally determine, define and drive the lives of millions. that
they can and they necessarily should contribute is a given. it
is a telling testimony on its failure to engage that the society
too rarely values the professions potential to contribute
positively, and rightly so.
MR

5HFHQWO\KHOG6WDWHRI$UFKLWHFWXUHH[KLELWLRQLQ0XPEDLTXHVWLRQHG$UHDUFKLWHFWVVWLOO
UHOHYDQWLQ,QGLDDQGFDQWKH\FRQWULEXWHLQDQ\VLJQLFDQWZD\WRDQDWLRQVWDWHDQGDVRFLHW\
LQH[WUDRUGLQDU\X["+DVWKHDUFKLWHFWXUDOSURIHVVLRQUHJLVWHUHGPHUHO\TXDQWLWDWLYHJURZWK
RUKDYHDUFKLWHFWVUHQHGWKHLUSUDFWLFHVZKLOHHQJDJLQJZLWKWKHSURFHVVHVRIKLVWRULFDO
WUDQVIRUPDWLRQGXULQJWKHVHYHQGHFDGHVVLQFH,QGHSHQGHQFH"
KT: Architects have contributed enormously in the last decade
sometimes in a good way and at other times in bad ways. Our
contemporary cities are clumsy because we missed the point
of nature and landscape architecture in them. In education, we
have enshrined the discipline of landscape architecture in our
irst year studio of Urban Design programme. Students learn
about the relationship of site with the architecture design - to
align roads as per site features, surface drainage, siting buildings and all.
In the initial years ater independence, Nehru took active interest in his project of modernity. He had a good relationship with
Habib Rahman, A P Kanvinde, Joseph Allen Stein amongst others. He insured a new progressive direction is adopted in a new
country. Architecture and Planning were very fundamental, but
in subsequent years, the idea got diluted. Master Plan became
the only obsessive instrument in creating cities.
On the other hand, the start of Departments of Landscape
Architecture and Urban Design at School of Planning and

58

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47 | 2016

Architecture was a milestone. Ian McHarg and Luis Mumford

were both part of the irst seminar on Urban Design held in
1959 in University of Pennsylvania. he deliberations of that
seminar led the way for the next ive decades of the ideology
of the disciplines across the world. he lineage was invested in
the relationship between the built form and the open space. So,
the idea of public space and its relationship with the environment becomes critical. hese are very signiicant things. hey
have been sidelined by various other factors. hat is a separate
discussion. From 80s onwards, I see a positive change and it will
only intensify. It will become more and more consequential.
MR: I am afraid I must agree with the provocation in quite a
negative light. Barring a handful of practices, the profession has
failed fantastically to engage with social, economic or environmental processes processes that literally determine, deine
and drive the lives of millions. hat they can and they necessarily
should contribute is a given. It is a telling testimony on its failure to engage that the society too rarely values the professions
potential to contribute positively, and rightly so.

cities

how the bombay plan was rejected is one example in

recent times where architects have played an important
role. we are the only ones through which people can
express what they want from planning. instruments
and frameworks are already there. The question is
whether we are there for the people.
KT

Any advancement of the intellectual discourse about urbanization needs to be balanced out
ZLWKHTXDODQGULJRURXVHIIRUWE\SURIHVVLRQDOVLQWKHGLUHFWLRQRIDSOXUDOLVWLFGLVDJJUHJDWHG
messy, user participation process of engaging with public space. What is the way forward which
LVGRDEOHLQDGHPRFUDWLFVHWXSZLWKDOO6WDWHDQG&HQWUHOHJLVODWLRQV"'R\RXWKLQNVSDWLDOGHVLJQ
professionals, with their limited role in governance and politics, can become effective agents to
DGGUHVVWKHLVVXHVRIVRFLDOGLVSDULW\DQGKHOSSURPRWHHTXLWDEOHVRFLHWLHV",I\HVWKHQKRZ"'R
\RXVHHWKHLUUROHLQLPSURYLQJODUJHUOLYLQJVRFLHWLHV"
KT: Yes. It is noble cause. Without that we are irrelevant. We
are closer to all. Many architects are part of NGOs. How the
Bombay plan was rejected is one example in recent times
where architects have played an important role. We are the only
ones through which people can express what they want from
planning. Instruments and frameworks are already there. he
question is whether we are there for the people.
MR: I guess it will take substantial de-education and some
rigorous recasting of our own imagined roles and responsibility
for the profession to engage with these issues efectively. You
have very correctly used the word messy to describe both the
process and the professions perception. It is precisely because it
is messy that it needs our atention so badly. It is akin to a doctor being put of by messy patients! Greater the mess, deeper
should our dedication in solving the mess.

It is not so simple, I guess. It is also a chicken-and-egg situation.

Unless the profession proves its potential worth, neither elected
governments nor political players will take us seriously. And it is
diicult to show ones capability, especially in the public realm,
without tangible opportunities. One possible way would be
start engaging in public discourses in a way that can make the
professions importance more visible. here is litle doubt that
planning and design professional are crucial in the creation and
sustenance of equitable societies. he active role played by our
contemporaries in Latin America in the transformation of their
societies, for example, hold valuable lessons for us in India.

Q&A
landscape

47 | 2016

59

cities

Nupur Prothi Khanna and Nidhi Madan

MAPPING

NEW DELHIS
FUTURE
THE MANY FACADES OF LUTYENS BUNGALOW ZONE

ur approach towards Lutyens

Bungalow Zone (LBZ) illustrates a serious concern,
that in urban planning in India today
signiicant issues are addressed in isolation. LBZ, the erstwhile capital city
of British New Delhi is designated as
a Heritage Zone in the Master Plan of
Delhi in recognition of ...(a) signiicant
concentration, linkage or continuity of
buildings, structures, groups or complexes
united historically or aesthetically by plan
or physical development. (MPD 2021)

60

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47 | 2016

In the debate on the future of Indian

cities, planning for Lutyens Bungalow
Zone is an opportunity which will be
lost if it is treated as yet another project.
here has been litle atempt towards
aligning aspirations with the unquestionable cultural and ecological signiicance of the area. Landscape architects
value its visionary planning, immense
wealth of historic trees and unique open
space character; conservationists are
concerned about its disappearing heritage; residents demand the rights to build

extensions and new loors; and environmentalists ask to preserve the green lung.
he citizen, in the interim, has illed the
gap in this debate by choosing to use this
space, a luxury in a dense, overcrowded
Delhi. he India Gate lawns on a summer evening or its lanking water features
during chat puja are a reality that has
been kept out of the planning equation
for far too long.

cities

LBZ has raised questions of identity and

ecology for decades. Housing densities
of 14-15 persons/ acre here contrast dramatically with densities of 1100-1600/
acre in parts of Shahjahanabad (PTI).
Associated with the Colonial and then
the upper class urban Indians and civil
servants, the area earned a reputation for
exclusivity. Oten in the eye of the storm
the area has now made it to the national
headlines yet again.
Delhi found itself in a rather bizarre situation a few months ago when, on one
hand it made headlines as being one of
the most polluted cities globally (Atmospheric Environment, University of Surrey,
2015), and, almost simultaneously (August, 2015), the Delhi Urban Art Commission (DUAC) proposed guidelines
for densiication of parts of the LBZ, one
of the few remaining open green zones in
the city of 16.8 million people (Census,
2011). he impetus for the guidelines
was increasing pressure from residents to
remove the reeze on development, and
allow for more property development
beneits. (DUAC, 2015)

LBZ boundary
existing since
2003

FOR DELHI

2021

0.5 0 1 2

10km

Extents of LBZ as per MPD 2021

Chronological evolution
of the LBZ
Planning and design of the British Capital city of New Delhi was based on the
Garden City principles of the renowned
British thinker, Ebenezer Howard. he
city is recognized as one of the enduring
examples of this concept with a unique
symmetry, order and aesthetic master
planning (DUAC, 2015). Its axial symmetry of wide tree-lined avenues, large
plots and bungalows reinforced the
identity of the iconic east-west axis of
Rajpath, a landscape extending from
Rashtrapati Bhawan at Raisina Hill to
India Gate C hexagon and beyond.

Post-Independence, in response to rapid

densification of areas in and around
Central Delhi, with the demolition of
war-time barracks and the construction
of multistoreyed buildings, particularly
around Connaught Place, the Government of India imposed a temporary ban
on development in this area.
In 1988, the Lutyens Bungalow Zone
area was demarcated incorporating an
extent of 25.88 sq.km (of which Imperial
Delhi was 19.12 sq.km) with restrictive
development guidelines in place to
maintain the low-rise character of the
area. Its expansive boundary, as designated at the time, was a recognition of

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47 | 2016

61

cities

.SINF,FYJ_TSJFXNLSNHFSYTUJSUZGQNHXUFHJNSYMJHNY^

the importance of both the bungalow architecture as also its landscape planning
of axial streets, pedestrian infrastructure,
bufers, setbacks and plantation. In order
to protect the intent of the scheme, this
designation included areas that were not
necessarily part of the original concept
but later additions. In 2003, the LBZ
was revised to include 28.73 sq.km, and
declared a heritage zone in the Master
Plan of Delhi (MPD).
In 2015, the Delhi Urban Art Commission proposed to redeine the LBZ
boundaries, in the Lutyens Bungalow
Zone- Boundary and Development Guidelines submited to the Ministry of Urban
Development (Delhi Division). The
areas to be excluded from the LBZ comprised the transition areas between the
historic zone and the areas administered
by MCD, as well as the Central Ridge.

Current concerns
As per the new guidelines, the character
of the LBZ would change dramatically
(to its detriment), with signiicant impact on the environment and character

62

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47 | 2016

of Delhi. he possibility of using this

area for the beneit of a majority has also
not been discussed.
Any atempt to address the LBZ has to
give due recognition to the planning
of its wider footprint,not limiting its
significance to the Rajpath corridor.
he mandate of the proposed guidelines
focuses on the corridor and undermines
relevance of related spaces in the conceptualisation of the LBZ planning.
For instance, green corridors along
the Ridge, Sardar Patel Marg, and
Panchsheel Marg as well as heritage
precincts of Lodi Road, Dr Abdul Kalam
and Prithviraj Road are key alignments
that predate the design of New Delhi.
Planting for LBZ conceptualized by
Edwin Lutyens for this Garden City
mandated a single variety of trees on
each arterial road. The significance
of a holistic street design structure is
not taken into account in realigning
boundaries.
It would be of enduring value to Delhi,
and other cities to emphasize the herit-

age value of equitable central public

spaces, and their connectivity with the
wider city expanse through open space
networks and greens. Western cities,
after having lost much of their heritage to industrialization, have learnt to
preserve their historic core addressing
the relevance of edges and bufer areas
in its protection.
Changing the LBZ boundaries, as is
being proposed, will result in disappearance of the edges, bufers, and transitional greens, sharpening the distinction
between what remains of this area and
the emerging fast-paced developments
in its vicinity.
Over a decade, per capita open space in
Delhi decreased from 25 sq.m/ person
to 15 sq.m/ person (Report, JLL 2011)
with its 20% green cover (Indian State
of Forest Report, 2009)increasingly
compromised. he predominantly green
LBZ, a mere 1.7% of the city area has
taken over a century to mature. Its loss
would adversely impact the habitat it
ofers in the heart of Delhi to hundreds
of species of birds.

cities

he guidelines have been put forth at a

time when Delhi is in dire need of a green
lung for carbon sequestration, rainwater
recharge, improving the micro-climate
and other proactive measures to improve
its global image. he redevelopment of
these areas in the current air pollution
crisis is bound to adversely afect Delhis
atmosphere.

Connaught
Place

Pragati
Maidan
Central Ridge

Rashtrapati
Bhawan

With further densiication of the area, as

proposed in the guidelines, the current
criticality of pollution levels will only
worsen with added construction, commerce, traffic, and parking pressures.
Pressure on other resources including storm water, sewer and rainwater
recharge systems, electricity and communications too have not been thought
through. Neither has the critical concern
of depletion in groundwater recharge as
a consequence of added basements and
hard paving, received due consideration.

Central Vista

Lodhi
Gardens

India Gate

Delhi Golf
Club

Original Lutyens Delhi

LBZ 1988
LBZ 2003
Proposed LBZ 2015

Safdarjung
Airport

Evolution of LBZ delineation

Way forward
he LBZ is one of three invaluable landscape resources of Delhi; the other two
being the Ridge and the River. Nehru
Park, Race Course, Delhi Gymkhana
Club, Safdarjung airport, Safdarjung
Tomb and its precincts, Lodi Garden to
the south; Delhi Golf Club on the southeast; and to the east, the Zoological Garden, Purana Qila and Humayuns tomb
are contiguous open spaces ofering the
possibility of creating verdant networks.
Fragmentation of this large space compromises the possibility of connecting
and creating inclusive open space infrastructure for all sections of society. Public
access to LBZ, its precincts and landscape
heritage is of greater value to the larger
public good today than expansion of
individual residential bungalows.

Connaught
Place

Central
Ridge

Rashtrapati
Bhawan

Central
Vista

Purana
Qila

India
Gate

Delhi
Golf
Club

Zoological
Park

Lodhi
Garden

Nehru park
Safdarjungs
Tomb

Original Lutyens Delhi

Proposed LBZ 2015
Avenue Tree Alignment
Roundabouts

Possibility of green corridors connecting open spaces in Central Delhi

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47 | 2016

63

cities

Landscape character of LBZ Rotaries | Tree canopy along avenues

Areas on the periphery of LBZ, such

as Kidwai Nagar are being redeveloped
to accommodate the growing housing
needs for citizens, and at Moti Bagh
and others for MPs and bureaucrats,
demonstrating the eicacy of planned
densiication to accommodate development pressures, while simultaneously
respecting the landscape character of
Central Delhi.
This anomaly, wherein demands for
financial benefits supersede human
and ecological considerations, tends to
undermine the signiicance of areas such
as the LBZ resulting in a fragmented
and inequitable urban environment.
Any redefinition exercise of the LBZ
therefore, needs to be borne out by a
critical understanding of the cultural
and natural landscape it encompasses.
A study of the diverse lora and fauna
present, quantity of water recharge,
relevance in reducing air pollution and
carbon sequestration will meaningfully
contribute to the endeavour.

64

landscape

47 | 2016

he way forward should balance development pressures, design conservation,

and environmental protection, while addressing the needs of a burgeoning population, preserving the identity of the
city derived out of its multilayered past.
Densiication to create public spaces for
social, cultural and community uses in
these precincts, respecting the cultural
and ecological footprint, updating of
planting guidelines and exploration of
ecological modeling are opportunities
that need to be explored further.
LBZ needs to be conserved, not only for
its historic planning, but signiicantly
its model landscape planning design;
strategic planting; mature, verdant and
diverse canopy (which took nearly a
century to establish); and, the critical
biodiversity it supports. But most of all
LBZ ofers a hope to still breathe clean
air for Delhi citizens.
LBZs continued protection and/or
development must be borne out of a

holistic and long term vision pivoted

upon its cultural values of spatial planning, architectural, landscape and environmental heritage.
A city that respects its past, conserves its
resources (where else in Delhi does one
ind hundred year old trees), incorporates the ambience (luxuriant tree canopy) and addresses the wide spectrum
of its users is inherently smart. he LBZ
debate is crucial at this juncture of city
building in India because urban planning
is devoid of one vision, fragmented into
multiple visions and projects that keep
morphing into multiple names and faces
and facades of a kaleidoscope.
LBZ is inherently signiicant to the discourse of the future of an Indian city. It
is signiicant for showcasing the historic
development of our capital city. It is important for the vast ecological resource it
ofers. It is relevant for safeguarding the
largest, most accessible, and functional
open spaces in the city. his ofers an

cities

ISOLA (Indian Society of Landscape

$UFKLWHFWV'HOKL&KDSWHULQWKHUVW
collaboration of its kind, with INTACH (Indian
National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage)
and IUDI (Institute of Urban Designers-India),
submitted observations and objections to the
Ministry of Urban Development in October
2015 highlighting the lack of consideration to
the landscape heritage of New Delhi.

The setting of architectural heritage

opportunity for charting an inclusive

future for a city, which is growing into a
severely fragmented urbanscape, islands
of abundance siting amidst an expanse
of squalor and deprivation. he LBZ offers hope that with a clearer vision and
a need to balance multiple aspirations,
a solution for this area will be arrived at
through consensus, protecting the values
that are held dear across society. Till such
time as all can sit around the table and
discuss the future of their city, the LBZ
is best let alone.
References
1. July 2015, Report on the Lutyens Bungalow
Zone (LBZ) Boundary and Development
Guidelines, DUAC.
2. October 2015, ISOLA (Indian Society
of Landscape Architects) Delhi Chapter,
Objections and Suggestions.

ISOLA observations
and suggestions include
The LBZ does not represent built heritage
alone. It is an invaluable ecological resource,
DJUHHQOXQJIRUFDUERQVHTXHVWUDWLRQIRU
rainwater recharge and a distinct microclimate which needs protection especially in
the context of Delhis polluted atmosphere.
,WLVLPSHUDWLYHWRUVWPDSWKHH[LVWLQJ
landscape resources in the LBZ zone
DQGTXDQWLI\WKHODQGVFDSHKHULWDJHDQG
its value to the city, both tangible and
intangible. The outstanding values must to
EHSUHVHUYHGDQGWKHTXDOLW\RIRSHQVSDFH
maintained.
In the DUAC report, the area of cultural
value shown is only the Rajpath corridor,
and none of the rest of LBZ. However, the
Garden City planning covered a wider
footprint both in its plantation and in
its axial street design and open space
networks.
A change in land use will adversely
impact important street networks and
axes, with multi-use developments (as per
03'LQFUHDVLQJWUDIFYROXPHVWKHUHE\
putting pressure on and compromising the
street design and interface.
(TXLWDEOHXVHRIRSHQVSDFHZLOOQRWEH
afforded to the general public through these
measures. These are private initiatives that
will not only compromise the integrity of
the landscape heritage, but will also change
the character of Central Delhi.

3. October 2015, INTACH (Indian National

Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage) Delhi
Chapter, A Review.

Public access to LBZ, its precincts and

landscape heritage is of greater value to
the larger public good than extension of
residential bungalows.

Photographs courtesy the Authors

Detailed mapping of Landscape

Resources.
4XDQWLFDWLRQRI/DQGVFDSH+HULWDJH
(tangible and intangible).

Understanding the value of this

Landscape Heritage.
'HQLWLRQRIFRQVHUYDWLRQDQG
development norms and safeguarding
landscape heritage.
Recognising and shaping a
comprehensive vision for this zone for the
future.
A thorough and detailed inventory
and design study to be conducted
over 6-8 months for the Lutyens Delhi
landscape to document, analyse and
create a comprehensive vision for the
LBZ landscape heritage and open space
networks.
INTACH observations
and suggestions include
Modern Day progressive development
means heritage sensitive conservation
oriented development. Can we save
the 50% (that still retain the bungalow
FKDUDFWHU"
LBZ should be recognized as a Heritage
Zone and not a Development zone.
LBZ is a wrong name and it should be
Lutyens Delhi. The area of Lutyens Delhi
should include all areas shown in the
RULJLQDOSODQDQGWKHDUHDUHTXLUHGWR
protect it.
No bungalows should be altered, and
institutional buildings should not be
allowed to follow Master Plan norms if
located within LBZ.
Establish the boundary of the city as
designed by Lutyens as the LBZ boundary.
A detailed study of the different
typologies should be carried out if it does
not already exist and the architectural
features should be maintained as a
dictionary of architectural elements in
the extreme case where a bungalow does
have to be demolished and rebuilt if found
VWUXFWXUDOO\XQWIRUKXPDQRFFXSDWLRQ
A thorough study should be carried out
to determine current landuse, ownership
pattern and state of conservation of
buildings.
No change of landuse should be
permitted.

view from within

Geeta Wahi Dua

CONSERVIN
ENGAGING
ENGAGI
NATURE

WITH

&

ver the past few weeks, there

have been passionate debates
about the pros and cons of
holding a mega event on the loodplains
of the Yamuna river in Delhi. he issue
has been discussed thread bare on 24x7
television and radio channels, from all
possibleand at timesimpossible
perspectives. here are innumerable
articles by experts in the print media
highlighting the devastating efects of
holding such an event on river ecology
and its morphology, with a few outlining broad steps to regain lost ground.

here are no two opinions about the

fact that it will, and now, has caused
adverse efect on the health and well
being of the lood plains and the river.
his is not the irst time that such an
event or development, temporary or
permanent, has taken place on the
lood plains of the river in the capital.
Some years back, the Commonwealth
Games Village residential complex and
Akshardham Temple complex were

66

landscape

47 | 2016

constructed, with all the necessary

permissions. he question remains
why are we, as concerned people in a
democracy, so helpless when it comes
to the question of protection of natural and cultural heritage of our cities
against such pressures? Delhi is a useful
starting point for such a discussion.

Ecological Master Plan

On a philosophical note, it is important
to live and work in the present, which is
now, rather than in a perceived past or
in an imaginary future. he actions of
today will deine the future. So, instead
of being nostalgic about the past or forever imagining a bright future for our
city environment, the irst step towards
inding a sustainable solution towards
the conservation of our natural environment is to identify and document,
in present, environment, culture and
history in spatial terms, in a tangible
manner. I propose an Ecological Master
Plan, EMP which is a comprehensive

document that comprises of listing, description and set of detailed guidelines

for conservation, preservation and engagement with ecologically sensitive
and culturally important natural and
manmade features of a city/ town or
village. he EMP will include detailed
listing of all open areas of varied scales
and character, both natural and otherwise like river, natural lakes and ponds,
nallas, artiicial ponds, lakes, marshy
lands, zoological parks, bird and wildlife sanctuaries, lood plains, sanitary
landill sites; city parks, district parks,
green linkages, (along transportation
corridors) neighbourhood greens,
grounds and maidans; heritage greens
and archaeological parks.
he EMP is to be prepared on a scale
that allows a clear idea about the physical boundaries of each site, along with
detailed description, deining its salient features, past history, ecological
and cultural signiicance in the city.
Various spatial planning sotwares and

view from within

LEGEND

Representation of Ecological Master Plan of Delhi

Ecological Master Plan, EMP is visualised as a comprehensive document that
comprises of listing, description and set of detailed guidelines for conservation,
preservation and engagement with ecologically sensitive and culturally
important natural and manmade features of a city/ town or village.
M

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47 | 2016

67

view from within

B.

B.

C.

C.

A.

A.

A. City Park 10 lakh/ Unit 100 hectares

A. City Multipurpose Ground 10 lakh/Unit 8 hectares

B. District Park 5 lakh/ Unit 25 hectares

B. District Multipurpose Ground 5 lakh/Unit 4 hectares

C. Community Park 1 lakh/ Unit 5 hectares

C. Community Multipurpose Ground 1 lakh/Unit 2 hectares

)JQMN25)RJSYNTSXFHQJFWMNJWFWHM^TKTUJSFWJFXGFXJITSYMJXN_JFSISZRGJWTKZXJWXIJSJX
various categories. Categories of city parks, community parks, city multipurpose grounds, and District
multipurpose grounds may also form part of Ecological Master Plan.

advanced techniques of Remote Sensing can be used to have an updated map

of the city, thus helping in tracking each
change and keeping the information
updated regularly. It is very important
to extend the documentation of these
environmentally signiicant areas in
the Zonal Plans and Ward Local Area
Plans, so that all scales are addressed.

deined so as to create a framework of

botom up approach rather than top
down. hese guidelines should be able
to clearly identify character of various
kinds of intervention zones and specify the long term and short term uses,
functions and conservation measures
keeping in mind the needs of the residents that can be adopted in the areas.

Conservation guidelines

Legal framework

Once the Ecological Master Plan is

ready, detailed guidelines for conservation and use may be prepared by a panel
of experts and professionals (in public
participation) in consultation with the
developing agencies. here is a clause
for public participatory approach to
planning and implementation of the
projects in the Delhi Master Plan 2021.
It needs to be a further nuanced and

At present, there seems to be a lack of

trust in various State Governments regarding role of professionals in development and policy. In Delhi, bodies
like National Green Tribunal (constituted for the issues of environment and
ecology) or Delhi Urban Arts Commission (constituted for the issues of urban
aesthetics) may have experts and professionals but they have limited pow-

68

landscape

47 | 2016

ers, to get their guidelines or speciic

decisions implemented on the ground.
Many times, their rulings are compromised or they are not in the discussion
or decision loop at all or there is a decision reversal under political pressure
or their decisions are overruled by the
bureaucrats and the political class. In
case of World Culture Festivalthe
mega event referred to at the start of
this articleheld in March this year
on the lood plains of Yamuna, despite
the knowledge of the basic fact that the
event of such scale and character would
adversely afect the river ecology into
the future, permission was granted by
National Green Tribunal at the last
hour. It ined the organization for violating green norms, not as a penalty but
environmental compensation. Equally
appalling is the reaction of the Delhi
High Court where rather than ques-

view from within

tioning the concerned authorities involved, they

held applicants responsible for the delay in bringing
the case before them and hence for their inability to
stop the event at that stage. he event got full patronage from the present Governments, both State and
Centre, which is another discussion.
Despite their best intentions, the inability and helplessness of such organizations to hold their forte
as also in the cases of Commonwealth Games and
Akshardham Templeis to be noted. If this can
happen in the countrys capital, then one can think
of even worse situations in other States capitals, not
to mention smaller cities and towns.
he conservation guidelines of the Ecological Master
Plan need to be strongly backed by a legal framework
of tribunals and statutory bodies of State and Centre Government, which are passed in the Parliament
through various Acts of Constitution. All the development agencies like DDA, MCD and NDMC will
be required to work under this common umbrella of
Ecological Master Plan. he EMP can become part
of DMP 2021 and for operational purposes as well
as remain as a separate entity being documented and
implemented in the Environmental division of State
Government.
he EMP underlines the a strong need, to empower
groups of experts and professionals to develop a professional approach towards the conservation of our
environment, supported by systematically compiled
and updated physical data, accessible to all.
he idea of Ecological Master Plan can become a
template for other cities, towns and villages. Once
we have such systems in place, we will have much
informed public discourses focusing on developing
sensitivity towards the fragile nature of our city ecology, history and culture, not only in debates but also
in real actions.

References
www.dda.org.in/ddanew/pdf/Planning/reprint2021.pdf

Environment in
Delhi Master Plans
In India, a Master Plan, with all its limitations and shortcoming of
being abstract, non-participatory, with a top-down approach, is still
the only city scale document in the present planning set up, where
professionals, experts and governing bodies work on a common
working board. The vision document gives broad clues of the areas of
focus of the development in the times to come.
7KH'HOKL0DVWHU3ODQLVFRQVLGHUHGDVDXQLTXHH[DPSOH
of a city level planning exercise that displays a sensitive approach
towards environment and heritage of the city. The city has gained
in more than one ways from it- the system of green linkages,
hierarchies of open green areas, heritage zones, guidelines for Ridge
(city forest) and the River Yamuna. It placed the right foundation
while pointing towards the long term direction of conserving the
natural heritage.
The new Master Plan of the city envisages vision and policy
guidelines for the perspective period up to 2021. It is proposed that
WKH3ODQEHUHYLHZHGDWYH\HDUO\LQWHUYDOVWRNHHSSDFHZLWKWKH
IDVWFKDQJLQJUHTXLUHPHQWVRIWKHVRFLHW\
+ROLVWLFFRQVHUYDWLRQRIQDWXUDOHQYLURQPHQWRIWKHFLW\QGVLWV
mention again in Delhi Master Plan DMP 2021:
Management of Natural Resources and the related environment
infrastructure and services in a manner that would lead to optimization
of use of natural resources, and reduction / abatement of pollution;
Conservation and Development of the Natural features with a view to
enhancing their environmental value; and Development and preservation
of open spaces, greens and landscape / recreational areas.
Rejuvenation of River Yamuna through a number of measures including
HQVXULQJDGHTXDWHRZLQULYHUE\UHOHDVHRIZDWHUE\ULSDULDQVWDWHV
refurbishment of trunk sewers, treatment of drains, sewering of
XQVHZHUHGDUHDVWUHDWPHQWRILQGXVWULDODIXHQWUHF\FOLQJRIWUHDWHG
HIXHQWDQGUHPRYDORIFROLIRUPVDW673V
,GHQWLFDWLRQRIKHULWDJH]RQHVDQGDUFKDHRORJLFDOSDUNV'HYHORSPHQW
of Special Conservation plans for listed buildings and precincts.. with
inclusion of Mehrauli Archaeological Park, Tughlaquabad Archaeological
Park, Sultan Garhi Archaeological Park.

landscape design

CONSCIOUS
KEEPER
TEMPLE OF CONSCIOUSNESS, ALIYAR, TAMIL NADU

landscape design

WINNER OF ISOLA AWARD 2015

GENERAL DESIGN CATEGORY AWARD OF EXCELLENCE
Jury Comments

The design clearly establishes a sense of place and achieves its objectives
of connecting humans to nature and consciousness. A simple, calm, serene,
gesture of a subtle design evokes a sense of peace. Use of local materials, well
done execution creates a place with a design sensibility based on less is more
which is not a slave to pattern making.

ethathiri Maharishi Kundalini

Yoga and Kayakalpa Research
Foundation, founded by Shri
Vethathiri Maharishi in 1985, is situated in a beautiful natural seting at the
foothills of the Western Ghats and in
view of the Aliyar reservoir. he nonreligious research foundation institute,
covering an area of 30.10 acres, imparts
the teachings of Shri Vethathiri Maharishi by ofering various types of courses
on a regular basis and is also involved
in social services activities, adoption of
villages for improvements, conducting
courses in other parts of the country
and abroad. It houses the main building
Temple of Consciousness and Maharishis samadhi along with other facilities. On any given day, there are around
two thousand people atending various
courses and research facilities. Apart
from these, many general visitors and
devotees visit the place.
'ZJWXUFHJGJY\JJS4RPFWF2FSIFUFR
and Arul Arangam

Site
he site is adjoining natural reserved
forest on the south side with beautiful
panoramic views of mountains and forest. he hostels and oice blocks were
existing along with few trees scatered
all over the site. here was a natural
stream cuting across the site northsouth which was almost perennial. Fed
by the river water from the adjoining
mountains, the stream has been integrated with the landscape design by
rerouting it along the main approach
the Walk of Faith.

Master Planning
Master planning of the project which
started in the year 2000, included integration of the existing few buildings
with the future expansion of addition
of facilities. he direction taken was towards sustainability and conservation
of natural resources.

landscape

47 | 2016

71

landscape design

17
C A
N A
L

16
16
18
16
18
2
4

11

15

>

10
12

5
15
8

9
7

18

13
18
15
14

MASTER PLAN
LEGEND
1. Entrance & Arrival Spaces

10. Lawn

2. Information Centre

11. Mani Mandapam The Samadhi

3. Orientation Class Room Here new visitors are briefed

12. Museum and Gallery

about the campus

13. Classrooms

 2IFH%ORFN

14. Dining & Kitchen Facililties

5. The Walk of Faith The main approach towards the temple

15. Hostels, Cottages & Accommodation Facilities

6. The Circular Ramp

16. Cultivation Lands, Mango Tree Farm

7. Omkara Mandapam The Temple of Consciousness

17. Treatment Plants

8. Submerged shoe deposit centre

18. Parking Spaces

9. Arul Arangam The Auditorium

72

landscape

47 | 2016

FACING PAGE
The Walk of Faith with steps and ramp

landscape design

he Master Plan kept on evolving with

the increase in the inlow of visitors and
addition of new requirements. he design
scope included the entrance zone, information centre, orientation classroom, administrative block, Omkara Mandapam
the Temple of Consciousness, Arul Arangam
the auditorium, museum and gallery,
classrooms, dining and kitchen, cotages
and accommodation facilities.

Being a charitable institution, inancial

planning was also an integral part of the
future course of actions. Since the funding depended mostly on the course fees
and donations, so any unnecessary provisions, extravaganzas and luxury were
strictly prohibited. he main idea in
the project was to work with nature at
every scale and stage.

landscape

47 | 2016

73

landscape design

landscape design

Mani Mandapam in its setting, in all its

splendour and glory
Large shaded spaces for silent walks
One of the many footpaths with seatings
provided for the inmates
The Walk of Faith glowing in the dark

Also ater the demise of Shri Vethathiri Maharishi in the year

2006, a Mani Mandapam which houses his samadhi also became a part of the master plan. he project was completed by
the end of year 2011.

Design
he campus, being public in nature, aims to spread the teachings and philosophies of Shri Vethathiri Maharishi. hus, it
was important that by itself the campus relects his way of
life and thoughts.
he spatial design and design elements materials were kept
simple and sensitive to the environment, so that the overall
design merged well with the surroundings. Use of natural
and locally available materials and cratsmanship was envisaged. Choice of building and surface materials was done
carefully so as to use only natural materials, earthy shades
with rustic inishes. here was a predominant use of grey
granites, red porous laterite blocks cut to diferent sizes and
thickness, wire-cut bricks and rock skins. Atention to detailing was an important factor like the joints, stacking paterns,
projections and recesses, avoiding the visibility of cement
anywhere in the inal gaps, edges, surface inishes, combination of materials, slopes and gradients etc. he materials
were custom-cut to suit the designs by establishing necessary machineries at the site.

landscape

47 | 2016

75

landscape design

he main idea was to make the visitors feel detached from

the daily mundane routine, worries and stress and instead
feel the peace and pleasure of the place with warmth of
the surroundings, so as to help them improve their health,
peace, happiness and well-being.

Multilayered grass berms with access

to the residential quarters

he design principles were the guiding factors and the

site itself as an inspiration. With the philosophy of Shri
Vedathri Maharishi, participation of people associated
with this organisation, the expertise of the local artisans
and cratsmen along with the purity of thought and mind,
the design was intended to sink into the hearts and souls
of the people inside. It was ensured that no harm would
fall on the original character and ambience of the place,
the sanctity of the atmosphere, the existing lora and fauna and to the Mother Earth.

PROJECT DETAILS

Circumambulatory pathway around

the Mani Mandapam

Project Name

Temple of Consciousness

Location

Aliyar, Coimbatore District, Tamil Nadu

Size

30.10 Acres

Client

Vethathiri Maharishi Kundalini Yoga and

Kayakalpa Research Foundation

Landscape Architect Jeyakumar Associates

S. Jeyakumar (Principal Landscape Architect)

Sushma Jeyakumar (Landscape Architect)
Project Duration

20002011

Cost

` 3.50 Crores

he design aimed at being considerate to the diferent

age groups, people from various sects and religions with
the core objective of creating an overall spirituality in the
environment, a sense of peace and calmness, a sense of
brotherhood and relationships.
Project description and photographs by Jeyakumar Associates

76

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47 | 2016

landscape design

GREEN
RETREAT
CITY
IN THE

AAREY BHASKAR PUBLIC PARK, MUMBAI

Bowl fountain near the park entrance

ocated amidst residential area with high population density, the park
was envisaged for heavy usage by all age groups for active and passive
recreation. he site being surrounded by high-rise concrete buildings, the design idea centred around the park to have a picturesque quality
and be densely planted to provide an oasis, in the otherwise, harsh surrounding buit forms. With the ideas to recover the initial cost of development and later maintenance cost, and to make the project self-sustainable,
many revenue generating activities were also proposed.

landscape

47 | 2016

77

landscape design

15

12

11
10

13
8

7
6

L L
A

14

16

4
3
2
1

>

A C

LANDSCAPE LAYOUT PLAN

1.

3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.

78

LEGEND
Main Entrance
4HJ
Library
Water Fountains
Waterfall
Yoga Hall
Amphitheatre
Food Court
Rock Garden
Lily Pond
Toddlers Area

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47 | 2016

12.
13.
14.
15.
16.

Childrens play area

Nursery
Public Utilities
Multipurpose Area
Open Ground /
Area for
Recreational Activities

R O A

landscape design

The tray waterfall adds to the soundscape

of the garden with its sound enhancing
the feeling of being amidst nature

FACING PAGE
Walkway near the amphitheatre

A balance between tranquillity with

activities and atractions that would
turn the park into a positive entity for
the neighbourhood and the city as a
whole was the initial goal for design
development. All the areas in the park
are accessible by steps as well as ramps
for the convenience of the physically
challenged. All existing mature trees are
retained. Facilities for active recreation

for all age groups have been provided,

like childrens play areas, outdoor gym,
jogging track etc. Passive areas with
interesting siting spaces provided for
those who just want to be with the nature. A library, yoga hall, meditation
areas and an artists corner with an outdoor display area for artworks provide
a variety of experience in the park.

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47 | 2016

79

landscape design

Taking in consideration the natural contour levels, an amphitheatre with nine

hundred seating is proposed, which can
be rented for concerts, functions and
product promotion activities. Surface
drainage system has been introduced by
altering land forms (taking into consideration base levels of existing trees) to avoid
looding during heavy rains of Mumbai.

Plantation comprises of a combination

of exotic palm species along with indigenous tree species, to provide unique
visual character, not usually seen in
Indian public parks. Water is used as a
design element in lily pond, fountains
and waterfalls. A plant nursery is developed to propagate and grow plants for
the park and also for sale to public.

Project description and photographs

by Swati Dike

Steps to the amphitheatre upper level

Section of jogging track lined with
Bismarkia palms
Rock garden amidst black bamboos,
cycas and ferns

landscape design

PROJECT DETAILS
Project Name

Aarey Bhaskar Public Park

Location

Dindoshi, Goregaon (E), Mumbai

Size

3.70 Acres {15,000 sq.m}

Client

S D Constructions
Jeyakumar Associates

Landscape Architect

Swati Dike (Principal Landscape Architect)

Architecture {Entrance Gate}

Shekhar Dadarkar

Project Duration

20052008

Cost

` 8.00 Crores

seeing the unseen

Anjan Mitra

EXPERIENCING

SOUND
SCAPE

SHABDO A FILM BY KAUSHIK GANGULY

drunkard goes up the

stairs, bangs the door,
beats up his wife, topples
shelves, and throws utensils.
Acts of sheer frustration, anger.
We see visuals, we hear voices.
Yet, its unreal, almost ghostly,
something is missing.

Tarak is missing.

seeing the unseen

SHABDO

Tarak is shabdo, the sound.

He brings life to the muted act and his soundscape makes it a simulating experience. He, the
Foley artist simulates associated sounds that
completes a visual narrative. Whats more is
that he is capable of triggering memories even
without accompanying visuals; just by creating
sound.

His is a fascinating world. Yet for us it lies

dormant in our day to day experience of space,
in our actions, our feelings, etc. We tend to take
it for granted and hardly pay it atention. But, as
someone who tries to simulate real sounds, these
everyday sounds are the focal point of his entire
existence. Like a magician he can conjure up the
perfect sound out of seemingly nothing, a few
odd studio props and his boundless creativity.

seeing the unseen

Close your eyes;

and you can hear
an elevator coming down,
a lock of pigeons lutering
at the delight for the open sky.
You can feel life.

84

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47 | 2016

seeing the unseen

It is essential for Tarak to critically observe the

sounds emanating from various acts in Nature, in the
Environment, in day to day mundane operations and
also swings of moods. Re-creating the same sound demands a lot of innovation and creativity it demands
sensitivity. To be able to rise to such demands Tarak
has to concentrate on the unheard sounds of objects,
acts small and signiicant. he unimportant heard
sounds of human voices, commands slowly recedes, a
slave to this unheard soundscape. It is not a psychological problem but a conscious choice.

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47 | 2016

85

seeing the unseen

Ater all he is an artist.

Like a painter who relies on colours and lines, or a poet
who expresses ideas and meanings with words, Taraks
oeuvre is one of sounds. He creates meaning with sounds
and knows the diference between the sounds created
by a cup that is full, partly full or empty.
No wonder he claims that, shabdo ilmer jaan bujhli,
(shabdo is the soul of the ilm); and emphasises his role
as a creator of total experience, and the role of the sounds
he creates in bringing meaning to any narrative.
Like Dr Swati a psychiatrist, we all are compelled to
undertake a journey into Taraks world of soundscapes.
We marvel at the unheard sounds that pervade our world
and its importance in bringing meaning to our existence,
our experience. For a designer, an architect, a landscape
architect sounds are another dimension to add. Its
another powerful parameter to include, a cue to bring
dynamism into an otherwise static spatial experience.

86

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47 | 2016

seeing the unseen

I sit back and think of Shabdo (more comprehensive than just sound but a body of emotions,
meaning surrounding it). Clearly it becomes an
important aspect of spatial experience. he same
space evokes new life, changes perception and
keeps communicating new meanings all the time.
A window is no more just a physical element that
allows in light and air. Tarak has taught us that the
window is a portal to experience life around us.
he cuckoo of the hen heralds in the morning,
responded to by the chirping of the birds and then
shatered by the car-horns disturbing reality.
he mild rumbling of leaves a whisper, leaves are
talking.
We are in a living world a wonderful, joyous,
eventful space to explore.
Tarak is narrating Shabdo Brahma holistic
soundscape.

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47 | 2016

87

seeing the unseen

Close your eyes, the leaves above you are moving, a

dry leaf loating in the winds lands next to you, you are
treading sotly over the fallen leaves some dried and
some moist; diferent sounds.
Somebody is dragging a chain the jangling, scraping sound on the ground, we wonder who he is an
escaped prisoner he may be.

88

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47 | 2016

seeing the unseen

You are nearing a waterfall the drumming, brushing sound of water over the boulder, you are wet and
drying yourself in ire the crackling sound of ire, you
feel the warmth what a nice adventure in the jungle
and then you open your eyes and you ind yourself in a
cotage room up in north Bengal.
Such is our connection of sound to known imagery
to our memories.

Photo source: abigailthompson.wordpress.com

All this can be created by a piece of paper, by footsteps, cloth and very incidental titbits it hinges
entirely on the creativity of the Foley artist. He makes
us notice this soundscape (Shabdo Brahma) and its
deep connection to our experience and memories.

Written and directed by Kaushik

Ganguly, Shabdo (language Bengali,
running time 100 minutes) is the story
of a Foley artist who creates ambient
VRXQGVIRUOPVEXWJUDGXDOO\JHWV
trapped in his own world full of sounds.
Released in 2012-2013, and starring

hank you Tarak for making us sensitive to the soundscape and its connection to our lives; its value and its
meaning. Now I realise there is nothing called silence
in this material world, a living world full of sounds
that signiies life itself.

Ritwik Chakraborty, Raima Sen, Churni

Ganguly, Victor Banerjee and Srijit
0XNKHUMLWKHOPZRQWKHWK1Dtional Film Awards for Best Feature Film
in Bengali and the Best Audiography.

Photographs: Screenshots from Shabdo, Dhoom Video

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89

book review

Review by Trisha Gupta

THE

WORLD
PICTURE
AS

llow me to start this

review with a triptych of images
since Tasveer Ghar, as the
name suggests, is all about
pictures. An online database
initiated in 2006 for collecting, digitising, and documenting the popular visual
culture of South Asia, Tasveer Ghar has generated exciting conversations among
scholars and arts practitioners, around the social, political and performative lives
of images. he beautifully
produced Visual Homes, Image Worlds is a collection of
essays generated by the Tasveer Ghar network (and irst
published online).

VISUAL HOMES, IMAGE WORLDS

ESSAYS FROM TASVEER GHAR
THE HOUSE OF PICTURES
EDITORS: Christiane Brosius, Sumathy

Ramaswamy and Yousuf Saeed

PUBLISHER: Yoda Press, New Delhi, 2015

Paperback, 360 pages

ISBN 93-82579-07-9
SIZE: 241 x 184 x 20 mm

90

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47 | 2016

The images I want to discuss appear

in diferent essays in the book. But to
me they seemed to speak to each other
across the pages. he irst picture is the
frontispiece of Richard H Daviss superb,
succinct essay on God posters for and of
worship. It features a smiling sari-clad
woman in side proile. Holding an aarti
thaali, her head covered respectfully, she
raises her eyes to something we cannot

see. Beyond the scalloped window arch

in which she is framed, a series of South
Indian-style temple gopurams and coconut palms are silhoueted against the
evening sky. he caption reads: A Hindu
Devotee Prays.
Davis points out that the Calcuta Art
Studio, one of the irst companies to issue chromolithographs of Hindu deities,
switly realised that the Indian public
wanted images of the gods, but single
prints... for worship, not bound volumes
for leisurely perusal. he recognition led
commercial publishers and companies
to produce calendars, posters and other
visual material that could cater to this
demand. But slowly, as Davis shows, images produced for worship were joined
by images of worship. he incipient form
of these was the Lakshmi or Ganesh
with a plate of prasad and/or lit diyas
painted at their feet, thus incorporating
the intended puja samagri (items used
for worship) into the image itself. he
image Ive described could be said to be
a more advanced version, where not just
the puja samagri, but the worshipper is
mirrored within the image. In this particular poster, there is no deity at all. But
there is a temple, and a human devotee
who contemplates the divine.

book review

he second picture I want to point out

seems to me to echo the irst in some
ways, and difers from it in others. he
irst image was dated mid-20th century,
while this dates to the late 19th or early
20th century. It is a beautifully illustrated
textile label, included in Catherine B
Ashers article Fantasizing the Mughals
and Popular Perceptions of the Taj Mahal.
Here, too, there is a human figure in
the let foreground, framed within an
arch and looking out into the distance.

he object of contemplation here is the

Taj and its relection, not a deity or a
temple. he young man stands with his
back to us, wearing a kurta and dhoti, as
well as a fetching red turban and a red
sash around his waist. Asher describes
him as overwhelmed by the buildings
signiicance, or perhaps smiten with love.
here is no obvious religiosity here, but
the old mendicant in red robes, seated
to the right of the image, may be said to
provide a hint of the spiritual.

he third image dates to the present day:

2010, to be precise. It is a beautiication
mural on Chennais Anna Salai, made by
the artist J P Krishna, and reproduced
as part of Roos Gerritsens essay on the
gradual replacement of political and ilm
hoardings along the citys major arteries
by murals meant to signify Tamil culture
and heritage. On the right hand side are
two Mamallapuram temples, their stone
carved outlines reproduced in almost
photographic detail. On the let, again
with their backs to us, are two igures
admiring the grandeur of the buildings.
Like the woman in the irst image and
the young man in the second, these viewers stand in for us the real-life viewers,
standing outside the frame. And in this
case, theyre tourists.
hese three images are drawn from three
very diferent time periods, and for very
diferent purposes calendar art for
Indian consumers, a commercial textile
label to be sent abroad, and a street-side
mural created by municipal iat to project
a new aspirational global urbanity. And
yet, in incorporating the viewers gaze
into the image itself, I see these images
as being very clearly in conversation.
Looked at together they open up a whole
range of thoughts about the aesthetics
of looking: whether the contemplation
of beauty is the same when the subject
is perceived as divine, as spiritual, or
as world heritage. At one level, it is a
conversation that emerges from the old
Benjaminian chestnut about the loss of
aura, but in terms of these speciic images, it could only have unfolded within
the pages of this book.

A Hindu Devotee Prays

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47 | 2016

91

'JFZYNHFYNTSRZWFQRFIJG^FWYNXY/50WNXMSFYMFYIJUNHYXY\TYTZWNXYXQTTPNSLFYYMJ
Mamallapuram heritage site. Anna Salai, January 2010.

And this is no accident. hrough the essays here, popular visual culture in India
emerges as an under-explored bin of
history. Rummaging through it is both
a way to produce an alternative archive,
and challenge tightly-policed notions of
genre. As the editors point out in their
Introduction, the Tasveer Ghar archive
is a place of cross-fertilisation. Indian
images that were mass-produced, be
they greeting cards, god posters, patriotic
prints, street art, advertisements or cinema
hoardings, journey through various
sorts of worlds, and as they do so, develop complex biographies and relations
with other images. Single images (or a
constellation of them) oten freely crisscross any boundaries that might exist
between public and private, local and
global, religious and secular (oten more
like sacred and profane), and finally,
citizenship and consumer-hood.

92

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47 | 2016

Patricia Uberois essay Good Morning

Welcome Svagatam, suitably for the
irst Indian anthropologist to take massproduced visual culture seriously as a
subject of study, is placed at the start of
the book, and helps locate calendar art
within the dense matrix of tradition and
modernity, Indian and Western. Stylistically and technologically, calendar art is a
modern art form born of the Anglo-Indian
colonial encounter, though it obviously has
roots in several indigenous traditions also,
Uberoi writes. hus the recourse to tradition in calendar art is both a reaction to,
and is matched by, the appeal and prestige
of westernized modes of representation.
She ofers many illustrations of this, including a semiotic reading of goddesses
and actresses saying Welcome, or ILU
ILU and Aum Sweet Aum as hybrid appropriations of the colonisers language.

Yousuf Saeeds essay, which follows

Uberois, offers another example of
hybrid appropriation in the form of
Eid cards, which were likely to have
been inspired by Christmas cards, and
oten actually used blank picture cards
imported in bulk rom Europe [featuring]
photographs of locations and objects as
alien to Indian Eid as Greek and Italian
sculptures and monuments, ... besides
European cinema and theatre stars of the
time!. Saeed also traces the transformation of images on Eid cards. While early
20th-century cards those created in
India contained modern objects like
aeroplanes, cars and multi-storied buildings, and no Muslim-cap-wearing boys,
cards from the late 1980s are dominated
by images of Mecca, Medina, Quranic
calligraphy, crescent-and-star icons, pious
praying women and babies, and occasionally, romantic rose bouquets.

book review

he book is divided into sections thematically rather than by age or region or type of
visual material. So, for instance, Christiane
Brosiuss partly-ethnographic meditation
on Valentines Day cards is not placed
alongside Yousuf Saeeds, but in the section
On Love, Land and Landscapes. Brosiuss
subject is a fascinating one how Archies
Gallery helped create a language of love for
post-liberalisation India but her insights
sometimes seem rather obvious, and her
analysis of the actual images sometimes
lopsided. For instance, she insists that the
scooter [on a card] cannot be an aspirational marker because it is tied to lowerclass mobilities, small-town aspirations, and
a Nehruvian petit bourgeoisie, seeking to
establish its present-day association with
freedom using An Evening in Paris (1967)
really a rather old cinematic reference
point! All of this ignores the basic fact that
Archies clients are almost all school and
college students, and for most of these, a
two-wheeler certainly remains an aspirational thing.
In the same section, Sumathi Ramaswamy
looks at another profoundly familiar form
of visual culture that has been crying out to
be studied: the mapped form of the nation
in popular prints. In the artful mapping of
the bazaar, she successfully shows, bodies appear to mater more than boundaries,
the afective more than the abstract. But
Ramaswamys surprise at what she sees
as these free, demotic appropriations of
cartography, seems surprising: surely one
genealogy for 20th-century Bharat Mata
maps lies within pre-colonial cosmological traditions of map-making, whether
18th-century Rajasthani images like that of
Krishna as Visvarupa, containing the cosmos within the divine body, or Nathdwara
Pichhwais of pilgrimage routes.

Kajri Jains essay on monuments, landscapes and romance in popular imagery

is a wonderful example of how crossfertilisation works in Indian visual
culture. Drawing on religious/mythological prints, calendar art and cinemainspired paraphernalia, Jain argues that
the framing and staging of romantic
couples whether legendary folk lovers
like Sohni and Mahiwal, mythical ones
like Visvamitra and Menaka, Hindi ilm
couples or real-life ones consistently
represents them in and for the public:
outdoors and facing the viewer rather than
or as well as each other.
Between Rosie Thomass analysis of
the very particular Orient peddled by
early Indian cinema (Arabian Nights, the
Wadia version of Aladdin, Alif Laila, and
so on), Sabeena Gadihokes tracing of
ilm history through Lux ads, and Vishal
Rawlleys painstaking delineation of the
types of sexy ladies on Bhojpuri music
album covers, the At the Movies section
takes in a wide swathe of the ilm world.
In the Consuming Images section, Philip
Lutgendorf s analysis of tea advertisements deals with familiar terrain in a
fascinating, thorough fashion. I enjoyed
Abigail McGowans tour of the modern
home, and her argument about the
erasure of labour from these depictions
of urban women. I was less persuaded
by her piting her visual archive against
cherry-picked literary sources from a
previous era: in particular, the comparison of mid-20th century calendar art
with he Brides Mirror (an Urdu classic
from 1869) seems strange.
he section Of Gods and Cities bridges
two rather diferent themes. Beginning

with the Richard Davis piece discussed

above, we move to Annapurna Garimellas
discussion of grihani (housewife) aesthetics, as expressed in Dasara doll-displays
in South Indian households. he theme
of images that are used to perform identity in public segues nicely into Shirley
Abraham and Amit Madhesiyas Gods
on Tile, which explores somewhat
repetitively an urban phenomenon
weve all seen: the use of religious icons
to prevent people peeing in public space.
he deliberately engineered transformation of public space is also the subject
of Roos Gerritsens Chennai Beautiful,
mentioned earlier. Gerritsens analysis of
Tamil heritage as enshrined in Chennais
new murals is detailed and interesting, but
a less entrenched ideological perspective
might be beter able to unpack the contents of what is currently lumped together
under the too-easy rubric of neo-liberal
globalisation, neo-liberal nostalgia, and
neo-liberal middle class publics. How do we
understand, for instance, the fact that many
of these sanitised murals are by the same
artist who made the now-removed political
hoardings? Stephen Ingliss essay on the
hugely popular artist K Madhavan who
made the original banners for SS Vasans
legendary ilm Chandralekha (1948) is
a revelation, and again, demonstrates
powerfully the way that cinematic imagery,
product advertising, religious iconography
and political propaganda low in and out of
each other. Madhavans vast and fascinating
body of work (of which only a fraction is
yet in any archive) makes clear, once and
for all, that the study of visual cultures is
truly fecund terrain, in which all of Indias
obsessions can come together. May Tasveer
Ghars many interminglings continue to
bear ever richer fruit.

The book review was first published in Biblio A Review of Books in September-November 2015.
We are thankful to the publishers for granting permission to reproduce the same.

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47 | 2016

93

book review

Review by Kiran Kalamdani

CONTEMPORARY

INVENTORY

shameful in others) needs to be looked

at with understanding, feeling, humility and pragmatism. Greener ways of
living in small setlements (as against
the big city terrible place) need to be
understood and appreciated. Our fastgrowing populations demand more and
new things needs to be balanced with
responsibilities that relate to our recent/
distant past.

BAOLIS OF BUNDI:
THE ANCIENT STEPWELLS
PUBLISHER: INTACH, New Delhi, 2015

Paperback, 152 pages

ISBN 978-93-82343-13-4
SIZE: 241 x 228 x 10 mm

94

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47 | 2016

hile we as a nation move

towards an organized society of the 21st Century,
having seen the worst of the Industrial
Revolution and riding the crest of a wave
of the Communications Revolution,
our past that was once glorious in parts
and moments (also despicable and

It could be that these slower civilizations

of the past, churned out setlements that
were greener, more graceful and at peace
with the people, their politics and the
surrounding environment. Maybe all
was not well with them (read feudalism, epidemics, illiteracy, ills of a caste
system and lower life expectancy) as
some would like to romanticise. But the
fact remains like a clear writing on the
wall, or rather ground, that till the Independence of India one sees a continuous
patronage of such structures that speak
of a concern to create beautiful testimonies to the need for public places around
water. Lessons of compact setlements
and close-knit communities that are now
giving way to gated communities and
islands of opulence, rendering our towns
and cities non-inclusive, inequitable and
un-liveable for the majority, need to be
learnt once again. he public realm as a

book review

THE BAOLIS

BAOLIS OF BUNDI : THE ANCIENT STEPWELLS

PLATFORMS
These are provided regularly at the junction of the steps
and the walls. These platforms serve as seating space for
travelers and visitors.

TORANAS
Toranas are seen above the gateway of elaborate baolis
adding richness to their architecture.

PARAPETS
&DQWLOHYHUHGSODWIRUPIRUSXOOH\VLQ*XODE%DROL

Parapets are constructed completely in stone with stone

VODEV[HGRQVWRQHSRVWVSURYLGHGDWWKHWHUUDFHQDUURZ
walkways leading to arched gateways and at other elevated
areas in order to prevent accidents.

PULLEYS
Pulley system for drawing water is found at cantilevered
platforms at the terrace level along the walls of the well.

ORNAMENTATION AND
SURFACE DECORATIONS
3ODWIRUPVDORQJWKHVWHSVOHDGLQJWRWKHZHOO5DQLMLNL%DROL

The following patterns of ornamentation are seen in the

various baolis at Bundi:

$MKDURNKDLQ1DKDU'KRRVNL%DROL

$QHODERUDWHO\RUQDPHQWHGJDWHZD\LQ5DQLMLNL%DROL

3URMHFWLQJZDONZD\VVXSSRUWHGE\VWRQHEUDFNHWVDQGSURWHFWHGE\
VWRQHSDUDSHWZDOOV5DQLMLNL%DROL

Torana at the entrance to the Bhawaldi Baoli

Paintings: Surface decorations in the forms of paintings

from the Bundi School of Painting can be seen on the
VXUIDFHDQGVRPHWLPHVWKHVRIWRIDUFKHV
Ornamentation in plaster: 5HOLHIZRUNLQOLPHSODVWHULV
IRXQGLQJDWHZD\VbaradarisDQGchhatris is another form
of surface decoration.

0XUDOVXQGHUDQHQWUDQFHDUFKLQ5DQLMLNL%DROL

Relief work in stone: Ornamentation in the form of stone

sculpture is widely observed in more elaborate baolis
especially in the toranachhatrisEUDFNHWVQLFKHVSDUDSHW
SDQHOVFROXPQVSLOODUVSODWIRUPVDQGRUQDPHQWDOVWRQH
bands etc.





result is geting eroded, rendering public

spaces as unused, neglected or abused
dumps of garbage or obsolescence, socially exclusive.
Baolis of Bundi by INTACH focuses on
this very aspect of a 14th century origin
setlement where the water sources (baolis and kunds) were once public spaces
roughly distributed at a rate of one
per 1800 to 2000 people. Constructed
largely in the 16th and 17th centuries,
a period when Bundi enjoyed political
autonomy and stability It is indeed a welcome irst book to deal with 48 stepwells
and 10 kunds of a single urban region
in their local surroundings, artistic and
architectural features. he purpose of
the book seems to be to reach out to
the architectural student and teacher
(not mentioned anywhere, but obvious
from the visual language and the text),
or at best the heritage enthusiast who
may be looking for speciic material of
a region. Another noble purpose may
be to include the community involved
at one time in the makingand now
the present abuseof the monuments
and the rich heritage, a society divided
between a rich inheritancethe challenge of the future and a miserable
present condition in a language (only
English) which few users would under-

stand or appreciate. If the inal aim is to

ensure conservation of these 58 baolis
and kunds, what is urgently required
is a multidisciplinary approach where
the anthropologist/sociologist/ social
worker; the water expert, the hydraulic
engineer, the economist, the cratsperson and the architect work together. he
pilot project completed for the Bhawaldi
Baoli, a State-Protected Monument is a
good beginning. But a legal-technicalinancial and user-based framework for
the rest of the baolis and kunds needs to
be initiated which is based on community participation but initiated through
a Heritage Cell for the town or even
the taluka.
A near complete omission of the community in terms of recent pictures (the
archival etchings and lithographs show
an abundance) is conspicuous. It is the
people who give meaning and reason for
the water, the stones, bricks, lime/cement mortar to exist. hese cannot exist
, survive or be abused and divorced from
each other. he architectural drawings
show several plans drawn at diferent
scales to it into the available spaces in
the book. A comparative drawing with
few representative baolis and kunds with
their respective sections could have been
a good analytical exercise to explore

the relative sizes of the creations. he

text information on the condition mapping drawings are barely visible in the
drawings.
Directions for future development of
the baolis as a system of water conservation and their public use is a diicult
challenge due to the advent of piped
water supply and drainage. Perhaps there
were instances of water contamination,
disease, water scarcity and famines that
may be part of the collective memory
which needs to be explored in such
an exercise. If government action and
public apathy has led to the neglect of
a collective heritage, then there should
obviously be corrective measures from
both ends and the book points towards
that without making an issue.
Juta Jain Neubauers introduction to
the subject with a reference to the irst
stepwells at Girnar and the irst structural stepwells of Gujarat then takes
a sweeping view that includes Hindu,
Islamic, Jain patronage in Northern,
western and central India. She also
makes a gender issue saying that most
of these wells were commissioned by
women with philanthropic or charitable
concerns or at times to perpetuate the
memory of a patron while making a

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47 | 2016

95

The graphic design and layout of the

book raises the standards to a new level
on this subject. In the inal analysis, the
book raises many expectations and
hopes on the subject but ends up answering only a few of them. For someone
looking for a basic introduction to the
subject, it is a good start up.

B17

GULAB BAOLI

B18

LOCATION AND SETTING

DESCRIPTION

DAMRA BAOLI (BISHTI BAOLI)

LOCATION AND SETTING

%XO %XO &KDERXWUD below Handja

HISTORIC
Horse. There is a fountain on the
The baoli ZDV EXLOW GXULQJ WKH WK
side of the EDROLVZDOODQGDSRPS
century by the ruler Oumet Singh.
A building was made above the en
ARCHITECTURAL
trance.
The baoli KDV D 8 SODQ ZLWK WKUHH
OWNERSHIP: Public
LJKWVRIUDWKHUQDUURZVWHSVJRLQJ
USE
straight to the deep well. The well
PAST USE: Drinking water
itself is surrounded on three of its
PRESENT USE: Not used anymore
sides by rectangular platforms. The
water drawing platform is located
PROTECTION: 8QSURWHFWHG
on the left wall.
MATERIALS OF CONSTRUCTION

8QFXW DQG FXW VWRQH ZLWK PRUWDU ORNAMENTATION

5HFHQW SODVWHU RQ WKH OHIW VLGH  ZDOO 9HU\ OLWWOH GHFRUDWLRQ 1LFKHV ZLWK
EDVUHOLHI VFXOSWXUHV 6RPH GHFR
of the third series of steps.
rated stones in the wall are reused
stones. This baoli is one of the most
SIGNIFICANCE
common type of baolis of Bundi.
+,6725,&
$5&+,7(&785$/
&8/785$/
ASSOCIATIONAL
27+(5

B19

PROTECTION: 8QSURWHFWHG

Protected by the Department of Ar

FKHRORJ\DQG0XVHXPV*R5

The baoli is rectangular in plan. It has

a rather narrow and steep stair go
ing straight to the well located deep.
7KHUH DUH VPDOO LJKWV RI kund like
steps on the sides of the well.
ORNAMENTATION

MATERIALS OF CONSTRUCTION

Cut and uncut stones with mortar. A

recent plaster on the right wall.
SIGNIFICANCE

+,6725,&
$5&+,7(&785$/
&8/785$/
ASSOCIATIONAL
27+(5

The baoli can be compared to the GuODE %DROL with a simple outline and
features. It is also made of some re
used stones. One can notice a little
niche projecting on the wall and two
RWKHUV ZLWK EDVUHOLHI FDUYHG VFXOS
tures.

GRADE: II

PRESENT CONDITION

Advanced state of decay. The water

is very dirty with garbage. Trees are
growing on the walls. Pigeons drop
pings.

19.00m

In a small street on the left side of

Main street when coming from 'DPUD%DROL

13.00m

BHAWAL DEV KI BAOLI (BHAWALDI BAOLI)

DESCRIPTION

LOCATION AND SETTING

HISTORIC

Souraj Pol

The date of construction is unknown.

OWNERSHIP: Private

ARCHITECTURAL

USE
PAST USE: Drinking water
PRESENT USE: Not used anymore

The baoli is rectangular in plan. It has

a very simple portico at the entrance
with a pointed arch and a small met
al gate. Then a stair goes straight to
WKH ZHOO ZLWK D LJKW RI IRXU VKRUW
PROTECTION: 8QSURWHFWHG
VWHSV DW WKH WRS OLQWHO DQG EHDPV
MATERIALS OF CONSTRUCTION
representing trabeated construction.
Cut and uncut stones with mortar. 7KH ZHOO FDQ EH UHDFKHG E\ D LJKW
6ODEV RI VWRQH RQ WKH VWDLUV 5HXVHG of short steps symmetrical to the up
stones.
per one. A narrow rectangular plat
form is built on two sides of the well.
SIGNIFICANCE
5HPDLQVRIWKHZDWHUGUDZLQJSODW
+,6725,&
form can be seen on the front wall.
$5&+,7(&785$/
ORNAMENTATION
&8/785$/
The decoration is reduced to the re
ASSOCIATIONAL
mains of carved corbels and a niche
27+(5
ZLWKDFDUYHGEDVUHOLHIVFXOSWXUHLQ
side. The general features of the baoli
GRADE: II
are comparable to 'DPUD %DROL and
*XODE %DROL Carved stones of other
temples
have been used.
PRESENT CONDITION
USE
PAST USE: Drinking water
PRESENT USE: Not used anymore

DESCRIPTION
HISTORIC

PROTECTION: Protected
MATERIALS OF CONSTRUCTION

Stone masonry with plaster

SIGNIFICANCE

+,6725,&
$5&+,7(&785$/
&8/785$/
ASSOCIATIONAL
27+(5

PRESENT CONDITION

Limited signs of deterioration. Trac

es of moisture. Pigeons droppings.
5HVWRUDWLRQ  ZRUN KDV EHHQ XQGHU
taken by Intach in 2010.

ENTRANCE

14.00m

DN

ENTRANCE

DN

WELL

ENTRANCE

The baoli has a L plan and monu

mental features: an entrance with
FKKDWULV resting platforms on both
VLGHV RI WKH ODUJH VWDLUV D SRUWLFR
showing post and beam lintel and
foliated arch and a second one above
the well with a double level of foliat
ed arches. The upper level is linked
to the stairs by narrow rectangular
platforms. The water drawing plat
form is missing.
The baoli KDV D YHU\ ULFK GHFRUD
tion. The architectural features are
highlighted by rectilinear frames
and foliated arches projecting out of
VPDOOHU RQHV EHORZ FUHDWLQJ ZLGH
effects of light and shade. Architec
tural features comprises niches with
pediments resembling the temples
VLNKDUDV WRUHG EUDFNHWV FDUYHG FRU
EHOVDQGRUQDPHQWVSODVWHUHGRQHV
ZLWK ORWXV RZHUV VFXOSWXUHV UH
PDLQV RI H[TXLVLWH SDLQWLQJV LQVLGH
WKHURRIRIWKHSRUWLFRWKDWKDYHXQ
fortunately been altered by the new
plaster. The upper part of the same
portico has 0DWV\DWKHUVWDYDWDURI
9LVKQX 7KLV baoli shows the evolu
tion of stylistic decoration in the Is
lamic period. It can be compared to
5DQLMLNL%DROL

WELL

DN



ARCHITECTURAL

20.00m

WELL

6.00m

5.00m

DN

WELL

The baoli was built in 1686 (inscrip

WLRQE\%KDZ6LQJKRQHRIWKHUXO
ers of Bundi.

ORNAMENTATION

GRADE: I

)DLU 7KH ZDWHU LV TXLWH FOHDU EXW

there are garbage and pigeons drop
pings found all around.

No maintenance. The water is very

dirty with garbage. Trees are grow
ing on the walls. Buildings have
been made above the EDROL

PRESENT CONDITION

B20

OWNERSHIP: Public

ARCHITECTURAL

USE
PAST USE: Drinking water
PRESENT USE: Abandoned

VYASJI KI BAOLI

LOCATION AND SETTING

DESCRIPTION

$ORQJ PDLQ URDG VXUURXQGHG E\

HISTORIC
stores.
According some sources the baoli is
approximately 400 years old.
OWNERSHIP: Public

GRADE: II

9.00m

public gesture. Of particular note is the

heroine of the book one Rani Nathwatji,
the queen of Rao Raja Aniruddh Singh
(1681-1695) who built 20 out of the
48 baolis, the most prominent among
them being the Raniji ki Baori in 1699.
Her typical view of the subject, however,
makes mention of typically Gujarat,
Rajasthan, Delhi and Agra. Here it is
important to mention that several other
parts of South-Central India have a long
and varied history of the subject where
the Yadavas, followed by the Bahamani
(Bijapur, Ahmadnagar, Golconda, Bidar,
Berar) states and later the Marathas
operating in the semi-arid Deccan Plateau also evolved several water supply
systems that included stepwells, kunds
and aqueducts that are being explored,
documented, revived, conserved. She
does make a mention for the need for
region-wise monographs on waterscapes
where a wealth on the subject remains to
be made public.

5m

5m

5m

012

20.00m

5m

ENTRANCE

BAOLIS OF BUNDI : THE ANCIENT STEPWELLS

4M

Condition Mapping
Sectional Elevation 2-2
SHEET NO. BDB/AD/17
DATE
SEPTEMBER 2009
DRAWN BY NISAR KHAN, CONSERVATION ARCHITECT

111

96

landscape

47 | 2016

INVENTORY OF BAOLIS

INVENTORY OF BAOLIS

book review



books
LANDSCAPE DESIGN & PLANNING, BIODIVERSITY, ECOLOGY

India: A Sacred Geography

An Indian Garden

Diana L. Eck
Harmony, Reprint Edition, 2013

Emilie Mary Eggar

Kessinger Publishing, 2010

Winged Wonders of Rashtrapati Bhavan

Dr Thomas Mathew
Ministry of Information and Technology,
Publication Division, 2014

Sacred Plants of India

Nanditha Krishna and M. Amirthalingam
Penguin India, 2014

Sacred Animals of India

by Nanditha Krishna
Penguin India, 2014

Birds in My Indian Garden

Malcolm MacDonald
Alfred A. Knopf, First Edition (1961), Reprint, 2015
ARCHITECTURE AND PLANNING

Learning from Delhi: Dispersed Initiatives in Changing

Urban Landscapes
Maurice Mitchell and Shamoon Patwari
Routledge, 2010

Indian Cities: Oxford India Short Introductions

Annapurna Shaw
Oxford University Press, India, 2012

The Oxford Anthology of the Modern Indian City

Volume II: Making and Unmaking the City-Politics,
Culture, and Life Forms
Vinay Lal
OUP India, 2013

Baolis of Bundi: The Ancient Stepwells

INTACH, New Delhi, 2015

Kumbh Mela: Mapping the Ephemeral Mega City

Rahul Mehrotra, Tarun Khanna and Diana Eck
Hatje Cantz, 2015

Baroda: A Cosmopolitan Provenance in Transition

Edited by Priya Maholay Jaradi
Marg Foundation, 2015

Nalanda: Situating the Great Monastery

Frederick M. Asher
Marg Foundation, 2015

Ladakh: A Photo Travelogue

Planning the City: Urbanization and Reform in

Calcutta (c. 1800 - c. 1940)

Sohini Sen
Niyogi books, 2015

Partho Datta
Tulika, Nil Edition, 2012

Banaras: City of Light

Urban and Regional Planning in India

A Handbook for Professional Practice
S.K. Kulshrestha
SAGE Publication India, 2012

Diana L. Eck
Penguin India, 2015

The Lost River

by Michel Danino
Penguin India, 2015

HISTORY, CULTURE AND ARTS

The Incredible History of Indias Geography

Land of Two Rivers

Sanjeev Sanyal and Sowmya Rajendran

Penguin India, 2015

Nitish Sengupta
Penguin India, 2011

landscape

47 | 2016

97

47 AUTHORS
CONTRIBUTORS
Anjan Mitra is a committed designer and believes in
creating a holistic experience through design. Through
his works he seeks realms beyond physical realities, be
it in architectural projects, in cultural tourism, heritage
conservation or landscape.
appropriatealternative@gmail.com
Iftikhar-Mulk Chishti has been associated with teaching
at School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi for
more than two decades. His design practice includes
GHVLJQLQJLQVWDOODWLRQVWKHDWUHVHWVDQGOPPDNLQJ+HLV
the convenor of the public platform Design X Design an
initiative of Alliance Francaise de Delhi and his Studio iF.
imchishti@hotmail.com
Jamal Ansari is an urban and regional planner by
SURIHVVLRQZLWKPRUHYHGHFDGHVRIH[SHULHQFHLQ
teaching and practice.
ansari.jamal@gmail.com
Kiran Kalamdani is an architect, urban designer and
conservation enthusiast heading the practice, Kimaya,
since 1990. He has taught for a decade at Marathwada
Mitra Mandal College, Pune.
kimaya.arch@gmail.com
Maithily G Velangi is a landscape architect recently
graduated from the School of Planning and Architecture,
1HZ'HOKL6KHKDVEHHQZRUNLQJLQWKHODQGVFDSHHOG
RYHUYH\HDUVZRUNLQJRQYDULHGVFDOHVDQGW\SRORJLHV
of projects.
maithilygv@gmail.com
Nidhi Madan, a landscape architect, is Director,
Samarthyam, National Centre for Accessible Environments,
where she provides design and research expertise in
creating barrier-free, accessible urban spaces.
madannidhi@gmail.com
Nikhil Chaudhary is an architect-urban designer and
works with EMBARQ India as Senior Project Associate.
A self-taught graphic artist, he has published several
comics focusing on urban development, environment and
architecture.
nikhilchaudhary.aj@gmail.com

98

landscape

47 | 2016

Nupur Prothi Khanna is a landscape architect,

with an education in Physical Planning and Historic
Conservation. She is the Founder-Director of Beyond
Built, a research based design practice in Delhi.
nupurprothi@gmail.com
Om Prakash Mathur is currently Senior Fellow and
Head, Urban Studies at the Institute of Social Sciences
and Non-resident Senior Fellow, Global Cities Institute at
the University of Toronto. He was also a member, Prime
Ministers National Review Committee on JNNURM
(2005-2014).
om_mathur@yahoo.com
Raj Rewal is an architect and urban design consultant
whose approach to architecture responds to the
complexities of place and time, the context of climate,
nature and culture and comprise a wide range of
building typologies. His works have been widely
exhibited and published, with monographs in English
and French.
mail@rajrewal.org
Shiny Varghese obtained her degree in Journalism from
Asian College of Journalism, Bangalore in the year 2000.
After working for few newspapers and magazines, she
joined Design Today, where she worked for six years.
Presently, she is working with The Indian Express and
follows design and architecture in the newspaper.
shinee.v@gmail.com
Trisha Gupta is a New Delhi based critic and freelance
writer. She has written extensively on books, art,
photography, cinema and the city.
trishagupta@yahoo.co.uk

know your plants

Monhnein rosewood

Millettia is named in honour of J.L. Millet, a French botanist. Its genus includes
many species of trees and climbers, natives of the tropics and subtropics of Asia
and Africa.

Family
Fabaceae

Common Name
Monhnein rosewood, Jewels on a string

Distribution
It is a native of Myanmar and Thailand and
is now commonly cultivated throughout
India.

Description
Millettia is a medium sized deciduous tree
with a dense conical crown and a kind of
drooping branchlets. The trunk is straight,
cylindrical with few main branches, growing approximately from the same place
on the trunk. These, in turn divide and re
GLYLGH LQWR QH EUDQFKOHWV ZKLFK GURRS
down. The bark is smooth, light-brown
and flakes off in easily in small irregular
pieces. The leaves are light green in colour, elliptic-oblong, slightly leathery, with
prominent midribs and blunt tips. They fall
in March and new ones appear in April.
It flowers at the same time. The flowers
are small, pea-shaped with petals which
are purplish or mauve. Each flower is set
on a small stalk. The fruit, in the form
of woody pod, is pale to light-brown in
colour, flat, slightly curved with a rough,

10-12 mts

http://www.lahoregardening.com

U T

&

K E E P

Millettia peguensis

knobby surface. It starts forming soon

after flowering and attains full size in
3-4 months after which it fully matures
by end of the year, then turning yellowish
in January-February. The tree grows to a
height of 10-15 meters. Its average life is
50-60 years.

Climate

08-10 mts

https://icwow.blogspot.in

It can be grown in a wide range of climatic

conditions but prefers slightly dry regions.

Soil
The tree flourishes in well-drained, light
soil with moisture. It does not grow well
in waterlogged or salty soils.

Propagation and Training

It can easily be raised from seeds which
are sown in April-May on raised beds.
Young plants need protection from sun.
It is a rather slow growing in the early age
but picks up and comes to flowering when
4-5 years old. In early stages, it requires
careful training to a single stem and so
needs staking. Little pruning is needed
afterwards.

References

Design Uses

Mukhopadhyay, A and G S Randhawa. Floriculture

in India (Allied Publishers, New Delhi, 1986).

One of the most beautiful ornamental

trees when covered with delicate flowers,
it looks feathery because of its slender
main trunk and branches and the characteristic foliage, and so is planted on
roadsides, parks and small gardens.

Manikam T J and Bijit Ghosh. Trees for Landscaping

(School of Planning & Architecture, 1968).
2FMJXM\FWN/0+QTWFTK)JQMN (TZSHNQTK8HNJSYNH
& Industrial Research, 1963).

Krishen, Pradip. Trees of Delhi (DK Pvt. Ltd. 2006).

\\\T\JWXTSINFSJY
Bagla, Pallava and Subhadra Menon. Trees of
India (Timeless Books, New Delhi, 2000).
Khullar, Rupinder. Flowering Trees (Timeless
Books, New Delhi, 2006.

LA, JOURNAL OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

landscape

47 | 2016

99

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Notes

EER
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notes

KALIDASA

ABOUT

AND
LD GARDEN

GARDENS

LD

IN THE WOR

THE WOR

practicalities
aesthetics and
niicance to the
s in India today.
le connection
of creating landscape
here is an inseparab perception of
and the
between poetry
Imagery
from the contemEnvironmental
landscape; art stems
Writing
and of nature.
the irst
moveplation of the world,
to Summer in
origins of artistic
he imagery related Rtusamharam (he
of
about the literary
poem
essay on the genesis
two verses of the
ral
is a luminous ilments in a deinitive
of the Seasons)
renowned architectu
the
e,
Gathering
ted and
that
the Picturesqu
extremely sophistica
Pevsner postulates
lustration of an
- climate,
in
historian Nikolaus
of environment
approach to gardening on
detailed perception
the entirely new
hinged
England, which
people, and places:
18th century
- of the
of a new aesthetic
invention
the
between
iercely
- was conceived
he sun blazing
landscape garden
eagerly
writers and
moon longed for
by philosophers,
the
1730
and
.
1710
gardeners
architects and
deep waters inviting
virtuosi, not by
to plunge in continually quiet beauty
a close in
is replete with images
days drawing to
he poetry of Kalidasa
gardens, a
running low
of landscape and
the tide of desire
and evocations
is now here,
of extraorscorching summer
vision of the world
of signature-centric
is in it a resonance
my love
dinary scope. here

16

landscape

rent by the moon

Nights indigo masses on water,
built
wondrous mansions
various gems
cooled by fountains;
liquid sandal
cool to the touch;
relief in these
the world seeks
heat, my love
in summers scorching
the senses,
perfumed, luring
Palace terraces
breath...
beneath the beloveds
wine trembling

Swami
ABOVE
lessons from
Tansen take
miniature
Akbar watching
from a Mughal
)
Haridas in Vrindavan;
angarh (Rajasthan
the Jaipur-Kish
painter.
painting in
by unknown
circa A.D. 1750
mixed style,
ikipedia.org
http://en.w
Image source:

physical
and drama, litle
scribed in poetry
In a culture so proicient
evidence is available. things to do with land
in all
A Search
e
and sophisticated
and where
speaking of landscap
g of resources,
associAs always, when
references to
d to
and the husbandin
authentic traditions
ancient India,
of
form the backgroun
he search for
and gardens in
ent are
n and the making
other
elaborate gardens
designed environm
in the epics and
ated with the perceptio pre-Islamic period
on
gardens or the
the lives described
of visual
s in the
and general mansions bly
Indian landscape
perplexing shortage
of physical
tantalizingly brief
literature, the
from a paucity
and form has
perfumed (presuma
somewhat
terraces
content
s,
palace
sufers

speciic
water,
such
largely on reference
clues as to their
by fountains and
of concern to designers
remains. It depends
ons,
in literature,
by plants?), cooled
s
always been a mater
illustrations
in the same compositi of
roots in the indigenou
descriptions and
sculptural
e
especially when,
searching for aesthetic
in art, for example,
with the abundanc
.
in the epics, and
the other
of the
these are contrasted
garden traditions
complexes. On
word-pictures
to
friezes in temple
related
marvellously graphic almost all of the 144
life, traditions
In fact,
Garden
hand, in everyday
of land have
world of nature.
images
Versions of the
appropriate use
draw very precise
the spiritually
in rituals,
verses of this poem
verse could
strongly present
misdirected?
wildlife. Each
their search is
for millennia been
and the
from nature and
painting,
Could it be that
gardens,
of sacred places,
for a miniature
the
the basis of these
the identiication
from
that
be the inspiration
vignete
features,
possible
Is it
shape and
geographic
this sharply etched
veneration of
which guided their
the sacred
as for example,
or the premise
our curcoast by way of
clarity:
al
so diferent from
mountains to the
of virtually cinematic
should
composition was
he spiritual, astrologic of
we think a garden
rivers in the plains.
various kinds
of rays,
rent vision of what
that appear
signiicance of
suns iery wreath
read the clues
and medicinal
Burning under the
of the
be that we cannot
documented.
the muddy pond
the appreciation
vegetation is well
a rog leaps up rom
before us? Perhaps;
record of
parasol hood
is limited by the
in classic
to sit under the
tired.
gardens of antiquity
ind expression
when the rethat is thirsty and
pracit not possible,
All these traditions
of a deadly cobra
ral treatises and
their remains. Is
the garden imagined
planning and architectu Vastu Shastra. he
dramaare observed and
at it
and
amongst
mains
looking
of
as foremost
tices, such as Manasara and royal complexes,
bias in favour
Acknowledged
literature,
that there is a
temple
in classical Sanskrit
he idea that gardens
y
remains of cities,
years
tists and poets
exhibit profoundl
as a built product?
thousand
only
kunds,
perceived
two
and
be
about
appropriately,
stepwells, baolis
concepts,
Kalidasa wrote
m B.C.
can also, equally
art remains
planning and spatial
of the irst millenniu
systematic site
the horticultural
sources for
ago, at the close
fourth or
as processes of
deserves.
s are also thematic
suggest, in the
the emphasis it
and sometime
traditional
or as some scholars
somewhat without
or adaptation of
the interpretation
ith century A.D.
rary landscape
vividly
contempo
in
most
the
motif
nts of
form and
of gardens
reveals its
outIn the history
re. Riverside arrangeme of
study of his work
where even scatered a
and architectu
Even a cursory
the landinluential are those
are a striking example
more than
ways of perceiving
in stone, suggest
ghats and temples
al axis the
concern with
e view,
lines, structured
with which
for an ontologic
world (a clouds-ey with
sky, or
how the desire
grandeur. he ease
scape and the
nt
robust
the earth and the
glimpse of past
a deep engageme
familiar and visually the
connection between a characteristic of all
for example), and
we can relate to
and god,
d by, for instance,
into
between being
nature.
prototypes represente
ons being translated is
ely informal
religious constructi
or the picturesqu
genesis
s the idea
home,
baroque vista,
r landscape. Its
imagery encourage
style, and also, closer
a uniquely spectacula
he wealth of
may yield
y the veneration
English landscape
gardens,
that accompan
Mughal
reading of his work
of
rituals
is
the
particular
in
mystique
a
realization
that
literary
the geometrical
the only
the sun, and its
beyond that of
the illusion that
of the water and
a vision of landscape
that it may
n of the edge between
its bare
sometimes creates
description, and
is in its remains,
in the artistic negotiatio
genius or lyrical
of view,
meaning of a garden
the ephemera
to a diferent point
and not also in
water and land.
of garsuggest the way
bones if you like,
t.
the very deinition
vital constituen
with insights about
looking at
that are its other
which are so frequently
another way of
But of the gardens
rary
den space. Indeed,
s eloquently de, which its contempo
d, and sometime
mentione
the larger landscape
neatness.
with surprising
design concerns
landscape

MuMetropolitan
Iran c.1800.
Garden Carpet,
intersected
seum of Art
stream of water
by
a wide central
of them enlivened
J
courses, all
XY^QN_JI9M
by narrower
JYMJ\FYJWFWJMNLMQ^chahar baghs.
XMYMFYQNP
of two
as a whole is
at the
composition
each unit is
the center of
treeAt both ends,
marked by a
water courses,
dicrossing of two
trees jut out
From it large
studded island.
squares. Beyond
ng
the neighbouri
g
agonally into
units representin
more formal

X&QTSLYMJ
these are four
WT\JWGJI
I
FSTWSFRJSYFQUTTQT WXJNXFT\JW^UFYMFS
Q\FYJWHTZ
\NIJHJSYWF
courses
border the narrow
smaller ones

DISE E
PARA
IN PARADIS

much so
and trefoil, so
ground is grass XVDQGLQEDGWDVWH
surface of the
OGEHVXSHUXR
...the whole
USHWRQLWZRX
WKDWWROD\DFD

Quoted from

and photo :

useum.org

www.metm

Poetry of Refuge

ly
Jahangir
may be to mundane
Memoirs of
and
conined as that
gardens
ations of physical
its well with
literal consider
Carpet imagery
, from
y.
of the Kashthe Persian tradition great
visual proximit
belonging to
he natural wonders
ic times to the
the Mughals
also the
ancient pre-Islam
the sixand perhaps
mir valley inspired
t
ents between
is
that represen
he most famous
garden carpet
garden achievem h century in Persia
to create gardens a tradition
documented
Carof
earliest
eighteent
ng
and
Spring
or
teenth
Baharestan
the inal blossomi
gardens in India.
the crats
known as the
Sassanian
centuries to
and in the Mughal
ioned by the
ent
stretching back
AD)
pet, commiss
water managem
weaving
Khusrow (531-579
of horticulture,
in Persia
crat of carpet
Shahanshah
carpet weaving
than
hall of the Palace
he art and
sigand indeed,
aking) is more
for the main audience is now Iraq). It
Asia. heir aesthetic their
(and of garden-m old in the Persian
(in what
and Central
of
years
wide.
at Ctesiphon
beyond the sum
two thousand
long and 27 meter the
garden carpet,
are;
niicance lies
was 140 meter
of
he idea of the
enticing as these
writings
stylregion.
ly
visually
,
Arab
in
elements
but graphical
they ofer
of the
It is described
a certain way,
with its accurate
chaharAD) the design
and
examined in
of the familiar
period (c. 637
pleasure
orary design,
ised depiction
g connecplan of a royal
lessons for contemp insights into the
es an interestin
beds
carpet was the
hic level,
bagh establish
It represented
ly outdoor
at a philosop
the essential
garden or paradise. blossoming trees
man and nature.
of
tion between
and
relationship between
ure and the crat
in
of spring lowers
practice of horticult relationship which
and water lowing
g, a
divided by paths
border
indoor furnishin
major
was a broad
Garden Carpets
amongst the
beds
channels. here
is probably unique of the world. Pohere again were
s
the forall around, and
yellow
of the Dal Lake,
gardening tradition
carpets
lowers. he
and
s
coloured
On the banks
gardens
was
of bright
like an enormou
imetry about both
wonderful piece
mal garden spreads carpet, seeming
in the same idiom,
ground in this
trees and
speaks of them
and vice
he leaves of
garden
a
exquisitely paterned the hill-side to
thread.
as
of gold
were inlaid
down
agining the carpet conceptual interof silk. Fruits
to unroll gently
a
it the ripchanlowers were
, taking with
versa; it suggests
stones, the water
d
exterior, quite
the lake-edge
and
polished
channelle
prewith
waters
weaving of interior beyond the usual
the blossoms
pling, cascading
e, in the
and
nels were crystals,
spring; elsewher
diferent from,
between
from a natural
kind of
interactions
cious stones
there is another
theory about
landscape,
distant plains,
by a riverand outdoor
oten than not
indoor space
garden, more
pause.
side, a place to

by
to a Garden Carpet
he poem Ode
quoted
Sui poet (c.1500)
an unknown
and Laleh Bakhtiar
by Nader Ardalan
which
lly the aesthetic
outlines speciica
and carpet:
guides both garden
lives an ever lovely
Here in this carpet
spring,
flame,
summers ardent
Unscorched by
s gales,
autumns boisterou
Safe too rom
still,
Is gaily blooming
the garden
wide border is
he handsome
wall
g the Park within
Protecting , preservin a magic space
renewal:
For refuge and
, music and rejoicing,
For concourse
lonely spell
For contemplations lovers shy disclograve or
Conversations
sure, ...

landscape

33

17

32

landscape

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