Modernism in Delhi Architecture
Modernism in Delhi, a talk by K.T. Ravindran at the IIC annex, organized by the Attic, Delhi.
This talk focused on Jawaharlal Lal Nehru’s vision of architecture, in Post Independence Delhi, for a fifty year time period. This talk was very well researched and K.T. knew his material well, it was supplemented with photographs.
The ideological frame that modernity functioned in India was, the Gandhi – Nehru clash of visions, in reference to the role of architecture in modern India. Gandhi saw cities as clearing houses for village products. Bapu built Sevagram to highlight this vision. He started the Khadi movement in Wardha, as a protest against the cotton mills of Manchester. Nehru’s vision was more elitist, and he felt individuals should build houses that reflect their personal interest and style. He built the mill owners building in Ahmedabad. Gandhi was against industrialization, and wanted self-sufficient village communities, Nehru wanted industrialization and modernization was the way for India to catch up with the West.
Other ideological frameworks were the shift from rural to industrial societies. Humanism and secularism. Scientific temper, absolute values is science, a quote by Architect Kanande. A socialist nation state, with a democratic party. Rationalism and empiricism.
Two buildings that represented Nehru’s vision was the High Court building that looked like a big dam, and the Assembly Building that morphed into a electricity generating powerhouse.
Access to power was through votes, but the exercise of power is through banks. The voting process is often subverted by castesim and religion.
The ITO or the income tax building in Delhi was created to collect revenue for Vicregal lodge in Shimla. Sapru house in Delhi was made in an Indo-Sarcenic style, with a Buddhist stupa as a feature.
The political geography of Delhi
The Roshanara Bagh part of Delhi to old Delhi railway station was located where the waters of the Yamuna were cut off. So it was built on a river bed. The Mandi
house area to Chanakyapuri was created as Nehru’s Delhi. Mandi house was the cultural center, Chanakya Puri was the diplomatic center, and Lodhi road area was the location for global firms, like World Bank, the U.N. and the Ford Foundation.
Schizoid urbanism
City versus countryside.
The old fabric within the city, like part of old Delhi were counter posed with swish New Delhi and its modern buildings.
The planner and the planned for
Indigenous cultures as opposed to religion and science and technology.
The Delhi improvement trust DIT 1937
This plan only improved the colonial apparatus and factories. The logic being that the for the success of industrialization, worker productivity needed to be improved, so their living conditions needs to be kept hygienic. The solution to population is dilution.
The DDA plan of 1957 (Delhi development authority) was to implement the interim general plan prepared by the town planning commission. 40,000 slums were cleared and DDA lands were auctioned but their were no buyers, which was suspicious considering the major need for land in Delhi.
Resettlement post partition- lots of refugees were streaming into Delhi after the aftermath of partition between India and Pakistan, so housing was needed to accommodated these new residents. Asaf Ali Road project was done by demolishing the old city wall. This was done to create Delhi’s first commercial area.
Nehru was very friendly with the Kennedy’s, and this lead to the signing of PL 480, leading to the arrival of architects from America like Stein. Within modernism their were two groups the rationalists, who believed that what was good for Europe was good for the rest of the world. This was lead by Bauhaus Gropius. This was an antifascist and pro democratic movement. Indian architects like Kanande and Habib Rahman, worked with Gropius. Le Courbosier was also part of this group and Shiv Nath Prashad. The other group was the romantics, led by Frank Lloyd Wright and was more Gandhian in their vision. Richard Neutra was a student of F.L. Wright, and has influenced design theory immensely.
The Sri Ram Center, Akbar hotel and the Tibet house redefined Couerbosier brutalism.
Joseph Allen Stein built the Lodhi estate complex. He was from the romantics’ style that tried to create a building that worked within surrounding trees and plants.
Shantineketan was the first attempt to bring in hybridity to challenge established design norms.
Some building began to have art deco embellishments. Banaras Hindu University, recreated Hindu motifs in the architecture of the building.
Habib Rahman built Mandi house and created historic ripples in Indian architecture.
He also made R.K. Puram housing in a y shaped structure that was aesthetic.
The Indraprashta building was made by combining steel and marble.
Rabindra Bhavan was built by combining space and structure in an intuitive way.
According to K.T. the India International Center and the Rabindra Bhavan are the best built buildings of that time period. The IIC has used the Jaali Concept very effectively.
This talk focused on Jawaharlal Lal Nehru’s vision of architecture, in Post Independence Delhi, for a fifty year time period. This talk was very well researched and K.T. knew his material well, it was supplemented with photographs.
The ideological frame that modernity functioned in India was, the Gandhi – Nehru clash of visions, in reference to the role of architecture in modern India. Gandhi saw cities as clearing houses for village products. Bapu built Sevagram to highlight this vision. He started the Khadi movement in Wardha, as a protest against the cotton mills of Manchester. Nehru’s vision was more elitist, and he felt individuals should build houses that reflect their personal interest and style. He built the mill owners building in Ahmedabad. Gandhi was against industrialization, and wanted self-sufficient village communities, Nehru wanted industrialization and modernization was the way for India to catch up with the West.
Other ideological frameworks were the shift from rural to industrial societies. Humanism and secularism. Scientific temper, absolute values is science, a quote by Architect Kanande. A socialist nation state, with a democratic party. Rationalism and empiricism.
Two buildings that represented Nehru’s vision was the High Court building that looked like a big dam, and the Assembly Building that morphed into a electricity generating powerhouse.
Access to power was through votes, but the exercise of power is through banks. The voting process is often subverted by castesim and religion.
The ITO or the income tax building in Delhi was created to collect revenue for Vicregal lodge in Shimla. Sapru house in Delhi was made in an Indo-Sarcenic style, with a Buddhist stupa as a feature.
The political geography of Delhi
The Roshanara Bagh part of Delhi to old Delhi railway station was located where the waters of the Yamuna were cut off. So it was built on a river bed. The Mandi
house area to Chanakyapuri was created as Nehru’s Delhi. Mandi house was the cultural center, Chanakya Puri was the diplomatic center, and Lodhi road area was the location for global firms, like World Bank, the U.N. and the Ford Foundation.
Schizoid urbanism
City versus countryside.
The old fabric within the city, like part of old Delhi were counter posed with swish New Delhi and its modern buildings.
The planner and the planned for
Indigenous cultures as opposed to religion and science and technology.
The Delhi improvement trust DIT 1937
This plan only improved the colonial apparatus and factories. The logic being that the for the success of industrialization, worker productivity needed to be improved, so their living conditions needs to be kept hygienic. The solution to population is dilution.
The DDA plan of 1957 (Delhi development authority) was to implement the interim general plan prepared by the town planning commission. 40,000 slums were cleared and DDA lands were auctioned but their were no buyers, which was suspicious considering the major need for land in Delhi.
Resettlement post partition- lots of refugees were streaming into Delhi after the aftermath of partition between India and Pakistan, so housing was needed to accommodated these new residents. Asaf Ali Road project was done by demolishing the old city wall. This was done to create Delhi’s first commercial area.
Nehru was very friendly with the Kennedy’s, and this lead to the signing of PL 480, leading to the arrival of architects from America like Stein. Within modernism their were two groups the rationalists, who believed that what was good for Europe was good for the rest of the world. This was lead by Bauhaus Gropius. This was an antifascist and pro democratic movement. Indian architects like Kanande and Habib Rahman, worked with Gropius. Le Courbosier was also part of this group and Shiv Nath Prashad. The other group was the romantics, led by Frank Lloyd Wright and was more Gandhian in their vision. Richard Neutra was a student of F.L. Wright, and has influenced design theory immensely.
The Sri Ram Center, Akbar hotel and the Tibet house redefined Couerbosier brutalism.
Joseph Allen Stein built the Lodhi estate complex. He was from the romantics’ style that tried to create a building that worked within surrounding trees and plants.
Shantineketan was the first attempt to bring in hybridity to challenge established design norms.
Some building began to have art deco embellishments. Banaras Hindu University, recreated Hindu motifs in the architecture of the building.
Habib Rahman built Mandi house and created historic ripples in Indian architecture.
He also made R.K. Puram housing in a y shaped structure that was aesthetic.
The Indraprashta building was made by combining steel and marble.
Rabindra Bhavan was built by combining space and structure in an intuitive way.
According to K.T. the India International Center and the Rabindra Bhavan are the best built buildings of that time period. The IIC has used the Jaali Concept very effectively.
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