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Medieval And Colonial Capital Cities Of DelhiJUSTIFICATION FOR INSCRIPTIONAs a symbolic form, the city drew on the images of both man and the cosmos. Man lives best it was thought, in aphysical environment analogous to him. Thus the plan of the city was seen to emulate the anatomy of a man. Thecentral bazaar began at the palace (the head), grew towards the Jami Masjid( the heart) and continued to the citygate. The smaller streets inserted themselves into the body proper as ribs and the vital organs‐ bathhouses,schools, sarais, bakeries, water cisterns, teahouses and shops, developed in proximity to the skeletal center. Thecity walls and gates defined and protect the volume of he body.The emphasis on a central bazaar, the palace, the Friday Mosque and the very presence of other vital componentslike hammams (bath houses), schools, sarais, bakeries, water cisterns, tea houses, shops, etc. indicates thatShahjahanabad is a city modelled on Islamic ideals. Chandni chowk, the central bazaar and backbone, began atShahjahan’s palace‐fortress, the head, ran to Jami Masjid the heart and exited at Kashmiri Gate. The palacefortress faced west towards mecca, Chandni Chowk, the principal bazaar ranwest and so did Jami Masjid opentowards Mecca, the holy city. The eight large city gates( seven on the landward side and one on the river front)had symbolic significance: the city wall symbolised the cosmos and the eight gates, the four cardinal directionsplus the 4 gates of heaven. Islamic influences are therefore seen in the layout of Shahjahanabad.The word kucha( small public street and the neighbourhood around it) comes from the Persian and the termmohalla( neighbourhood) comes form the Arabic word mahalla. This indicates that the pattern of the urban tissuefrom Islamic regions was introduced into Delhi. While the words gali and the concept of a katra is very muchHindu and similar spatial organisation is seen in Ahmedabad in Gujarat and Jaipurin Rajasthan, reinforcing the factthat the urban tissue of Shahjahnabad is a blended fabric of Islamic patterns and indigenous patterns of northwestIndia.Colonial Capital ‐New DelhiNew Delhi epitomized a highly mature state of colonial India through evolving stages of medieval Indian society,polity, economy and culture. This culture encompassed efforts at developing a new lingua franca, literature,music, dance, fine arts and a sophisticated and an inclusive urban morphology. ‘British architect Edwin Lutyensalong with Herbert Baker created the master plan of the new capital and designed the main administrative andpublic buildings. The resultant design, dominated by the central vista, redefines the architecture and urbanism ofDelhi in the process of addressing contemporary imperatives. The layout and design reflects the fusion of the twodominant themes of early twentieth century city planning – the City Beautiful (vistas) and the Garden City(verdure), concepts that have world relevance in city planning through the early twentieth century.In their various ways, the iconic plan for New Delhi achieved a balance between the formal clear view centralvistas, and the more informal, and yet geometrically precise, residential neighbourhoods. This synthesis added averdant, picturesque quality forming the setting for the set‐piece central groupings of the ViceroysHouse( Rashtrapathi Bhavan, the secretariats etc), with visual interconnection between the central vista and theresidential neighbourhood adding value to both. Edwin Lutyens must have envisioned this was an appropriatebasis upon which to plan New Delhi, drawing upon his inherent appreciation of the significant themes in early20th century city planning outlined below.What was seen in Delhi was a high point in a synthesis, the origins of which can be seen in Heathcote, Ilkley, WestYorkshire (1906‐9) that integrated a Mannerist Italianate house, with a terraced garden. Commentators, includingthe German‐American Werner Hegemann (in the 1920s) and Allan Greenberg, one of the key American scholarsof the Lutyens revival of the 1970s/80s, have drawn a parallel between Lutyens’ building designs and Jekyll’sgarden designs, and the basis of his approach to city planning, integrating buildings and settings.It is worth noting here that Lutyens’ appointment in 1906 as consultant responsible for the Central Squares atHampstead Garden Suburb, alongside Raymond Unwin (1863‐1940), who had already master‐plannedLetchworth, the first Garden City in 1904, is the start of this synthesis. Lutye`ns framed the central Institutebuilding, with twin churches and placed the residential squares north and south of the central complex. The finaldesign that emerged in 1908, had a formal overlay on the geometrical layout of avenue‐planted residential roads.This we say was the beginning of a synthesis of the upcoming City Beautiful with the Garden Suburb concept ,31‐07‐2012 INTACH, Delhi Chapter 10
Medieval And Colonial Capital Cities Of DelhiJUSTIFICATION FOR INSCRIPTIONwhich was then further developed a few years later at New Delhi. The Hampstead Garden City experienceprompted Lutyens to adopt the concept of a garden city for the residential areas of the new administrative city ofNew Delhi.The clear, geometric layout of the town stems from Edwin Lutyens, and an examination of his various models ishelpful to recognize more clearly his intentions for the plan and its relation to contemporary town planning inother continents. Imperial Rome offered town planning and architectural models that imperial Britain wanted toappropriate. On the occasion of the World Exhibition in Rome in 1911, Lutyens designed and built an exhibitionhall for his country. More importantly, he became acquainted with the capital as a basic form for the seat ofgovernment and the Pantheon as the most sublime assembly space in history.Cities which most influenced the planning of New Delhi are perhaps Paris and Washington. In Paris, BaronHaussmann’s (1808‐91), grands boulevards and network of avenues was laid out on principles established by theEcole des Beaux Arts, with connections at ‘rond‐points’ (today’s traffic islands) which encouraged monumentalfocal architecture, such as the Arc de Triomphe. Justice is not done to the far‐sightedness of the alterations to theplan of Paris if they are regarded simply as a transfer of the radial avenues and streets from Versailles. Not onlywas the entire technical infrastructure – water, sewage, road transport, metro – raised to a technically exemplarystandard, but a new type of city was created whose essential features and elements were copied in manycountries around the world. The repeated emulation of this plan elevated Paris to the status of one of the mostbeautiful cities, and also as one of the most economically successful centres in the world.Lutyens visited the French capital several times around 1900s and commended the generosity of spirit of theboulevards in Paris. The Parisian example was clear to Edwin Lutyens when, in 1912, he and his colleagues in theDelhi Town Planning Committee worked out various new options for the British Viceroy of India to the town planfor a future Imperial Delhi. Lutyens was also aware of the restrictions in adopting one of the most successful citymodels of all times: in Paris the spending power of one of the richest nations in Europe was increasing. In ImperialDelhi on the other hand, the spending power of the British colonial government was so small by comparison, thatthere would be no shops, or dance‐halls and theatres lining the avenues, but a range of particularly large andquick growing native‐trees.Lutyens and his colleagues had such high consideration for the model of the Champs Elysees as an exemplary axisfor linking the palace, victory column and triumphal arch as indispensable to the plan – and incomparable in itssymbolic and formal perfection – that they did not shrink from building an imitation of the celebrated avenue inImperial Delhi. Both avenues – the Champs Elysees in Paris and the King’s Way in New Delhi – do justice to theirimperial status on their respective national holidays when their countries’ armed forces display the power and theglory of the homeland to the multitudes of curious onlookers. The axial vista of the Champs Elysees and the crossaxis from the River Seine to the Church of La Madeleine can be compared to what in Delhi was taken a notchhigher to give a grand sweep from the Viceroy’s House, past the Secretariats and the ‘Great Place’ square (VijayChowk) at the foot of the Raisina, along the Rajpath towards India Gate.Another key influence was the layout of the American capital Washington, created in 1789 by the French engineerPierre L’Enfant (1754‐1825). An examination of the town plan at Imperial Delhi with its hexagonal system of wideboulevards and the important historical or new buildings at the intersections inevitably recalls the similar plan ofthe American capital, Washington D.C.Following a convention of the American Institute of Architects, held in Washington in 1900, the planning of theFederal Capital was modified by Daniel Burnham and Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. The history of the founding ofWashington D.C. and the reasons behind its geometric ground plan were familiar to all those involved in thefounding of Imperial Delhi. It was a Freemasons’ city that embodied their concepts of geometry as beingillustrative of the notion of harmony in the universe. The town planners of Imperial Delhi, however, were not allFreemasons. Nevertheless, the Royal Family and London society as well were clearly influenced by Masonic ideals.While Lutyens himself did not visit Washington till 1925 it is believed that the exhibition hosted by the RoyalInstitute of British Architects at the International Town Planning Conference, showcased key examples from home31‐07‐2012 INTACH, Delhi Chapter 11
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