For over 3000 years , Delhi & its surroundings have been the capitals for various rulers.

Indraprastha, the legendary capital in the Indian epic Mahabharata is also located at Delhi & is dated around 1000 BC. The holy river Yamuna flows southwards in this gentle terrain & the vicinity has known 15 capitals through history. Before the british took over from the Mughals in the early 19th century, the city known as Shajahanabad was a thriving center of arts, culture, literature, architecture & as a gateway for major trade routes. In 1877 at an ostentations darbar, Queen Victoria was declared the empress of India & in 1911, the capital of this empire was shifted from Kolkatta to Delhi hence marking the birth of New Delhi. Today s Delhi is an amalgam of all these older capitals & has a population of nearly 16 million people that is settled in an area admeasuring 1483 sq.km. The old city of Shahjahanabad had the Red Fort & the Jana Masjid as its focal points with Chandni Chowk as the major business district. The city was enclosed by high masonry walls punctuated by strategic entrance gates linking it with other major towns. Winding streets form these gates meandered into the close-grained built form creating a hierarchy of streets leading upto the major ceremonial & commercial thoroughfare of Chandni Chowk. This principal artery, aligned in the east-west direction of the old city, addresses the main entry to the red fort. The skyline was however dominated by the Jama Masjid placed symbolically atop a hill & complemented by a large urban open space befitting the prestige & scale of the city, The surrounding cityscape was organically divided into introverted clusters reflecting the socio-economic structure supporting a higher degree of functional mix. The northern parts of the town show a typically colonial style as these were primarily inhabited by the British during the mid-nineteenth century where they established churches, banquet halls, bungalows & civil lines. The introduction of the railways in the later part of the 19th century induced new trade & developments around the north & west of Shajahanabad. The traditional built for of the old city with courtyards & narrow streets was now competing with the European style of vast open/green spaces around the structures, elaborated compound walls & wrought iron gates. With the decision to establish a new capital the british leap frogged the old city in a pattern familiar to other British occupied cities in India & found a location south of it- a sparsely populated area , sloping up gently from the Yamuna river & Purana Qila towards the west , culminating in the Raisina Hill. The new site enjoyed aspect, altitude, water, virgin soil & an excellent view of Shajahanabad & other remains of the older capital cities of Delhi.The Raisina Hill & the Ridge, though sparsely populated at that time comprised mostly of religious structures & old monuments of bygone settlements of Delhi. LUTYEN S VISION Lutyens plan for New Delhi was conceived on the lines of Versailles & L Enfant s Washington, being characterized by formally laid out axial movement networks articulated by terminal vistas & a low density, low rise physical fabric. New Delhi was the prestigious capital of the British Empire in India accommodating the governmental & other auxiliary functions. The plan establishes 2 major visual linkages : one with the Jama masjid & the other with Purna Qila culminating in the Capital Complex situated atop the Raisina Hill. The circular parliament building marks the terminus of the axis towards the Juma Masjid. In the middle, along the axis is Connaught Place- an immense circular commercial zone which is today Delhi s Central Business District. Along the Purana Qila axis, in the east-west direction is the major ceremonial green called the Central Vista the King s Way Raj Path that penetrates the in the central complex between the 2 major office blocks & terminating in the Viceregal palace. The integrated mass of the Capital Complex provides a visual climax to this

dramatic linear open space, crisscrossed by lateral roads & punctuated by India Gate & a small but ingeniously designed pavilion called as the Chattri. The 2 major corridors in the plan determine the basic geometry in Lutyens movement networks. Based on hexagons & equilateral triangles the road network has a radial configuration & uses roundabouts for directional change. Terminal vistas are established wherever possible, often using proposed public buildings or an existing Mughal monument. The geometry is used as a device to integrate the old & new structures into a coherent visual experience. The streets are tree-lined on both sided & the built form on the sides is low rise & is set in large open spaces, & the street edge defined by thick foliage. The terminal structures at the vistas thus attain immediacy & the space between the spectator & the terminal points is scaled down by the compelling direction given to movement. By the varied use of this principle & the use scale & perspective the plan achieves a distinct sensory differentiation between public & private spaces, within an ambience akin to a garden city. As a general pattern in New Delhi, Lutyens adopted a technique where built form is defined by the spaces around it generating on the whole a low key urban fabric. Climaxes are provided at important activity nodes where the built form is used to define the space.. THE LANDSCAPE In the Capital Complex, water is used as a landscape element in a formally laid out garden for the Rashtrapati Bhawan & in the Office Court on Raisina Hill. 2 large symmetrically placed fountains blocks mark the beginning of the water bodies that flank Rajpath on either side. These are less than a meter deep & terminate near India Gate with another 2 symmetrically placed fountains. A small water body surrounds the chhatri further east of India Gate, axially placed on the Vista. A giant lake at the eastern end of the vista which was a part of Lutyens original plan was never realized. The Central Vista was conceived as a ceremonial green space & has very few structures within it. Along the axis are India Gate & the Chhatri. Services necessary for irrigating the green are physically underplayed alog with civic amenities like toilets, restaurants etc. by placing them below ground level. The land gently slopes from Raisina hill downwards & the gradient is higher. Beyond the Chhatri towers the Stadium in the east. Vast stretches of lawns, which contain the shallow 10m wide water bodies, slope gently towards the water, facilitating surface drainage. Trees with low crowns are planted in rows on either side of Rajpath accentuating the perspective.