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ARCHITECTURE AND EMPIRE Sir Herbert Baker and The Building of New Delhi - Thomas R. Metcalf
ARCHITECTURE AND EMPIRE Sir Herbert Baker and The Building of New Delhi - Thomas R. Metcalf
ARCHITECTURE AND EMPIRE Sir Herbert Baker and The Building of New Delhi - Thomas R. Metcalf
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Would even architecture
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There made clear: As 1903, the by House. Greek
than
experience strictly Luryens
to of adherence
of Mughal Sir no cxpressing secretariats
architecrure architects Hardinge,
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Indian withstyle, means senti 395
there justthere 'h ad totradi great
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the to the for as to
396 Delhi through the Ages
Herbert Baker and New Delhi 397
is in any other art noMveau." Indian buildings,even he Taj Mahal,
were picturesque and decorative, but pervaded by Tchildishignorance' pierced stone lattice screen to admit air but not sunshine, are central
of the basic principles of architecture. "There is no trace,' he sighed, fearures of Mughal architecture. By incorporaing such elements into
'of any Wren.'1) his design Baker could simultaneously adapt his Deli buldings to
|For Herbert Baker an imperial architecure had to be 'not Indian, the extreme climate and enhance their Indic appearance. Perhaps the
nor English, nor Roman, but simply imperial.l4 This meant, as he only Indian element adopted purely for is effecr was the chattri, or
expressed it in alerter to The Times of3October 1912, that at its heart treestanding pavilion with a wide chajja, which mounts the root ine
must be a political objective: that of capruring in stone the spirit of of the secretariat buldings. These litle structures did have an aesthetic
the British Indian Empire. "The new capital,' he wrote, 'must be the purpose to serve-hat of breaking the long horizontal lines of he
sculprural monument of the good government and unity which flat roofs--bur they conuribute a great deal to 'Indianizing' these
India, for the first time in its history, has enjoyed under British rule. imposing administrative blocks.
British rule in India is not a mere veneer of government and culture. As construction proceeded Baker and Luryens found sufficient
It is a new civilization in growh, a blend of the best elements of East common ground to create a harmonious ser of buildings on top of
and West. ...I is to this great fact that the architecture of Delhi Rusina Hill. Luryens' Viceroy's House, for instance, incorporated
should bear testimony.' Henc the new city had to embody in its Severa ndian elcments. The strong horizontal lines of the building
style of building asynhesis. 1" ) tor instance are reinforced by a comice with a chaja casing a
What were the clements of the synthesis? With Luryens, Baker ten-foot shadow, while he roof line is puncruated by sunken chattrs,
repudiated the Indo-Saracenic as inappropriate to British imperial and the entrance gateway is even marked by asculprured elephut,
building, But his objection was not so much aesthetic as political. Indeed, as Wren had nmade classicism 'sane' for England, Luryens
The Indic style, he argued, simpiy does not have 'the constructive conceived of his role as making it 'sane' for India. This meant arerurm
and geometrical qualities necessary to embody the idea of law and to the'essence' of classical form, and its subsequent reconstirution.
Qrder which has been produced out of chaos by the Briush Adminis TheViceroy's House was the outcome: plain, austere, massive, with
|ration.'Classical architecrure by contrast, above all the buitdings of its Indian detail ransformed by the imaginaive genius of he archiecr.
Wren, had 'eminently the qualities of law, order, and government'. Baker's secretariats by conrast show a more direct grafting of Indian
European classicism, then, was to be given pride of place in the new motifs onto the classical surfaces. In large part his reflects Baker's
Delhias it had been in Pretoria: not,however, because of its aestherie political concems: that the secrerarat butdings, so visible on their
lperfection, but because of its political expressiveness. high pediments, andso much more open to the comings and goings
Yer this was not all. There remined, to complete the synhesis, of Indians, should be scen to be distinctly Indian, !4
considerations of climate and of decoration. From his earliestdays in Despite the similarity of their buildings the two architects had by
no means resolved heir differences. Indeed their collaboraion was
South Africa Baker had urged that Europcan buildings in southern to end in bittemess and rancour before the building of Delhiwas
lands had to be adapred to the needs of the tropical climate. Hence his
work in South Africa and his plans for Delhi incorporated such complete. The ostensible cause of the rupture was a disagreement
fearures as spaciaus colonnades, open verandahs, overhanging eaves over the angle of theinclined roadway which led up the hill berween
or cormices, and smal high window openings. These strucrural devices the rwo secretariats to the Viceroy's House. The problem had is
increased the cirçulaion of air while reducing the amount of sunlight origins in the decision, taken, as we have seen, largely at Baker's
within buildings, and brought the outdoors close at hand. Apart initiative,to place the secretariat buildings, as well as the Viceroy's
from the classically-inspired colonnade, all these features were House, on top of Raisina Hill. Baker's objecuves were praise
standard elements of indigenous_architecrure. The stoep, or open worhyto give architecrural expression to acommon digity and
verandah, was found everywhere in Cape Dutch building, while the distinction in the instrument of govemment as a united whole'--bur
chajja, or wide-projecting shade-giving stone cornice, and jaalis, or the result was to spoil the vista of the Viceroy's House from the
roadway. Lutyens had intended the viceregal mansion, as the axial
398 Delh1 throxgh the Ages
Herbert Baker and New Delhi 399
point of the scherme, to be visible from the enture length of the
ceremonil Raj Path. But placed far back on the hill behind the In South Africa cerainly the
population. Dutch and English audience was the resident white
symbolic references of the Unionalike,
secretariats, the Viceroy's House was for a time lost from view as the they could comprehend the
roadway climbed steeply up the hill. For Baker this was a matter o! Buildings, and be drawn by them
toward a larger South Afiean naionality.
no great moment. Lutyens, horever, pressed doggedly to have the
conceived of his work in Pretona.in words taken Indeed Baker explicitly
vista restored by the excavation of a deep trench cut into the hillside which 'cstablishes a Nation from Wrern, as that
past the secretariats,so that the road could ascend at alesser gradient (and) makes the people love their
When refused he broke angrily with Baker, whom he accused o native country.'"9 In New Delhi the intended audience was more
diffuse. Certainly much that was done was meant to
deceiving him in draring up the design plans for the hill." Indian with the special greatnessof Britain's empire. The impress he
Luryens' sensiivity seems altogether disproporionate to the issues of the old city and the new, the alignment of the juxtaposinon
involved, the more so as he sought to have the gradient altered at principal avenues
rith the Purana Qila and the Jama Masjid, the decorative
great expense with the construction of the city already two years scheme of
turrets, pierced screens, and chattris in red sandstone, ll were devices
underway. Yet the controversy goes to the heart of the differing meant to capture for this empire the authority, legitimate and un
conceptions that Baker and Luty ens brought to the building of New questioned, with which Indians invested its predecessors. From the
Delhi. For Baker, schooled 2s he was under Rhodes and Milner, porticoes of the secretariat ministers could look out, so Baker wrote,
architecture served always a political purpose. His placement of the across 'the far ruinous sites' of India's histoic capitals, and then look
secretariats on the hilltop, the use of Indian decorative features down 'to the new Capital berneath them that unites for the first time
indeed his commitment to European classicism itself-all testify to through the cenruries all races and religions of India."0The buildings
his one overrniding objective, that of creating an architecture expressive of New Delhi,then, were mean: to connect Britain's rule with India's
of the ideals of the British Empire. For Lutyens the empire was own imperial past, and at the sme çme to evoke asense of pride in
incidentat. He ws not untouched by its spirit. He was impressed byy theunique accomplishments of the Briish Raj.
the Indian CivilService, and the 'unselfishness' of British rule; and he For this reason much of the architectural syabeism efNDelai
was convinced that the Indians had but 'low intellects' that 'spoil' had meaning primarly for the British themselyes. Baker wrote of the
easily " But his professional interests iay elsewhere. In Delhi, while secretariat blocks that on their great podium they 'seem the guardians
working within the context of an imperial architecture, he sought of the Processional' Way up to the Acropolis, and may suggest the
nevertheless to realize the universal truths he saw embodied in the artributes of majesty which distinguished the rock platoms and
European classical radition. Fired by chis aesthetie vision he could stairway at Persepolis. The likelihood of many Indians appreciating
tolerate no interference with its implementation. The Viceroy's such symbolism was negligible.
House, 2s the ial point of an ordered symmetry, must remain The British chose a ciassical style for their new capital, in some
always visible. mtasure, simply because that was the medium through which
touel +Imperial architecrure, then, shaped by its colonial.seting, must be
aoliau Europcans apprehended empire. Its 'eternal principles' and 'ordered
regarded as a distinct style of building. Such an architecture did not beauty', more than those of any other architecture, were those fit to
involve the simple transplantation of European modes to foreign embody in stone the spint of empire. But more surely was involved.
lands. Nor was it the same as the endeavour to realize, with Lutyens Above all, it would seen the British sought by connecting their
or later le Corbusier, an abstract universal vision. Much less of course monuments to the ideals,and empires, of acherished classical anti
d1d it involve the copyingof 'native' styles, No doubt in large part quity, to enhance the moral worth-in their own eyes-of their
VakanleJ
because of his early rutelage under Rhodes and Milner, Bakerrecog political handiwork. For this reason imperial architecture was not
nized always that an architecrure meant to symbolize empire made (ued to any particular geographic setting. Its elements could be
unusual demanás upon the builder. Central to these demands was the reordered to fit any trapical dependency. What had been hammered
Jali necessity of appealing simultaneously on different levels to avariety out in Pretona, and refined in Delhi, could be carried to such places
of different audiences.
as Kenya, where the Govermment House, Nairobi, built by Baker in
admin olace
400 Delhi throngh the Ages
1925, was but a minor variant of the design worked out before. The
empire remained always aspecial place; and its buildings serveç
always aspecial purpose. It was none otherthan to makemanifes
to ruler and ruled alik-that, as Baker wrote, echoing Curzon, 'Our
work is righteous and it shallendure.'
NOTES