The Metro is certainly the best way to reach the outermost parts of the National Capital Region. If you are on your way to dinner in Gurgaon, you might like to pick up a bottle of wine en route. Easily done nowadays. Back in the 1980s, it was like trying to buy wine in the reign of Muhammad bin Tughluq.
In January 2007, the International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture and Urbanism (INTBAU) held a conference in Delhi. As its name suggests, INTBAU promotes traditional values in planning and design. In the West this often means supporting the revival of classicism, which was supposedly expunged by modernism. Its patron is the Prince of Wales. Coming to Delhi was about trying to see if there were like-minded people among the architectural profession here: people ready to shake off the shackles of the modern movement and embrace some inspiration from the past. Of course they were about twenty years too late; they would have done better if they had come in the 1980s when such forces were indeed stirring. One of the keynote speakers was Leon Krier, an architect and theorist who has worked for Prince Charles (he made the master plan for the new town of Poundbury in Dorset). With great passion and verve, he delivered a speech he had obviously given many times before, sketching a vision in which we all live in houses made of brick and stucco, no building is ever more than four storeys tall, every town is medium sized and yet we all have everything we need—schools, hospitals, libraries, banks, shops, the lot—within easy walking distance. His drawings depicting all this show pretty rows of varied houses and avenues of pollarded trees, like something off a biscuit tin.
I was assigned the unenviable task of taking Krier and a busload of other delegates on a tour of Gurgaon (where I happen to live) in order to inspect this current example of Indian urban development in action. Coming at the end of a long and tiring day—and timed to coincide with the rush hour—this jaunt did not go well. On crossing the border into Haryana, I pointed to the glittering DLF ‘Gateway Tower’, a twelve-storey office block designed by the famous, if controversial, architect Hafeez Contractor. Though completed and in use, the tower then still had clustering around its base the shacks of the migrant workers who had constructed it. They have since moved on of course, but such scenes are common in Gurgaon and visibly convey the social inequalities that the city’s very growth embodies. Krier was appalled. Not by the squalor but by the design of the tower, as its height and glass sheath are affronts against tradition. In his speech he made sure everyone knew how low he rated my skills as a guide and described the Gateway Tower as ‘a gigantic lipstick’. I’m not sure what he has against lipstick. We Gurgaon people call it the ‘ship building’ because the outline of its plan is shaped like a boat. But ‘lipstick’ makes me like it more . . . makes it almost sexy.
The guest of honour at the conference was Raj Rewal. The distinguished architect spent an hour showing pictures and discussing some of his completed and ongoing projects. Rewal was the obvious and perfect choice for this role. A guiding force in the Indian revival movement of the 1980s described earlier, he has remained true to its spirit. He employs modern technologies and design methods but infuses each work with a distinctively Indian spirit. Typically, he takes a traditional motif or pattern and reinvents it, adapting it to a new scale or purpose. The transformation leaves you with a sense of connectedness, but also intrigues you as you try to figure out how he does it. The trouble is, he is not very good at describing this, or explaining his methods. It is not that, like a conjuror, he won’t reveal his tricks. He just can’t. His approach to the past is instinctive and visual, not verbal. He just shows you what he has done and expects you to get it.
Well, Leon Krier wasn’t having any of it. As soon as Rewal finished, Krier leapt to his feet, ostensibly to thank him, but took everyone by surprise by commenting acidly, ‘You aren’t a traditional architect! You’re a modernist!’ Now, in Krier’s vocabulary this is not a compliment. It’s like calling someone a barbarian. The irony is, of course, that he is right (not about the barbarian bit): Rewal is indeed a modernist. One of the buildings that made his name was an industrial exhibition space, the Hall of Nations, at Pragati Maidan. Inaugurated in 1972, it was condemned as having outlived its usefulness and was suddenly and surreptitiously demolished in 2017—to the horror of architects and conservationists who mourned this loss of a ‘heritage’ structure. Since that term was used, let us be clear that the heritage in question is India’s post-Independence modern movement. The design principle employed in the Hall of Nations was the space frame. Indeed Rewal originally proposed to build it in steel. On finding the cost of steel to be prohibitively high, he switched to concrete, as the major cost in concrete construction is the labour force required to make the formwork, and Indian labour is cheap. As a space frame made in concrete, the Hall of Nations was actually something of an anomaly, as well as an exercise in the brutalist aesthetic. Of course, depending on taste, those are not reasons not to mourn it. Rewal’s many later projects are very different in aesthetic, but they are no less modern.
Rewal seemed rather nonplussed by Krier’s attack, as well he might be. I mean, one’s colleagues invite one to be a guest of honour and give one a platform, and then some angry foreigner delivers what is obviously meant as an insult, but one is not sure quite how. Rewal’s softly muttered retort sounded very like, ‘Well, I’d rather be a modernist than a fuddy-duddy!’
So Leon Krier is not going to find his architectural paradise, his land of innocence, in any place designed by Raj Rewal. Neither will he find it in Gurgaon. Cyber City, as seen from the expressway, looks like a set design for a Star Wars movie, like a film-maker’s idea of an intergalactic space station. The city develops according to the dictates of market forces, with no coherent master plan. In the west, it has sped down the NH8 as far as Manesar, half-way to the border with Rajasthan. To the south, it has swept over farmlands and stands poised to engulf Badshahpur. It is strong on resources—it has some excellent schools and hospitals—but is poor in infrastructure. Its roads in particular are not well maintained—an imbalance which reflects the dominance of the private sector. None of its architecture looks back towards Delhi, but outwards, towards Dubai and Singapore. It has an enormous wholesale market for marble, brought straight from the quarries of Rajasthan; but developers proudly boast of using not this but marble imported from Italy. Its whole futuristic promise is based on a denial of its location.
So how is one to respond to this megacity? Can one make any connection between today’s urban sprawl and the earliest parts of Delhi? Shall we join hands with the fuddy-duddies and decry the destructive march of the modern era? Not me. It may seem far-fetched to look at a map of Gurgaon and see its embryo in the courtyard of the Quwwatu’l-Islam. But the story retold in these pages is of a city that keeps making itself anew and larger. Each of the successive cities of Delhi was once a brash interloper, embarrassing its older predecessors as it jostled for space and increased the scale. Today, we may look with nostalgic pleasure at the quiet and quaint avenues of central New Delhi, the Lutyens Bungalow Zone; but in the 1920s it was all brand new, with parts half-finished, and all laid out on a scale that made Old Delhi look like a model in a museum. But Old Delhi too was new and a grand imperial city in its day, as you can still see in descriptions by eyewitnesses like François Bernier. Gurgaon lacks the clear shape and order of its predecessors, but it marks no break in their purpose. It is just the next surge. And it won’t be the last.
Suggested Routes
Each of the following routes could be covered in half a day—a period that may be abbreviated or lengthened according to the time available. Visitors to the city who have very limited time are advised to prioritize the first four routes. The remaining five are listed in geographical sequence, roughly from north to south. I have not included maps of the routes quite simply because no one any longer uses a book for information that is more conveniently found on a mobile phone. These routes are just stage one of a plan: they point to clusters of sites that are discussed in the book, whic
h can conveniently be visited in a single trip. These routes are not conceived as walks: in every case a car or public transport is required to get to the starting point and (with the exception of the first and third) to get between the various sites included.
Shahjahanabad: Red Fort and Jami Masjid
The easiest way to reach Shahjahanabad, the old city of Delhi, is by the Metro (Yellow and Violet Lines). Approached by road, it seems cut off and remote. This was partly deliberate. Despite some token lines of connectivity, New Delhi was not planned to include it. The old city was then seen as insanitary and best avoided. Today, it feels like a different world from New Delhi, and from what it once was. The events of 1857 and 1947 had a profound demographic impact, with the expulsion or departure of large sections of the Muslim elites. And with modernization in the post-Independence era, the non-Muslim elites have left too. Owning a grand haveli in the old city, which had once been so fashionable, began to seem more like an embarrassment. Maintaining one, and sustaining an elegant lifestyle within it, became difficult in that increasingly congested space. Far better to abandon it in favour of a bungalow—or later an apartment—in one of the spacious new colonies of south Delhi. The haveli, if not torn down, would be closed up, or let out as storage space, or divided up among shopkeepers and other tenants. The city remains a frantically busy commercial hub, but it has lost its elite status, certainly as a place to live in. The core of the old city—known as Delhi 6 after its postal district number—is depicted in Bollywood movies as some quaint netherworld in which lovable rogues lead lives of misadventure, but where the built environment somehow imbues everything with a sense of reality and integrity.
It doesn’t look like that from the real worlds of Connaught Place or the southern colonies: it just looks messy, dilapidated and crowded. Neither does it look particularly old. There are some surviving old havelis as well as mosques and madrasas, but the majority of the original, Mughal-era buildings have been replaced. What does survive is the street plan. As in the City of London, most individual buildings have been replaced, but on the same footprint, leaving the layout undisturbed. Not only the main thoroughfares, even the narrow winding lanes follow the routes that they did when the city was first developed.
The Lal Qila, or Red Fort (pp. 68–78), is a UNESCO World Heritage site but it is not well maintained. It is hard to get a sense, on the ground, of the original overall design concept, as planned by the principal architect of the Red Fort, Ustad Ahmad Lahauri (who was also the main architect of the Taj Mahal). But the fort is well worth visiting for some magnificent component parts including the Diwan-i-Am, with its marble throne baldachino (or canopy), and the Diwan-i-Khas. The recently revamped site museums do little to assist an understanding of the architecture, but do touch on some of the nationalist associations that the fort has acquired through its turbulent later history.
Netaji Subhash Road—named after Subhash Chandra Bose, who was instrumental in setting up the INA—separates the fort from the rest of the old city. But if you can negotiate your way across it, it is possible to walk down Chandni Chowk. That name, meaning ‘moonlit square’, is now given to the whole length of the road but originally referred to an open space at its midpoint. Sponsored by Jahanara, the emperor Shah Jahan’s daughter, the octagonal chowk contained a pool to reflect the moon, and a hammam and a sarai for public use. One of the smaller alleys from the south side of Chandni Chowk, Dariba Kalan Road, leads to the north gate of the Jami Masjid (pp. 78–80). Gaining access to the mosque requires observing the dress code (no skirts or shorts) but is otherwise free. To plan your day, it is worth noting that non-Muslims are not allowed in during the lunchtime namaz or prayer.
Humayun’s Tomb and Lodi Road
Top of my list of Delhi’s must-see monuments is Humayun’s tomb, which stands beyond the eastern end of Lodi Road, where it crosses the highway to Mathura (pp. 59–62). As you enter the garden from the west gate, instead of proceeding directly towards the tomb, it is worth turning right to walk through part of the garden and approach the tomb from the south, its proper entrance front. Inside the tomb, make sure to explore some of the corner chambers (accessed from the central hall) which contain some of the lesser graves. Outside on the platform, on the eastern side, you may be able to hear, if not glimpse, the railway line, just beyond the perimeter wall. The railway now runs where the river once did: like the Taj Mahal in Agra, this tomb once stood on the banks of the Yamuna.
Also on the platform, especially on the western side, there are seemingly random clusters of other graves. Why were some members of the imperial family buried inside the main building and others outside? It is impossible to be sure because we don’t know who is who: none of the graves are marked with the names of those buried in them. Their position may reflect their status but my guess is that it has more to do with their orthodoxy. In strict Islamic tradition, nothing should cover the grave, certainly not a vast domed sepulchre. Having one’s grave outside on the platform comes closer to observing that rule.
As you exit from the western gate, turn immediately left to pass through a small doorway into the Arab Sarai, where you will find the Afsarwala mosque and tomb (p. 63). Behind those buildings is the back of a grand gateway that enables you to leave the Arab Sarai and then re-enter Bu Halima’s garden. On your left then is the entrance to Isa Khan’s tomb and mosque (pp. 62–63).
Before leaving the area it is worth paying a visit to the Sunder Nagar nursery, on the northern side of the complex. Containing a handful of lesser tombs of the Mughal era, this area was once part of the larger necropolis. When New Delhi was under construction, it was turned into a nursery, for the many trees and plants required for the city’s avenues and roundabouts, and it continued in that use until recently. But now the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) has taken it in hand, restoring the buildings and laying out new gardens and landscaping in a modern Mughal idiom. At the time of writing, the AKTC is also constructing an interpretation centre at the entrance to the whole complex.
The excellent work of the AKTC, conducted over many years, has restored several parts of the necropolis and has reconnected them into an integrated whole. Even they, however, cannot undo the effect of the modern road layout, which severs Humayun and his immediate neighbours from the Sufi saint next to whom they wished to be buried, Nizamuddin Auliya (pp. 63–64). Founded in the early fourteenth century, his dargah lies at the heart of the old urban village of Nizamuddin, and can be reached by lanes leading from the eastern end of Lodi Road. Entering the dargah, you pass by the restored baoli or stepwell, built by his devotees to the fury of the sultan (p. 31). The actual tomb (or mazar) of the saint was often rebuilt or embellished by devotees; in its present form it dates from the nineteenth century. Within the precinct are the graves of two of his prominent devotees, of different eras: Amir Khusrau (who was the saint’s contemporary) and Princess Jahanara (who lived three centuries later and was responsible for Chandni Chowk). Just outside are the tombs of Ataga Khan and of his son, the elegant Chaunsath Khamba (pp. 66–67).
Halfway down the Lodi Road, one comes across a startling juxtaposition of early and modern architecture: sultanate-era tombs within a stone’s throw of some of the most experimental buildings of the mid-twentieth century. The Sayyid and Lodi period tombs of the Lodi Gardens (pp. 41–49) are among the finest and best preserved pre-Mughal buildings in Delhi. And the pleasure of visiting them is enhanced by the garden setting even if its form is unhistorical: the gardens were laid out in the picturesque manner by the British in 1936 and updated with quirky modernist lamp posts and fountains in the 1960s.
Hemming the garden in on its eastern side are some institutional buildings of more recent times. The India International Centre (IIC) and the Ford Foundation are two examples of the innovative and delightful early work of the architect Joseph Allen Stein (p. 125). A later and larger work emanating from the same office is the vast and sprawling Habitat Centre (1988–93), on the far side of the road, which houses art g
alleries and various bodies connected with the building trade. Its huge meandering courtyard is made to feel intimate, and the light is dappled, by the screens suspended high overhead.
Because of the clustering of these buildings, professors and students of architecture refer to the area affectionately as ‘Steinabad’. But Stein is not the only modern architect represented here. Tibet House (1974, next door to the Habitat Centre) is one of those exercises in Le Corbusian brutalism by Shiv Nath Prasad (p. 122), though its original starkness and internationalism are mollified by the later painting of the exterior in bright colours inspired by Tibetan art. The office of the World Bank (1996) that is tucked away by the annexe to the IIC is a fine example of the work of Delhi’s leading architect, Raj Rewal (p. 130). Nearby is the India Islamic Cultural Centre (S.K. Das and others, completed 2006) whose detached jalis and intricate mosaic ornament present a post-modern version of traditional Islamic design. To get a sense of the spacious planning and functional design of the housing colonies that were built in the mid-twentieth century, just before and after Independence, it is worth exploring the Lodi Estate (opposite the IIC) and the adjacent, more upmarket Golf Links.
At the western end of Lodi Road, we return to the Mughal period (though to a later phase of it) with the tomb of Safdarjang (p. 85).
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