If you've ever wondered how india's capital city was born, here's a book that has the answers, including why two boys sit fishing atop a chandelier in the children's nursery at Rashtrapati Bhavan
If you've ever wondered how india's capital city was born, here's a book that has the answers, including why two boys sit fishing atop a chandelier in the children's nursery at Rashtrapati Bhavan
Rs 13.07 crore: That, apparently, is what the making of New Delhi cost. It took the British a while to arrive at the figure, starting with a mere Rs 9.17 crore when they first decided on the project. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
At the eye of that storm, with the vitriol flying back and forth, stood the men behind the re-design architects Herbert Baker and Edwin Lutyens. They didn't see eye to eye either, attacking each other's ideas, accusing each other of a number of ploys, yet magically transforming the face of what Lord Curzon once described as a bunch of deserted cities of "disconsolate tombs". The city they built lasted; their relationship didn't.
Ninety eight years after this story began, editor Malvika Singh, historian Rudrangshu Mukherjee and collector Pramod Kapoor have pieced together all the possible pieces that went into its creation. The result is clearly the result of painstaking labour a visually stunning document of our historical capital's reincarnation.
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The stone yard for the construction sat over twenty-two acres and was reputed to be the largest in the world. The stone-cutters often came from Agra, Bharatpur and Mirzapur. The prepared material was conveyed to the site by railway carriages specifically deployed for the purpose |
For anyone with even a remote interest in how our Dilli came to be, New Delhi: Making of a Capital is quite possibly the last word. It's got it all maps, telegrams, blueprints, letters, newspaper reports, debates from the House of Lords, even a facsimile of the original 1913 agreement signed by those bickering chief architects and the secretary of state. The photographs are the biggest treat though, documenting everything from the levelling of Raisina Hill to the construction of the seats of power now known as North and South Block.
Interestingly, Lutyens a name real estate brokers will recognise instantly didn't like anything Indian. He eventually grew to amend that opinion but, while working on completing Government House, made this pointed observation: "...the Indian never finishes anything and breaks 50 per cent of what he temporarily fixes so that the amount of making good shall be at least 25 per cent of the work done..."
Clearly, some things may stay the same forever.
New Delhi: Making of a Capital by Malvika Singh and Rudrangshu Mukherjee, published by Roli Books. Architects Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker didn't see eye to eye, and accused each other of a number of ploys Lutyens took special interest in the children's nursery in Government House. This is a sketch in a letter to his wife, Emily, that shows how he conceived the chandeliers, to add cheer to the room.
Priced at: Rs 1,975.
Pages: 240
Below right: The most British of boyish sports, fishing, in a detail of a chandelier in the nursery
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The light fitting above the "south" main stairs. The figure of the bearer suggests the scale of the fitting itself. |
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Baker's later design showing a cross-section of the legislative building. Two of the three chambers and the central dome are visible, with the rounded arches blending into the circular scheme of the structure. |
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Sketches of the Government House (now the majestic Rashtrapati Bhavan) in a letter from Lutyens to Baker. The rapport between the two architects, evident in this document, declined, as the project progressed |
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At least three workmen work the pulley as others assist in raising the carefully packed statue in Government House (Rashtrapati Bhavan). Most of the artifacts in the building were designed to impress by their sheer scale |
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