On Urban Artifacts in New Delhi

New Delhi may be seen as an imperial urban artifact of British Colonialism in India. The term urban artifact is borrowed from Rossi's The Architecture of the City where he argues that their characteristics return us to some major themes of individuality, locus, design and memory'. He consciously excludes the theme of function in these attributes voicing his critique of naive functionalism maintaining that "any explanation of urban artifacts in terms of function must be rejected if the issue is to elucidate their structure and formation. " Rossi conceives that "Function, physiological in nature, can be likened to a bodily organ whose function justifies its formation and development and whose alterations of function imply an alteration of form. "17 While Rossi rejects function, he advocates for type as a more accurate classifier of urban artifacts.

Although New Delhi adheres to all attributes laid out in Rossi's construction of an urban artifact, it also differentiates from it in the complexity of its nature. While the imperial may be classified as the type'" of its form, the change in the city's identity (from imperial to democratic) over time remains ambiguous to the physically limited clarity of Rossi's construction. Perhaps the attributes of Kevin Lynch's The Image of the City (Legibility, Structure, Identity and Imageability)' describes better Delhi's qualification as an urban artifact. As for the notion of memory, on one hand, Rossi's concept of memory is compounded by the clash between the physical determinism of the imperial type (manifested through strong iconography, axiality, scale, hierarchy and segregation) and the desire to democratize as a result of it (after independence); on the other hand, it is burdened by antiquity and pressures of preservation inhibiting functional evolution of a contemporary metropolis. "To some, the city embodied an obsolete imagery and a waste of urban land. To others, it seemed a precious artifact to be preserved. Examining the capitol district of New Delhi as an imperial urban artifact then provides physical, social, cultural and political benchmarks of comparisons (through colonial and postcolonial time frames). These comparisons are used to construct a coherent narrative that corroborates the claims made in this thesis. Although on the face of it, New Delhi appears to have accepted changes in use and identity over the years, the physical determinism of the imperial (not limited only to type but also ideology, symbolism, identity and institutionalization) persists and embodies the city's inertia to resist change. The relatively unchanged characteristics of the plan's built imperial ideologies are a testimony to this inertia. They have therefore led to a notion of persistence of the imperial, which has defied the democratization of the plan as attempted through the master planning of Delhi in its postcolonial era. Many have viewed this persistence more as a resistance in support of an imperial image of Delhi "as a sheltered enclave for the administrative elite”.

Anthony King points out that the symbolic representation of imperial power continues to persist in Delhi. He argues that "the inherently separationist structures of the imperial city and its asymmetrical power relations are being continuously reinvented, albeit in an internal imperialist form. " Kevin Lynch comments on the 'bi-polar' form (native and foreign) of colonial cities, "Once the colonial hold is broken. . . as in Delhi today, the hierarchies and segregations are simply taken over and perpetuated by the new native elite. "

In his essay 'The Contemporary Architecture of Delhi', Menon concurs citing an institutional persistence of the imperial propagating the continuance of assumptions and policies implicit in the imperial plan. "After independence, continuing the pursuit of these urban and architectural intentions became an article of faith with planners of Delhi". Menon's view owes its origins to western import of experts recruited by the Ford Foundation to set up the first Master Plan of Delhi shortly after Independence. "Far from rejecting westernization, many Indians persisted in equating it with progress, optimistically anticipating an era of technical advancement and industrial prosperity. " It seems ironic that the preservationists (to mobilize two decades after independence) were fighting for the same cause as the progressivists at the advent of independence while the ideologists still continue the struggle to break away from their imperial ghosts in pursuit of a purely indigenous paradigm. "The preservation of the colonial buildings and layout of Lutyens' New Delhi is largely the result of the extent to which political and administrative elites continue to invest in this area". Whether it was the plan itself, the ideology it promulgated, the origins and development of the post-colonial planning process, vested political interests, antiquity or simply the lack of foresight and comprehensive planning, the imperial persists and impedes sustainable development and the future of New Delhi.

The Patrons

There were two key political figures put at the task of the design, construction and execution of the new capital by the British crown. The British secretary of State for India, Lord Crowe (in London) and the Viceroy of India, Lord Hardinge of Penhurst; both remained in constant touch with each other throughout the project. As the plot thickened, Lord Hardinge emerged as one of the key influences on the master plan. Hardinge was posted in Washington DC as a diplomat during which time new plans for the American capital reviving L'Enfant's vision were being put forth by the McMillan commission. Impressed with the conception of the American capital he "repeatedly adopted Pierre Charles L'Enfant's and George Washington's ideas as a yardstick for comparable decisions in the design and construction of Imperial Delhi. "4" Hardinge was also instrumental in identifying the site atop Raisina Hill, which formed the terminating element of the celebrated main axis of Lutyens' scheme for the imperial capital. Due to his strong preferences and ideology, Hardinge was often a difficult client to the architect, and as a result, there were clashes as described by Volwahsen, similar to 'Michelangelo and Pope Julius II' between the patron and the architect. For political reasons and his acquired sensitivity to local context, Hardinge was always in favor of incorporating the Indian aesthetic in the imperial design for the capital.

By 1913, the Delhi Town Planning Committee appointed by the British Viceroy (Hardinge) and the India office consisted of Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker (newly appointed architects); John A. Brodie, a municipal engineer, Capt. George Swinton and others. Henry V. Lanchester, the only member with prior experience in India was appointed the advisor to the committee. Other engineers like T. R. J. Ward, W. B. Gordon and C. E. V. Goument played important roles in rationalizing proposals made by the designers during the design process based on possibilities of planting the ridge, minimizing blasting and alterations to natural drainage patters inherent on the site.