Modern Architecture and Architects of India: Notes

Modern architecture is the part of Art and Culture that connects buildings students see every day with names examiners expect them to know. The story runs from the colonial styles of the nineteenth century, through the planning of New Delhi and Chandigarh, to the Indian architects who built the institutions, housing and museums of the republic. Questions are almost always of the match-the-architect type, so the safest way to study the topic is building by building.

Colonial styles before independence

Nineteenth century British building in India followed two main directions. The Gothic Revival gave Bombay its Victoria Terminus, now Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, designed by Frederick William Stevens and completed in 1888, a station inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The Indo-Saracenic style deliberately mixed Mughal and Rajput features such as domes, chhatris and jaalis with European plans and engineering. The Gateway of India in Mumbai, built to mark a royal visit and completed in 1924, and the museum now called the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya were both designed by George Wittet in this style, while Henry Irwin designed the Mysore Palace, completed in 1912. In Kolkata, William Emerson designed the Victoria Memorial, completed in 1921, in a blend of classical and Mughal elements.

Lutyens Delhi

The decision to move the capital from Calcutta to Delhi was announced at the Delhi Durbar of 12 December 1911, and the new city was planned by the British architects Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker and inaugurated in 1931. Lutyens designed the Viceroy House, today the Rashtrapati Bhavan, crowning Raisina Hill, and the memorial arch now called India Gate. Baker designed the circular Parliament House, completed in 1927, and the North and South Blocks of the Secretariat that flank the approach to Raisina Hill. The plan is remembered for its wide tree-lined avenues, hexagonal road pattern and long vistas, a style often described as a marriage of classical European form with Indian decorative detail.

Chandigarh and Le Corbusier

After Partition, Punjab needed a new capital. The first plan was prepared by the American planner Albert Mayer with Matthew Nowicki, and after Nowicki died the work passed to the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier, who worked with Pierre Jeanneret, Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew. Chandigarh was laid out in rectangular sectors, each meant to be self-sufficient, with a hierarchy of roads. Le Corbusier himself designed the Capitol Complex, which holds the Secretariat, the High Court and the Legislative Assembly along with the Open Hand monument, the symbol of the city. The Capitol Complex was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2016 as part of the transnational property known as the Architectural Work of Le Corbusier.

The Indian masters

Landmarks of independent India

Louis Kahn, the American architect, designed the campus of the Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad, famous for its brick arches and open courts. The Vidhana Soudha at Bengaluru, completed in 1956, is the best known example of the Neo-Dravidian style in a government building. The Lotus Temple in New Delhi, a Bahai House of Worship shaped like a half-open lotus with twenty-seven marble petals, was designed by the Iranian-Canadian architect Fariborz Sahba and completed in 1986. At Kevadia in Gujarat, the Statue of Unity, a memorial to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel standing 182 metres tall and sculpted by Ram V. Sutar, was unveiled on 31 October 2018. The new Parliament building, designed by the Ahmedabad architect Bimal Patel on a triangular plan, was inaugurated on 28 May 2023.

How the styles are described

Three ideas run through the modern period. The first is the move away from imported classical forms towards buildings suited to Indian heat, light and rain, seen in deep verandas, courtyards and perforated screens. The second is the use of exposed material, particularly brick and concrete, in place of plaster and ornament. The third is the use of architecture as a statement of national confidence, from Chandigarh in the 1950s to the museums, assemblies and memorials built since. Honours tell the same story: Charles Correa received the Royal Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1984 and Doshi received it in 2022, four years after his Pritzker Prize.