evolution of Contemporary Indian Architecture

1. I. 1947 – 1959: Options after Independence,
the Evolution of Contemporary Indian
Architecture
Chatterjee, Malay. "I. 1947 – 1959: Options after Independence, the Evolution of Contemporary Indian Architecture."In Architecture In India, 124-131. Paris and
Milan: Electa Moniteur, 1985.
Original Publication: Catalogue ofexhibition held at École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris, 1985-86
Keywords: Modernist Architecture in India, Modern Architecture and 20th Century Architecture in South Asia
Independence in 1947 brought forth a bewildering range of problems, opportunities, expectations and dreams. The partition of the
country caused a refugee problem that involved millions of families. All eyes were on a newly formed peopleand its leaders as
the nation settled down to doing what had to be done to set thewheels of development in motion. At first there was no time for
elaborate building plans. Hectic building activity occurred because millions had to be re-settled all over Punjab, in Delhi, in West
Bengal.
A crash building programme was undertaken in thepublic sector using whatever materials were readily available and thus a
number of small towns and re-settlement colonies came up, almost instantly, in many parts of the country. In one sense this was
the finest hour for the Public Works Department who had to contend with innumerable constraints and supply problems in
restoring a sense of confidence to millions through provision of housing and services. All this was achieved by Indian engineers
and the handful of architects then employed by Government1. At thetime of Independence, we had less than one architect per
1,000,000 population. Britain had one architect per 4,000 population. Bombay had over half the country’s 300 or so architects.
Yet even in that city, the following vignette will reveal the status of the profession in eyes of thepublic: “Theother day, a new
servant asked a colleague if he was an engineer. He said, ‘No, I am an architect’, to which the man replies with feeling, ‘God
grant ten that you may soon become an engineer’. This very concisely sums up the unfortunateposition of the architect in India.
Not as a professional man of high standing and long training, but, by the minority who have ever heard of him at all, as a junior
assistant to another profession”2.
Just as architects were beginning to size up the enormous challenges of construction that lay ahead, theold debate on style
erupted again. The central question in the debates on stylein the decades before Independence was; How much indigenisation of
stylecould the British afford to indulge in without appearing to be making political concessions to a subject people?After
Independence, thequestion changed to: How much indigenisation could a newly independent nation afford without appearing
backward and weak in both its own eyes and in the image it presented to the rest of the world? New phraseand slogans entered
the debate. Nationalism, a widespread and understandable sentiment in thefirst flush of freedom, was sought to be expressed
through Revivalism in all forms of cultural expression, including architecture. Building styles born of theModern Movement and
the colonial experience were perceived as foreign and hence anti-national. Some of the tallest political leaders in the land lent
their support to therevivalists, who sought to reach back a thousand years for architectural forms and details which sy mbolised
various classical eras and golden ages of Indian culture.
Ranged on theother side were a handful of intellectuals and architects who argued that monuments should be viewed in context
of their times, that they were not to be imitated, and that modern India required modern architectural symbols and forms to
express the dynamism of a free peopleon their march to economic development. Thedesign of Golconde at the Aurobindo
Ashram in Pondicherry made a lot of sense to them. Golconde was a dormitory for the ashramites designed by Czech-born
Antonin Raymond (1888-1976). Raymond came to India after eighteen years of practice in Japan where he had gone to work on
Wright’s Imperial Hotel. By the time he reached India he had outgrown the influence of Wright and was steeped in the
International Style of the thirties with one important reservation. He was looking for richer forms and more tactile materials[1].
In Golconde, an outstanding modern masterpiece, he totally succeeded in expressing his philosophy of design: “We should base
our designs directly on theneeds and requirements of theclients and deal directly with conditions growing out of the work itself
and the location. There should be no empty imagination or abstract speculation involved, our work should be structurally clean
and pure. By that I mean not to design first and give a problem to engineers afterwards, but to work hand in hand with them from
the beginning, in order to find not an extraordinary solution, but the simplest, most direct and most economical.”3
Golconde was the earliest example of a good concrete building in India. All its details and features were evolved from a through
study of climate and thepsychological needs of its occupants:cross-ventilation and sun-protection were achieved by covering the

2. entire building surface with parallel, horizontal louvers, and precast thin-shell concrete vaulting was used to crate a ventilated
double roof for insulation4. The details of Golconde were evolved during the year Raymond lived and worked alongside
members of the Ashram. Thebuilding was completed after Independence, in 1948. Through few architects in India were aware of
its existence, Golconde was the first expression of a new era about to commence for contemporary Indian Architecture. The
opponents of Revivalism sought and gained the support of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru (1890-1964). He came to their
rescue. Two new State Capitals were required at that time as a result of partition and the process of boundary adjustments
between the States of the Union of India: one for Punjab and another for Orissa. “Nehru outflanked the revivalists by inviting Le
Corbusier and Koenigsberger to India. Koenigsburger caved in to the Chief Minister M ahatab, a supporter of Revivalism, and
you have Bhubaneshwar. Corbu gave us Chandigarh”5.
Three broad stylisticexpressions prevailed in theuncertain fifties. Foremost among the group of architects with the most to lose
had the revivalists gained an upper hand were thefirst batch of Indians to receive their architectural training in America: Habib
Rehman, Achyut Kanvinde and the late Durga Bajpai. They were all young and idealistic; they shouldered the enormous
responsibilities, and were vulnerable to the criticism of seniors schooled in different methods. This generation had been exp osed
to Le Corbusier and other European masters via America and not directly. They were also influenced by masters of the American
Modern Movement. Thus in Rahman’s New Secretariat and Kanvinde’s ATIRA Building, we see theaustere influence of the
Bauhaus; in Bajpai’s Jehangir Art Gallery, a plasticity and freshness of expression quite alien to the building traditions of
Bombay; in Delhi’s Oberoi Hotel by Bajpai and Mody, aclear recognition that a new tourismrequired new functional forms
which could economically integrate structureand services. And Correa’s memorial to Gandhi in Ahmedabad is a pioneering
attempt to usea new architectural vocabulary to express both cultural continuity and ambiguity. This was the first work to
consciously depict the ambiguity of the fifties: an India torn between thetwin pressures of traditional belief systems and a
simultaneous desire for modernisation. It could have come only from Correa.
A second grouping with respect too styleis, generally speaking, ‘backward-looking’, to use Walter George’s evocative phrase. In
Mhatre’s MarbleArch Apartments and in theRamakrishna Mission Complex, by the prominent Calcutta firm of Ballardie,
Thompson and Matthews, weseea continuing satisfaction and contentment with a tried and tested vocabulary dating to the
thirties and forties when a fusion of Art-Deco, ‘modernistic’ and traditional elements was theprevailing norm for façade-making
in Bombay and Calcutta. In the Supreme Court at Delhi, designed by the architects of theCentral Public Works Department, the
Imperial Styleof Lutyens and Baker is seen to be worth repeating a full twenty fiveyears later. In Doctor’s AshokaHotel, and
the Vidhan Soudha Secretariat Building, designed by the State Public Works Department (P.W.D.) in Bangalore, the Revivalist
Styles are seen in full power.
The third predominant stylistic vocabulary in this period attempted to express the spirit of free India at Chandigarh and in
modifications made to the International Style in Delhi. In Walter George’s T.B. Association Building at Delhi, a contemporary
application of adjustable light-weight horizontal sun-breakers signalled George’s break with an older vocabulary of arched or
colonnaded verandas. In Chandigarh, Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew brought their extensive African experience to bear on the task
of evolving new scales, forms and finishes for governmenthousing. Together with Pierre Jeanneret, the husband-and-wife team
of Fry and Drew were responsible for evolving over fifty unit designs within strict cost ceilings laid down by the Punjab
Government. Jeanneret introduced a pioneering interplay of decorative brickwork and plain plaster in his Peons’ Housing Type
13, because of this concern for making the “cheapest house look grand”6. Drew favoured a greater use of plain plastered
surfaces in her Type 12 Housing, and Fry’s ‘Egg-Crate’ Housing Type 9, is representative of his partiality for concrete sun-
breakers (braise-soleil). In Jugal Kishore Chowdhury’s Engineering College; the International Style is tempered by use of local
materials such as walls set with pebbles from a nearby river bed. In SuryakantPatel’s own house at Baroda, exposed brick,
concrete, and a novel play of soft and hard geometrical shapes heralded a new freedom of expression in domestic architecture.
The above vocabulary was brought to India when Punjab needed a new Capital, and its purest and most abstract form was
expressed in Jeanneret’s Gandhi Bhavan, and Le Corbusier’s High Court.
A striking montage of contemporary Indian architecture in the fifties is provided by viewing three buildings together: the High
Court at Chandigarh, the Supreme Court and Delhi, and the Vidhan Soudha at Bangalore. Each building represented powerful
ideologies at work and these offered patrons and architects a stylisticoption, a choice of identity, an image of India. Evan as late
as 1959, Prime Minister Nehru was obliged to defend the experiment at Chandigarh, and in doing so he titled the balance in
favour of new ideas from the West:
“Now I have welcomed very greatly one great experiment in India which you know very well – Chandigarh. Many peopleargue
about it, some dislike it, some like it. It is totally immaterial whether you like it or not, it is thebiggest thing, because it makes
you think. You may squirm at the impact, but it makes you think and imbibe new ideas. And theone thing that India requires in
so many fields is to be hit on the head, so that you may think. I don not like every building in Chandigarh. I like some very much,
I like the general conception of thetownship very much. But what like above all this is the creative approach -= not being tied
down to what has been done by our forefathers and thelike, but thinking out in new terms; trying to think in terms of light and
air, and ground and water and human beings, not in terms of rules and regulations laid down by our ancestors. Therefore,

3. Chandigarh is of enormous importance, regardless of whether something in it succeeds or it does not. As a matter of fact, even
now many things in Chandigarh have spread;many ideas in small ways and big ways. Chandigarh, as you will know, is more
famous in theworld than most Indian towns or cities, excepting thewell-known three or four, simply because it is a thing coming
out. It is a thing of power coming out of a powerful mind, not a flat mind or a mind which is a mirror, and that to not a very clear
mirror reflecting somebody else’s mind. There is no doubt that Le Corbusier is a man with a power, creative typeof mind.
Because he has that, he may become extravagant occasionally. He can produce extravaganza occasionally, but it is better to have
that, than to have a person with no mind at all. Mr. Winston Churchill was once accused of having a swollen head. What was his
answer? He said, ‘It is better to have a swollen head than no head at all’.”7
While the debate on styleraged throughout the decade, the fifties also saw a significant expansion of architectural education. In
1947, there were three schools: at Baroda, Bombay and Delhi. By theend of thefifties, nine new schools had been established in
recognition of thefact that the process of planned economic development would require a manifold increase in the number of
architects. However, models of architectural education were imported wholesale, largely from Britain, and a significant number
of students continued to migrate to England to complete the R.I.B.A examinations. Others chose American universities to escap e
the colonial link.
Graduates of thefirst few batches of theDelhi School found employment at Chandigarh, where they were exposed to the fresh
methodologies of Le Corbusier, Jeanneret, Fry and Drew. In Ahmedabad, a new cultural and architectural awakening had been
initiated by industrialists led by the Sarabhai family, who commissioned Le Corbusier’s four well-known works in that city.
B.V.Doshi, who had worked with Le Corbusier in Paris, succeeded Jean-Louis Véret as sitearchitect for thesebuildings and he
chose to settledown in Ahmedabad. A few architects from Bombay migrated to South India to set up the first independent
practices in cities such as Madras and Bangalore8. But, by and large, thewinds of stylisticchange discernible at Chandigarh,
Delhi and Ahmedabad in the fifties, left the rest of the country untouched. The concerns of theIndian Instituteof Architects,
based in Bombay, began to extend to other states and cities largely due to thevigorous efforts of Walter George who was twice
its President during this period9. He also helped to found the Instituteof Town Planners in 1951, which started off with a
membership of just twenty-fiveyoungmen.10
India’s first Five Year Plan had been announced in 1952, and this gave an impetus to architecture and its allied professions.
Significant resources were allocated for investments in heavy industries, new townships, industrialhousing, and scientific and
technical research and training. As the process of industrialisation got under way, a new independent profession of structural
design consultants was born. The building industry began to manufacture, locally, items such as flush wooden doors, steel doors
and windows, and a wide range of products in asbestos cement. Thetechnical promiseof air-conditioning led to an all-round (and
perhaps unwise) reduction in floor-heights, and raising land and construction prices led to a shrinking of floor-space in residential
and commercial buildings. All these developments began to affect theappearance and scale of architecture all over thecountry,
independently of prevailing styles.
And thefifties were also marked by wild optimism in certain quarters: that air-conditioning would soon be as common in India as
the motor-car was in the West11; that pre-fabricated aluminium housing units would be theanswer to he middle-class housing
problem in large cities12; that the Government’s announcement that “one percent of expenditure for all Central Government
buildings may be and should be on artistic decoration” would lead to a thousand opportunities to bring the country’s starving
painters and sculptors into the mainstream of national life13. Theinstances of optimism cited provide clues to theromantic belief
shared by many: modernisation and industrialisation would solve all India’s problems within a decade. Chandigarh was a
complete visualisation of this optimism.
 1.Mahendra Raj, research interview, Nov. 1984.
 2.Quoted in Architectural Education in India, Marg, Vol 2, No 3, 1949, Pg 4.
 3.John Winters in Contemporary Architects, Macmillan, London, 1980. Pg. 659.
 4.Published in Progressive Architecture, March, 1949. Pgs. 46-47
 5.Mulk Raj Anand, Research Interview, Nov., 1984.
“ The most important contribution ofLe Corbusier was that he changed the status ofarchitects and the whole attitude towards architects and
architecture. This was possible under Le Corbusier because he was what he was – the giant fromthe international arena … and because ofthe support
of Jawaharlal Nehru”
- CS.H. Jhabwala
Research Interview, Nov, 1984
 6.AdityaPrakash Research Interview, June, 1985

4.  7.From Nehru’s address to the Seminar on Architecture organised by the Lalit Kala Academy, Delhi. March 17-21,
1959.
 8.K.S. Karekar, Research Interview, Jan. 1985
 9.Walter George, Inaugural address, 1951-52, in J.I.I.A., Vol. 16, Jun-Dec,, 1951. Pg. 2.
 10.D.N.Dhar, Current Trends in Indian Architecture Today, in J.I.I.A., Vol 19, July-Sept., 1954.
 11.Jane B. Drew, Modern Architecture in India, in Indian Builder, Vol. 2, July, 1954. Pg. 4.
 12.John Terry, Flexgarh – an Old Principle Re-Used, in Marg, Vol. 3, Nb. 2, 1950. Pg. 71.
 13.Charles Fabri, TheDecoration of Government Buildings, in Indian Builder, Vol. 4, Oct. 1956. Pg. 56.
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Correa, Charles M.. Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya at Sabarmati Ashram. Ahmedabad, 1963.

5. Rahman, Habib. Rabindra Bhavan. New Delhi, 1961.
Prakash, Aditya. Tagore Theatre. Chandigarh, 1961.

6. Rahman, Habib. Maulana Azad Memorial. Mazār ofMaulana Azad at Jama Masjid, Delhi. Delhi, 1959.

7. Rahman, Habib. New Secretariat Building. Calcutta, 1954.
Architecture In India
 Foreword

8.  Traditional Architecture
 Contemporary Architecture
o The Search for Roots and Relevance
o The Evolution ofContemporary Indian Architecture – A Survey by Malay Chatterjee
 I. 1947 – 1959: Options after Independence, the Evolution ofContemporary Indian Architecture
 II: 1960 – 1974: The Journey Back from Chandigarh, the Evolution ofContemporary Indian Architecture
 III. 1975-1985: On Our Own, the Evolution ofContemporary Indian Architecture
 Viewpoints on Architectural Education: Excerpts fromResearch Interviews, conducted over Dec. 1984 -June 1985
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