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Modernity's Classics pp 23–54Cite as

The Making of New Delhi

Classical Aesthetics, “Oriental” Tradition and Architectural Practice: A Transcultural View

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Summary

The paper discusses how British architects tried to create for New Delhi a public architecture that would maintain the well-established association between classical buildings and the public sphere. It argues that such projects were a global phenomenon at the turn of the century when classical ideals were drawn upon and translated into symbolic statements in a number of world capitals, shaped at each site by local conditions. The imperial capital of New Delhi was envisioned as modern in geometrical layout but built in a recognizable ‘Indian’ style, secularized by omission of any explicitly ‘religious’imagery.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    I am grateful to those who have contributed in many ways to this article: to Rudolf Wagner for inspiring conversations, helpful references, and insightful suggestions; to Sally Humphreys for useful comments on an earlier draft of the paper and her skilful editing of this one; to Franziska Koch for assistance with formatting; to Madeleine Rettig and Brigitte Berger-Go¨ken for their efforts in processing visuals and procuring copyrights.

  2. 2.

    Cit. Zerner, Rebuilding: 261.

  3. 3.

    Ackermann, Origins: 236.

  4. 4.

    Thapar, Early India; Inden, Text and Practice; Guha-Thakurta, Monuments; Juneja (ed.), Architecture.

  5. 5.

    On the latter: Wagner, “Transculturality,” points 8, 9.

  6. 6.

    Mukherjee, “Old Seat.”

  7. 7.

    Metcalf, An imperial vision.

  8. 8.

    Payne et al., Antiquity, 2. A discussion of these issues is however beyond the scope of this paper.

  9. 9.

    Betts, “‘Si come dice’”: 244–253.

  10. 10.

    Ibid. Thoenes, “Patterns”: 191–196.

  11. 11.

    Ackerman, Origins: 127.

  12. 12.

    Discussed at length ibid.: 127 ff.

  13. 13.

    Thoenes, “Patterns”: 191.

  14. 14.

    Henri Peyre, Qu’est-ce que c’est que le classicisme?

  15. 15.

    Panofsky, Sinn: 51 ff.

  16. 16.

    Dilly, Kunstgeschichte: 90 ff.

  17. 17.

    Winckelmann, Geschichte: Part 1, Chap. 4, section 1.

  18. 18.

    Discussed in Potts, “Winckelmann’s”: 377–407.

  19. 19.

    Winckelmann, History (2006): 2.

  20. 20.

    Ibid.: 30–31.

  21. 21.

    Pommier, L’Art; Pommier, Winckelmann; Rosenblum, Transformations; Crow, Emulation.

  22. 22.

    Crow, Emulation.

  23. 23.

    Winckelmann, Gedanken: 3.

  24. 24.

    Wittkower, “Imitation”: 153; also for an account of the debate on imitatio sapiens and imitatio insipiens.

  25. 25.

    Ibid.: 157.

  26. 26.

    Ibid.: 161.

  27. 27.

    Ibid.: 154–155.

  28. 28.

    Cit. Morris, “Symbols”: 8.

  29. 29.

    1859: 774.

  30. 30.

    Hayward Gallery, Lutyens: 33.

  31. 31.

    Discussed below; Metcalf, An imperial vision: 179.

  32. 32.

    The Builder, 5 January 1912: 11–12.

  33. 33.

    Egbert, The Beaux-Arts tradition; Draper, “Paris”: 110–111; Cody et al. eds., Chinese.

  34. 34.

    Sutcliffe, Towards the planned city.

  35. 35.

    Bednar, L’Enfant’s Legacy; Hines, “The Imperial Mall”; Scott, “This Vast”; Reps, Monumental Washington.

  36. 36.

    Hines, “The Imperial Mall”: 83.

  37. 37.

    Metcalf, “Architecture”: 399–400.

  38. 38.

    Van Zanten, Selected Designs; id., “Walter Burley Griffin’s Design”; Johnson, The Architecture.

  39. 39.

    Cody, Building; Cody et al., Chinese.

  40. 40.

    Wagner, “Ritual.”

  41. 41.

    Ibid.: Fig. 12.3. This essay contains an extensive and nuanced discussion of a range of symbols and the processes of their adaptation, including the bell which, while it cites the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, carries the meaning of the traditional wooden bell meant to “wake up the world.”

  42. 42.

    Van Zanten, “Walter Burley Griffin’s Design.”

  43. 43.

    Stamp, “New Delhi”: 34.

  44. 44.

    Cit. Hayward Gallery, Lutyens: 34.

  45. 45.

    Smith, “Architectural”: 286.

  46. 46.

    Ibid.: 286–87.

  47. 47.

    Ibid.: 281.

  48. 48.

    Juneja, Architecture: 13–24.

  49. 49.

    Metcalf, An Imperial Vision.

  50. 50.

    Ed. Col. S.S. Jacob, London 1890. Scriver and Prakash, Colonial Modernities: 115–126.

  51. 51.

    Hardinge Papers (Nehru Museum, New Delhi), v. 110, cit. Metcalf, An Imperial Vision: 229.

  52. 52.

    Juneja, Architecture.

  53. 53.

    Baker, “The New Delhi. Eastern and Western.”

  54. 54.

    Hayward Gallery, Lutyens: 37.

  55. 55.

    Hussey, The Life: 277, 279.

  56. 56.

    Irving, Indian: 126.

  57. 57.

    Singh and Mukherjee, New Delhi: 53.

  58. 58.

    Ibid.: 57.

  59. 59.

    Byron, “New Delhi.”

  60. 60.

    Baker, “The New Delhi. Eastern and Western”: 38.

  61. 61.

    Hussey, The Life: 277.

  62. 62.

    Hardinge Papers (Nehru Museum, New Delhi), v. 112, cit. Metcalf, An Imperial Vision: 225.

  63. 63.

    Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Ingresso d’un antico ginnasio, repr. Volwahsen, Imperial Delhi, 174.

  64. 64.

    Elephants figured in several of Lutyens’ travel stories, anecdotes, and humorous sketches.

  65. 65.

    Volwahsen, Imperial, 187.

  66. 66.

    Butler, The Architecture, 35. Bells made an appearance also in the lower basement colonnade of the Viceroy’s house, reproduced in Hussey, The Life, plate 96.

  67. 67.

    Butler, The Architecture, 35.

  68. 68.

    Ibid.: 46.

  69. 69.

    The memoirs of the emperor Jahangir (r. 1605–1627) contain the following statement: “After my accession, the first order that I gave was for the fastening up of the Chain of Justice, so that if those engaged in the administration of justice should delay or practice hypocrisy in the matter of those seeking justice, the oppressed might come to this chain and shake it so that its noise might attract attention. Its fashion was this: I ordered them to make a chain of pure gold, 30 gaz in length and containing 60 bells. Its weight was 4 Indian maunds … Tuzuk-i Jahangiri:7.

  70. 70.

    For a discussion, Juneja, “On the margins”: 224–226.

  71. 71.

    I am grateful to my colleagues Antje Flüchter and Rudolf Wagner for a range of references which testify to the global travels of this concept; on China see Wagner, “Die Verantwortlichkeit.”

  72. 72.

    Stamp: “… it can be related to many of the industrial and commercial monuments of the period in both Europe and America,” “New Delhi”: 40.

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  1. Prof. of Global Art History, Cluster Asia and Europe in a Global Context. Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany

    Monica Juneja

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  1. Cotswold Road, Rhamnous, Oxford, United Kingdom

    Sarah C. Humphreys

  2. , Exzellenzcluster "Asia and Europe", Karl Jasper Centre, Gebäude 4400, Voßstr. 2, Heidelberg, 69115, Germany

    Rudolf G. Wagner

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Juneja, M. (2013). The Making of New Delhi. In: Humphreys, S., Wagner, R. (eds) Modernity's Classics. Transcultural Research – Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global Context. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33071-1_2

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