Beyond Lutyens�€™ Delhi

Edwin Lutyens’s design was arguably the first Western handprint on Delhi’s architecture, a neo-classical ode to columns and arches that eventually gave way to the more functional concrete exteriors of today.

This evolution is chronicled by Rahul Khanna and Manav Parhawk in The Modern Architecture of New Delhi. They argue that Lutyens’s vision was something to overcome— and so it was.

“Lutyens,” they write, “was a throwback. He was out of sync with the movement taking shape in Europe, one that would define its newly found spirit after World War I—the modernist movement.”

It’s that movement where Khanna and Parhawk set their sights, deconstructing buildings like the Sri Ram Centre, where thick slabs of concrete support the roof of its circular foyer and radiate from the centre like a grey sun.

These buildings deserve attention—they make up the varied shades of India’s capital, and speak to the context in which they were built