Highlights of Edwin Lutyens's New Delhi
Edwin Lutyens’s New Delhi was created by the British as a counterpart to the medieval sprawl of Old Delhi. After India’s independence, its stately buildings were immediately taken over by the Indian government. Here are the places to see in this colonial part of India’s capital city, home to India Gate and Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Delhi is a city built on cities. The Indian capital rises over layer upon layer of ruins from vanished empires. Historians talk about the seven cities of Delhi, from the ancient Hindu city of Qila Rai Pithora to the sprawling Mughal alleyways of Shahjahanabad (Old Delhi), but there are eight if you include New Delhi, the orderly enclave built by the British to consolidate their control over the subcontinent.
Stretching south from Old Delhi in a tidy network of grand boulevards, New Delhi was built as a symbol of British power. On 12 December 1911, the capital of India was shifted to Delhi from the restive Calcutta (now Kolkata) to cement British control over the centre of the country, and architect Edwin Lutyens was commissioned to create a new British city as a counterpoint to the medieval sprawl of Old Delhi.
Lutyens imagined his new Delhi as a celebration of colonial ambition, a planned grid of civic precincts and public spaces, gleaming white arcades and grand monuments fusing Hindu, Muslim and Gothic Christian architectural styles. Delhi’s Indian residents were less than impressed, and New Delhi saw just a few short decades as the capital of British India before its stately buildings were taken over by the government of the newly independent India.
1. Connaught Place
Market
2. India Gate
Memorial
3. Rajpath/Rashtrapati Bhavan
Market, Indian
4. National Museum
Museum
5. Nehru Memorial Museum and Library
Museum
The Teen Murti Bhavan, former home of the first prime minister of India, was built for the British commander in chief, but it feels more like a family home today. Jawaharlal Nehru’s bedroom, study and drawing room are very much as he left them when he passed away in 1964. The walls are covered in photographs documenting the independence movement, and the expansive gardens include a hunting lodge built for the 14th-century sultan Feroz Shah. The house takes its name from the Teen Murti (Three Statues) memorial in the grounds, commemorating the cavalrymen from Mysore, Hyderabad and Jodhpur who died serving the British Army in World War I.
6. Indira Gandhi Memorial Museum
Memorial, Museum
7. National Gallery of Modern Art
Art Gallery
India’s most important art gallery showcases the work of great Indian artists, displayed inside a former palace (one of many) of the Maharaja of Jaipur, built in a curious fusion of Indian and Art Deco styles. Galleries chart the progress of Indian art from the Raj era to the modern day, with works by such luminaries as Rabindranath Tagore and Jamini Roy, and so-called ‘company paintings’ created by Indian artists to appeal to the tastes of India’s colonial rulers.
8. Gandhi Smriti
Museum
Delhi will be forever linked with the name of Mahatma Gandhi. The Indian independence leader was assassinated by a Hindu extremist in the grounds of Birla House in New Delhi on 30 January 1948, after campaigning against violence between Hindus and Muslims. The home where he spent his last hours is now a moving museum, displaying the Mahatma’s modest personal effects and dioramas of key moments in India’s struggle for independence. Gandhi’s dignified funeral memorial – marking the spot where the great leader was cremated, watched by millions of mourners – is further north at Raj Ghat, on the edge of the old city.
9. The Imperial Spa and Salon
Beauty Salon, Spa
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