EDWIN LUTYENS &
THE BRITISH RULE IN INDIA A discussion of Edwin Lutyens expression of ‘the ideal and fact of British rule in India’ in his design of the Viceroy’s House.
Halima Haq - University of Westminster - 2020
How did Edwin Lutyens express ‘the ideal and fact of British rule in India’ in his design of the Viceroy’s House (now Rashtrapati Bhavan – Presidential Palace) (1912-1931)? Throughout the British Raj of 1858-1947, India witnessed vast changes and developments in its landscape and environment. The centre of such modifications was a result of new architectural styles and motifs, including 'Indo-Saracenic, Mughal-Gothic, and Hindoo Style1'. These were revival styles that incorporated Mughal and Indo-Islamic ornamental features, combined largely with the rudimentary layouts and structure of Gothic revival and NeoClassical buildings – it was the British architects “attempt at creating authority through classical prototypes 2”. Additionally, a revolutionary shift in India’s landscape was King George V’s will to move the country’s capital from Calcutta to New Delhi, and Edwin Lutyens, alongside Herbert Baker, commissioned to effectuate it. This new location was considered one that would legitimise British authority and colonialism. A discussion of the spatial organisation and hierarchy, as well as an analysis of the architectural styles, features and structures will be presented in this essay, considering the British Rule in India. New Delhi embodied power and grandeur – an excellent personification of the scheme the British wished to exercise; Kihlnani labels this a “sublime fantasy of imperial control 3”. Lutyens designed the New Delhi before the presidential palace, taking inspiration from Europe – specifically the re-planning of Rome (See similarities in Figure 1 and 2). He arranged the city based on a grid and marked key focal points which can be accessed by long avenues and boulevards. This is a significant element of the design of the Viceroy House as the organisation of the space is based on a hierarchy, where the highest point in the landscape is reserved for the Viceroy House. Lutyens endeavoured in separating the elite from the inferior, critics such as Sunil Kihlnani describe Lutyens as “obsessed with the city’s physical elevation” this is because Lutyens actively creates a divide throughout his design proposals: “the houses of the junior Indians (‘thin black’) had to be physically lower and sited below the elevation of the houses of junior Europeans (‘thin white’), and these in turn were placed below senior Europeans’ (‘rich white’)4” and the Viceroy House the highest amongst all buildings. This suggests that the very foundation of this design is rooted in imposing the ideal and fact of the British Rule. Although Jane Brown claims “Rashtrapati 1
J. Sheeba, John T. Mesiah Dhas, A Study on Indo-Saracenic Architectural Heritage, Volume 118 No. 22 2018, 1737-1742 ISSN: 1314-3395. pp.1737 2
J. Sheeba, John T. Mesiah Dhas, A Study on Indo-Saracenic Architectural Heritage, Volume 118 No. 22 2018, 1737-1742 ISSN: 1314-3395. pp.1737
3 4
Sunil Kihlnani, The Idea of India, 1997. pp. 66 Sunil Kihlnani, The Idea of India, 1997. pp. 67
Bhavan is a British building…one ‘built in India for India’ 5”, it can be argued otherwise. The presidential palace held significance in India’s landscape solely for being the residence for the British Viceroy, it wasn’t a monument for the Indian civilians but an indirect reminder of who holds power over them.
Figure 2: Map of old Rome. Rearranged city with grand avenues & new focal points, enabling individuals to move around within it & access religious relics.
Figure 1: Edwin Lutyens’ plan of New Delhi 1913. Integrating the British Empire (red lines) with older traditions in India & Mughal Empire memorial sites (black).
Additionally, the ‘Battle of the Styles’ was a conflict that followed after which architectural style must be used for the Viceroy House. Several in India, including Lutyens original client, the first Viceroy, Lord Hardinage, ‘as well as a powerful lobby in Britain, favoured the use of an oriental native style, and a petition to this effect was sent to the Secretary of State for India in 19136’. Lutyens advocated the use of the Western Classical tradition, incorporating Indian elements, whilst Herbert Baker instead envisioned a beautiful city, created ‘by tracing Mughal architecture back to its “origin”7’. However, Baker believed ‘it would be no more Indian than British’ and argued they must “fearlessly put the stamp of British Sovereignty…
5
6 7
Jane Brown, Lutyens and the Edwardians: An English Architect and his Clients, 1996. pp. 230
Lutyens, Edwin Landseer, Lutyens: The Work of the English Architect Sir Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944), 1981. pp. 165 Thomas R.Metcalf, An Imperial Vision: Indian Architecture and Britain's Raj, 1989. pp. 222
[on the] …great work of which the Empire should be so proud 8”. Yet, the query of introducing European styles was complex as there was no ‘one’ style, and several had already been imported. ‘Calcutta was Classic, Bombay Gothic, while in Shimla and elsewhere the Public Works Department had created something extraordinary of their own9’. Lutyens and Baker then further developed the parliament house in 1927. It included a colonnade drum of Doric columns (see figure 3), enclosing a complex of four connected structures, including the domed central debating chamber (see figure 6). It combines a formal logic of Chausath Yogini 11th century temple (see figure 5) with classical ornamentation. Lutyens reduced classicism to his own kind of moulding, ‘he identified historic architectures of the Indian subcontinent and then dressed those as if it was a classical architecture and reorganised it’10.
Figure 3: Classical 'Doric' column
Figure 4: Viceroy's House, New Delhi east front, portico and dome
Figure 5: Chausath Yogini Temple, Morena. 11th Century Temple.
8 9
Thomas R.Metcalf, An Imperial Vision: Indian Architecture and Britain's Raj, 1989. pp. 222 Lutyens, Edwin Landseer, Lutyens: The Work of the English Architect Sir Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944), 1981. pp. 165
10
Dr Nicholas Beech. (2019, November 27). Lecture Seventeen: Architecture and Empire, University of Westminster.
“Lutyens’ beaux-arts classicism…defined the European representation of empire. The balance and symmetry of an ordered design in this conception announced a world ruled justly by a disinterested elite”11. Despite Lutyens and Baker decorating this building with Indian ornaments to reflect its geographical location and Mughal empire traditions, it remains a largely ‘single masterpiece of European architecture’ 12. A “Western building…of the Western cultural tradition” 13 a symbol of the British Rule. All the stylistic features of Viceroy’s House are foreign to early India and the Mughal Indian architecture.
Figure 6: Edwin Lutyens, Plan of Viceroy's House New Delhi
Although
Lutyens and Baker studied Indian architecture moderately, they were rather displeased by it – having only some interest in the Buddhist monuments, which they saw as a “high point of India’s architecture14”. Many of Lutyens Indic designs, such as “the chattris of the Viceroy’s House, were created of abstract forms not directly related to India’s past 15”. This may have been a result of the great pressure Lutyens was put under to integrate various stylistic motifs 11 12 13 14 15
Thomas R.Metcalf, An Imperial Vision: Indian Architecture and Britain's Raj, 1989. pp. 233-234. Robert Lutyens, Sir Edwin Lutyens: An Appreciation in Perspective by His Son, 1942. pp.48 Robert Lutyens, Sir Edwin Lutyens: An Appreciation in Perspective by His Son, 1942. pp.48 Thomas R.Metcalf, An Imperial Vision: Indian Architecture and Britain's Raj, 1989. pp. 238. Thomas R.Metcalf, An Imperial Vision: Indian Architecture and Britain's Raj, 1989. pp. 238.
from the Mughal empire, other cultural practices and designs to show that the building is not just a European imposition. Lutyens was quite resistant to that, but he attempts to balance the classical dome with the Mughal dome. However, there remain resemblances to British architecture such as Lutyen’s ancillary dome like structure (chhatri) and Christopher Wren’s St Pauls Cathedral Dome (see figures 7 and 8). On the other hand, the main grey dome (see figures 9 and 10) is said to be inspired by ‘the great stupa at Sanchi16’ (Buddhist shrine – hemispherical structure containing relics).
Figure 7: Christopher Wren, St Pauls Cathedral Dome
Figure 8: Edwin Lutyen’s ancillary dome-like structure (chhatri)
Figure 9: India. The Great Stupa at Sanchi was built in the third century BC.
Lutyens wished the grey dome would be visible as a vista, overlooking any other buildings but plans had to be changed. Regardless, the Viceroy House building is enormous and dominates the landscape, ‘it is completely isolated’17, making the legislative and parliamentary buildings seem entirely secondary and subordinate to the executive. It is in this scheme as the ultimate power. A strange way in which the British tried to run themselves
16
Thomas R.Metcalf, An Imperial Vision: Indian Architecture and Britain's Raj, 1989. pp. 238.
17 Robert Lutyens, Sir Edwin Lutyens: An Appreciation in Perspective by His Son, 1942. pp.48.
in India. ‘They saw themselves as one hand, as the Viceroy as the supreme power, but also just another member of a cabinet in Britain – subservient to a whole team of other people. However, in India Viceroy’s House is supposed to be a supreme authority – reinforcing the latter’18. The Viceroy’s House was just a medium in which the British imposed their rule and in no way was the design a suggestion of friendship between India and Britain. Only a political building enforcing its rule.
Figure 11: Views of Viceroy House and Indian Ornaments created by British sculptor Charles Sargeant Jagger.
[1786 words] [1503 words excluding references and essay question]
18
Dr Nicholas Beech. (2019, November 27). Lecture Seventeen: Architecture and Empire, University of Westminster.
Bibliography Books: Robert Byron, An Essay on India, 1931. Robert Lutyens, Sir Edwin Lutyens: An Appreciation in Perspective by His Son, 1942. Mary Lutyens, Edwin Lutyens, 1980. Lutyens, Edwin Landseer, Lutyens: The Work of the English Architect Sir Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944), 1981. Thomas R.Metcalf, An Imperial Vision: Indian Architecture and Britain's Raj, 1989. Jane Brown, Lutyens and the Edwardians: An English Architect and his Clients, 1996. Sunil Kihlnani, The Idea of India, 1997. Peter Scriver, Vikramaditya Prakash, eds., Colonial Modernities: Building, Dwelling and Architecture in British India and Ceylon, 2007. Journal Articles: David A. Johnson (2018), New Delhi’s All-India War Memorial (India Gate): Death, Monumentality and the Lasting Legacy of Empire in India, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 46:2, 345-366, DOI: 10.1080/03086534.2018.1431434 J. Sheeba, John T. Mesiah Dhas, A Study on Indo-Saracenic Architectural Heritage, Volume 118 No. 22 2018, 1737-1742 ISSN: 1314-3395: http://acadpubl.eu/hub Baker, Herbert. "The New Delhi." Journal of the Royal Society of Arts. Vol. 74, No. 3841 (2 July 1926): 773-793 Websites and Lectures: Making of Rashtrapati Bhavana, Government of India, Friday 02 February 2020: https://rashtrapatisachivalaya.gov.in/rbtour/making-rastrapati-bhavan Dr Nicholas Beech. (2019, November 27). Lecture Seventeen: Architecture and Empire, University of Westminster: https://westminster.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=40369caa-b89d4771-ae90-ab1800e76802
Jacqueline Banerjee, The Viceroy's House (Rashtrapati Bhavan), by E. L. Lutyens: Part I, the Victorian Web: http://www.victorianweb.org/art/architecture/lutyens/10.html