When most people think of beautiful buildings in Delhi they think of crumbling Mughal monuments with columns for lovers to hide behind, Red Fort cradling Old Delhi with its imposing sandstone walls, or any number of temples.
The problem with this is Delhi’s modern architecture gets overlooked. And not just by tourists who spend the odd day exploring while en route to a more ascetically and odour-ificallypleasing destination.
At first glance, it seems there is little effort by architects in the city today to explore new design styles. Edwin Lutyens’ sweeping avenues and graceful white bungalows are of course worthy of studying and admiring, but they was drawn up close to a century ago.
Creative types here say design is a “nascent” industry in Delhi. But even if this is true,it’s not as if the city hasbeen untouched by modern design – and I’m not talking about the surge of glass high rises sprouting in Gurgaon.
I spent a day touring the city to find these forgotten modern buildings, and find if out India’s capital has anything to rival Melbourne’s much loved and hated Federation Square. And, while learning just how strict Delhi security guards are these days with people taking photos of buildings (I swear I wasn’t dressed like a terrorist that day), I was also pleasantly surprised by what I found.
- The India Habitat Centre
An imposing multi-storey brick building on Lodi Road, at first glance the India Habitat Centre looks like a towering industrial factory from the 1920s.
In fact, the idea for the convention centre and office space was born in 1993 when India’s Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO) wanted an office building and invited NGOs that shared its concerns about habitat and the environment to also (somewhat unconventionally) share its workspace.
The building was designed by Joseph Allen Stein, who tackled it as an urban design project rather than a traditional office.
Set across nine acres, the constructionis not unlike Fed Square, with multiple buildings connected by courtyards and sky walkways.
It wears its environmental heart on its sleeve, with sprawling green lawns, garden beds, pot plants and window planter boxes throughout. But this ethos is applied practically as well; the pergola over the main courtyard has clever angled panels that block the summer sun, while each building is designed to receive as much natural light as possible.
Why should you visit?
Aside from hanging out in the courtyards and cooling off by the fountains, the Habitat Centre hosts daily events from documentary screenings to talks by environmental experts. There’s also a restaurant and café which serves some not too bad coffee.
- The British Council
Located in Connaught Place, the British Council was designed by Charles Correa, lauded as the man who created some of India’s most outstanding buildings. Correa is inspired by modernism, as well as traditions of people and place and has won numerous prestigious architecture awards for his work.
Walking up to the front of the building, the boxy red slate façade invites you in cheekily with large square cut outs exposingelevated courtyards, a swirly black and white painted mural covering the inner walls, and a roof that’s open to the sky with more square cut outs.
Correa is a strong advocate for India’s cashed-up builders to invest in ambitious projects rather than mass-producing globalised high-rises that look as though they’ve spread, plague-like from Beijing and Hong Kong.He told the UK architecture magazine Building Design: “If India is going to be globalised, I’d rather it was one through Le Corbusier than through McDonalds, by which I mean mindless cookie-cooker.”
Why should you visit?
The British Council houses a pretty impressive library and hosts events like film screenings and art shows. It’s also known for its English language courses, which one would expect to be very proper indeed.
- The Indian International Centre
Another design by Joseph Allen Stein, an American who worked in Delhi from the mid-50s to 1995, the Indian International Centre (IIC) was inaugurated in 1962.
Like the Habitat Centre, IIC is a patchwork of sprawling green lawns, courtyards and pools of water. The buildings themselves are made with local materials, such as rugged quartzite stone and blue Kota flooring. Curved inner walkways let in natural light with clever screens and large windows.
The ICC is quietly famous for its dining room, which has fed everyone from Supreme Court lawyers, top newspaper editors, Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi and India’s late prime minister VP Singh.
Why should you visit?
The IIC is another of Delhi’s intellectual and cultural hubs. It’s non-partisan motivations means you could stumble upon the BJP’s man of the moment NarendraModi launching a book or a seminar on the rise of fundamentalism in South Asia. There is also a guesthouse for travellers and a library.
Published in The Indian Sun (Indian Australian Magazine)
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