PROBASHI- A Cultural News Magazine Volume 2 Issue 2 | Page 40

Probashi- City

Making of New Delhi
Secretariat for another decade,
before the offices shifted to the
present Secretariat
building on Raisina Hill. This building
set a style for the bungalows that are
today considered such a distinctive
part of “Lutyens Delhi”. This building
presently houses the Delhi Vidhan
Sabha.

This is the view which lead to acrimony between once friends Lutyens and Baker.
Only the dome of the Rashtrapati Bhawan is visible, the rest of the building is
hidden by the gradient of the road and the North Block and the South Block.

artistic rather than constructive
design he may be considered even
greater than Wren”, who at the
time was widely seen as the
greatest British architect of all time.
Baker also gave a lucid analysis of
his stormy friendship with Lutyens:
“Looking back after these many
years…. I can see more clearly that
our personal differences had their
roots in our natures and outlook on
art.
He
concentrated
his
extraordinary
powers
and
intellectual values to the sacrifice
sometimes, I considered, of human
and national sentiment and its
expression in our buildings.”

Herbert Baker — a clutch of other
buildings were designed and
swiftly executed by the Chief
Architect to the Government of
India, the relatively lesser known,
R.T. Russel and his subordinates. It
was Russel who built the
commercial hub of Delhi — the
Connaught Place in 1933 as well as
the Gol Dak-khana, the Central
Telegraph Office, the aerodrome,
the law courts, the Flagstaff House
that was later occupied by Nehru
and renamed Teen Murti House,
and the Eastern and Western
Courts to house visiting legislators
as well as approximately 4000
Today, despite their differences, bungalows of different kinds
Lutyens’s and Baker’s buildings rise meant to accommodate a small
atop Raisina Hill as part of a cream- army of government minions.
and red-sandstone whole that E. Montague Thomas designed and
stands as the greatest architectural built the first secretariat building of
legacy left by the British in India.
New Delhi which housed in the
While the Viceroy's House and the Secretariat of the Government of
secretariat buildings flanking the India, and was built after the
Central Vista were being built (from capital of India shifted to Delhi
1914 till their completion in 1931) from Calcutta, the temporary
building
was
amid mounting acrimony and secretariat
constructed in a few months' time
disagreement between its chief
builders — Edward Lutyens and in 1912, It functioned as the
38

Herbert Baker, W.H. Nicholls, C.G.
and F.B. Blomfield, Walter Sykes
George, Arthur Gordon Shoosmith,
Henry Medd and other British
architects designed several public
buildings meant to house hotels,
banks, schools, etc. The greening of
Delhi was conducted with masterly
precision using P.H. Clutterbuck's list
of Indian trees. W.R. Mustoe, Director
of Horticulture, ordered the planting
of avenue trees and Mustoe along
with Walter Sykes George landscaped
and planted the garden planned by
Lutyens inside the Governor's House,
a Mughal-style garden included at the
insistence of Lord Hardinge.
The 1930s also saw the construction
of four big schools, namely, St.
Columba's, Saint Thomas's, Somerville
and Modern schools; the swanky
Imperial Hotel, the Regal cinema in
the Rivoli building, a multipurpose
stadium
called
the
Irwin
amphitheatre, a picturesque 27-hole
golf course spread over 177 acres,
and the present ECE House and the
Scindia House, both built on the
fringes of Connaught Place; and the
Free Mason's Hall whose foundation
was laid by Lord Willington, the
Viceroy and Governor General of
India in 1935. Earlier, in 1930, the
foundation was laid for a hospital, to
be known as the Irwin Hospital, in
what was till then the Central Jail
complex. The Irwin College for
women was established in the same
year and later, the Willingdon
Hospital. It took the builders of Delhi