SIR EDWIN LUTYENS: ARCHITECT OF THIS HOUSE by William Mark Pimlott Empire, fixed there by the great Shah was not urttil late in 1912 that the Jahan. Now, the British Empire's rE'sposibility of designing any buildings largest territory was to be erected was actually awarded to Mr. Lutyens there. lt was to be an Imperial City, who, against the staunr.h opposition of as the King expressed: "lt is my desire I ora I ~ritish architects in Jndia, that the planning and designing of the lobbied strongly for the task. The public buildings to be erected wiU be commission of buildings, which considered with the greatest included four churd,es, houses for deliberation and care, so that the new Indian princes, a shopping district, a creation 'IVill be in every way worthy Rer.ords Office, Parliament, of this ancient and beautiful city." 1 Secretariat, and Palace was apportioned by Lutyens to a number of The plan of the new city would be architects. C.A. Blomfield designed ~ ffilo111 Marfc l'lmlott treldced t1lrcJugh left to a new body, the Delhi Town most of the Princes' town houses; the rndla In lhP .!lllmm~r o( JNJ Gr¥1 b PlatVling Committee, headed by a trio curr•ntly worlcfng (n lhP Montrecl Anglican and Roman Catholic of(lce o( l'trter RO$tr. of three carefully selected individuals, ea thedral$ were designeed by H. A. N. Capt. George S.C. Swinton of the Medd; a third church was designed by N THE MORNING of 12 London County Council; John A. A.G. Shoosmith (Lutyens's December 1911, a crowd of 8rodie, the Engineer of the Borough of representative In New Delhi); a fourth O one-hundred t:hotnand or ITlOI"e Liverpool; and Edwin Landseer was design<>d by W.S. George; the crowded the large arena for the Lutyens, a successful and already Legislative Assembly and the two Coronation Durbar of King Emperor accomplished country house architect Secretariat buildings were designed by George V, to the north of Delhi, India. W1 Surrey. Lutyens was selected after Lutyf'ns's closest r.ollaborator in the The event was the last of its t~,e to exhaustive c«respondence between the design of J)eJhi, He-rbert Baker. In RJBA in London and Lord be held In that country. The Crewe, chief Lutyens'~ mind, the most attractive King-Em~ror and the British Empire aade to the recently installed Viceroy, piece of the commission was, quite would be memories when India gained Lord llardinge (whose brainchild was naturally the Government House - the the tran, fer of the capital). independence some thirty-six years Robert Vteeregal residenr.e. lt wa'l to be the Grant lrving's extensive later. That day, however, a very thesis on focal point of the plan the Delhi Town Imperial l)eJhi $eemS evident Klr!! Emperor anoounced the to establish that Planning Committee and later, that transfer of the seat of the Lutyens's appointment was perfectly legitirnate, ancl unrelated to Lutyens's Lutyens ancl Baker had laboured so Government from the prosperous intensely upon. lt was to be British comtMrcial city of Calcutta (in the connectioM with Viceregal heritage rule In India manifest. east, with a substantial European (Lutyens married Emily Lytton, population), to Delhi, located in the ~htPr of Lord Lytton, Viceroy some The remainrlPr of this discourse will thirty Y"ars before). The mandate of be devotPd to this one building, which north, on the arid plains bordering the ·"~ river Jumna. lt had been the site of the Coanmitt,.c was solely to ber11mt' known "' (much to Lutyens's j fit teen cities through a history of determine the siting of the city, to delight) thE' VIceroy's llou~e . twenty-four hu-ldred years aM most arrive at a Mastf'r Plan and to make The Viceroy's llouse sih majestically notably the seat of the Mughal a r<.>port ju~tlfyin~: their decision. Jt on th<' top of Ralsina Hill, to the ! 32 THE FIFTH COLUMN, Spring 1982 band. So, the waJJs are both stepping back and battered ever so slightly. This operation is intimately tied to those Lutyens carried out in his earlier, 'Surrey Vernacular' houses, where their long, low roofs are analogous to the horizontal bands of the Viceroy's House, and their simple battered or buttressed waJJs find their analogy in their subtle counterparts here. The bands that wrap around the entire periphery of the building also break down the scale of the walls by ifltroducing shadows of varying depth - an 'ornamentation' of sorts which tunanizes the building's otherwise bare Facing page: The Ec:st Front; the bust of Lutyens in the Staircase Court, surfaces. wall, above. inscribed: "Architect of this House"; a battered What makes this eastern entrance front so immensely successful, though south of the wal!ed city of Indian 'styles'), the building seems to are the gestures made to invoke major Shahjaharabad. One proceeds to the be a pure mass, which has been interruptions of these masses, and Palace along the one and three-quarter modulated in order to aJJow light and through these gestures, their mile long, eight hundred foot wide shadow the honor of articulating the subsequent modulation and avenue that lays before. it like a great elevations. The modulation and choreography. carpet, the colours of which, by description of mass, as opposed to Lutyens's design, have been restricted 'architectural construction' is what Firstly, by physical methods, Lutyens to the green, red and cream of the contributes to the success of the breaks up the plane of the walls by earth and stone, and the blue of water exterior of the House, and what places using loggias, aedicules, and the and sky. Visually framing the palace it far ahead of the buildings of his central entrance porch; dividing the from afar are Herbert Baker's con temporaries in India. The control predominant form into ~maller Secretariats (now the Home and of the qualities of the mass, which monumental blocks, connected by are tied Fvreign OHlces of the Government of only Lutyens (and by training, colonnades. The bbcks India), which rest at the front of Shoosmith) had mastered, became together through the continuity Raisina Hill, forming a propyleum to known as his 'Elemental Mode'. The suggested by the colonnade; a base this Indian 'Acroplis'. As one draws 'Mode' really only attempted to continuous rf"d sant1stone closer to these buildings, the Viceroy's achieve two things - to allow light (brilliantly using its colour to House sinks below the horizon, and its and shaclow to provide most of the empha<>i7.e its importance as a linking imperious dome seems to barely float articulation of the form: and to make element to the forms above, executed and a broad, above the hot, shimmering pavement. the mass 'sit' better on the ground in c ream sand<>tone); which wraps Then, the ramp between Baker's through such methods as the batt<'rmg raking cornice or chujja building, ~rving as buildings that obscures the view of the of wall~. 2 around the entire for the column:-; of the palace slips away, and its full, broad Of course. Lutyens's skill macle tht"~e a C'O<nmon line to 'drop' front is finally visible. aims much more complex rn practice aedicules, louias, and porch d~an thev ~eem in statement. lndccd, from. Tht" red sandstone chujja i<: Lutyens'<> This front, like the remainder of the the proportions developed by him in inde<'d a crucial element of of eight house, is immense, some six hundred exC'cution are uniquc (thcre ~eerns t(\ design, for wrth its depth and fifty feet wide, presenting one be a strange 'rightness' about them); fee-t it ca<>ts a tremendous shadow with its noble colonnades, and an 10 attempt$ to emplify th(' tcchmqu<.", along the facades, both breaking down Imperial presence. Unlike Baker's they arc quite unattainahlc. In the th(• <>cale of the monumental walls and Secretariats which flank the Raj Path case of the Viceroy's Hou~f', Lutyen~ allowing the spares in behind the in the Viceroy's !louse's huge u~cs broad horiTontal banding m the various colonnades to bt> ob<:cured to forecourt, and unlike all buildings form of ~irnple mouldings as a devi(.<." comparative blackness - exactly as carried out previous to it by the which p<•rrnits the retreat of th<' wall Lutyf'ns ha<i intended those function~ Or I tish, (which 'fused' VIctorian .1nd frorn the vertical to occur abov<' each bc-hin<i thf'rn to be. THE FIFTH COLUMN, Spring 1982 33 East Front, The Dome configuration to the eout front), are the guest bedrooms and royaJ suites, the nursery, the Dining Room and the Ballroom. Unlilce the east front, with its bold contrasts between solid and void, the garden elevation presents no such contrasts, and instead, deals with Of course not only the eastern Yet for aJI their capriciousness, they more traditional models by punching entrance front, but the entire building at once pleasantly break down the window-like openings into the is brouRht into a calm order by the otherwise relentless cornice line, and continuous wall. The undynamic great, unuwal do~ which rises 166 help pull together (and position) the facade (apart from the strong line of r~t from the house's precise centre, solid and void elements in the the relentless c:hujja) is quite homely ~tlv over thf- State Thr~oom, oc elevation. and entirely approachable. Its l:>urbM Hall. 3 remarkable quality is its apparent Lilce the body of the house that it Indeed, Lutyens used an analogous change in size from the east front.