A comprehensive guide to Delhi's architectural heritage that includes photographs, line drawings, detailed maps and anecdotes from the city's past.

In Lucid Language That Speaks To Laymen And Architects Alike, This Book Provides A History Of Twentieth Century Architecture In India. It Examines In Detail The Early Influences On Indian Architecture Both Of Movements Like The Bauhaus As Well As Prominent Individuals Like Habib Rehman, Jawaharlal Nehru, Frank Lloyd Wright And Le Corbusier.

We shall not cease from exploration, And the end of all our exploring, Will be to arrive where we started, And know the place for the first time’ - Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot The megacity that is today’s Delhi is built upon thick layers of history. For a millennium, Delhi has been at the crossroads of trade, culture, and politics. The stories of its buildings and great historical personalities have been told many times, but this book approaches the past of India’s capital through its literary culture. By focusing on writers and thinkers, we meet a colourful cast of characters only glancingly mentioned in political histories. Many Delhiites are surprised to learn that the language of their city’s cultural heyday was Persian. Despite first being brought to India by invaders, it eventually became an authentically Indian language used in both administration and literature. Although it was cultivated by an elite, it was also a widely available language of aspiration and opportunity, like English today. It connected India to the wider world, and the Indian Subcontinent, particularly Delhi, was once a place where talented poets and scholars from the whole Persian cultural world – from Turkey to eastern China – came to make their fortunes. Its traces remain everywhere but Persian is effectively a dead language in India today.

A Globe and Mail Best Book The inimitable M.G. Vassanji turns his eye to India, the homeland of his ancestors, in this powerfully moving tale of family and country. Part travelogue, part history, A Place Within is M.G. Vassanji’s intelligent and beautifully written journey to explore where he belongs. It would take many lifetimes, it was said to me during my first visit, to see all of India. The desperation must have shown on my face to absorb and digest all I possibly could. This was not something I had articulated or resolved; and yet I recall an anxiety as I travelled the length and breadth of the country, senses raw to every new experience, that even in the distraction of a blink I might miss something profoundly significant. I was not born in India, nor were my parents; that might explain much in my expectation of that visit. Yet how many people go to the homeland of their grandparents with such a heartload of expectation and momentousness; such a desire to find themselves in everything they see? Is it only India that clings thus, to those who’ve forsaken it; is this why Indians in a foreign land seem always so desperate to seek each other out? What was India to me?

An invaluable theoretical and practical guide to 'thinking global and acting local'. The book is based on a ground-breaking course run by the London Metropolitan University School of Architecture, in which students produce schemes from research undertaken during field trips to India. It provides a comprehensive review of the course and of the schemes produced since 2002, and argues the value of linking practical projects with education in the studio.

The rapid expansion, urban form and development of the built environment in the world’s second most populous city, Delhi, has been the consequence of social, political, economic, planning and architectural traditions that have shaped the city over thousands of years. Whilst seamless at times, these traditions have often resulted in the fragmented development of the city’s built environment. This book charts the political, economic and social forces that drove development in India generally and in Delhi in particular, and investigates the drivers and constituents of Delhi’s urban landscape. The book provides a lens through which to examine the development path of a mega-city, which can be used as a guide in the development of emerging urban centres. Furthermore, the strengths and weaknesses of Delhi's built environment are critically analysed, with consideration to the role of the market, finance and policy over time. This book not only provides valuable insight into the physical evolution of Delhi and its surrounds, but it also asks broader questions about how people, power and politics interact with urban environments. It is essential reading for planners, architects, urbanists and social historians.

The articles by John Burton-Page on Indian Islamic architecture assembled in this volume give an historical overview of the subject, ranging from the mosques and tombs erected by the Delhi sultans in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, to the great monuments of the Mughals in the 16th and 17th centuries.