Weekly Blog
The photograph above is of one of Herbert Baker’s magisterial staircases at New Delhi. Most of Baker’s work in Delhi is commonly ascribed to Lutyens, but it was Baker’s concept that all the government buildings rather than just the Viceroy’s House (now Rashtrapati Bhavan – the Indian President’s residence) should be raised above the city on an Imperial Acropolis.
Lutyens and Baker were actually appointed as equal partners to both advise the Indian Government on all architectural matters relating to the new city and to design the principal buildings. In a fairer world, Baker might well have been appointed instead of Lutyens as he had already completed numerous public buildings including the South African government buildings in Pretoria (The Union Buildings) whereas Lutyens at this point in his career, was very much just a country house architect, but Lutyens was based in London while Baker was in Johannesburg and his contacts proved crucial to his securing first the town planning and then his architectural role.
Amongst other buildings, Baker designed the two Secretariat Buildings to house the Indian Civil Service which flank the processional way that leads to Lutyens’s Viceroy’s House. Each one is the size of the UK Houses of Parliament and, while the interiors of Lutyens’s Viceroy’s House have been much published, Baker’s stunning interiors in the Secretariats are little known and now rarely seen by the public. Just at glimpse at the section of the South Secretariat building below gives a hint of the spatial qualities of these buildings.
Sadly this entire area of New Delhi is now threatened with major redevelopment.
John Stewart 