Do you know who designed Connaught Place, Delhi?s focal point, the start of its modern journey to becoming a world city?
Well, that?s part of a text for new books on the city. Fiction had its share in recent months in Abha Dawesar?s Family Values (Penguin, Rs 325) and Tarun Tejpal?s The Story of My Assassins (Harper Collins, Rs 495), in both of which the stamp of the city was marked.
In non fiction, the look ahead seems to be the mantra of the city as two recently published books also stress on the new. To the purist, the title of the book, The Modern Architecture of New Delhi by Rahul Khanna (Random House, Rs 495) may itself be an oxymoron. In a city dotted with magnificent forts, baolis, tombs, old villas and mansions, even gates, and of course the unslottable Qutub Minar Khanna, along with photographer Manav Parhawk, have chosen to look, only, at the emerging city.
Admittedly, the look starts soon after the English started building New Delhi and briefly profiles 46 buildings, largely public.
The book covers just about 70 years. The earliest building profiled is the St Martin?s Church in that rarely visited outpost of the city ? cantonment, built between 1928 and 31. Architecture has rarely been as accessible despite being more for those at least with a smattering of familiarity with the field and its major muses in the recent past. The charm of the book lies not just in not the buildings it selects, but also the way it is almost is a slideshow of evolving architecture, a reflection of the times and its conflicts.
The big names are all here ? Mansingh Rana (Nehru memorial Library), Buddha Jayanti Park), Joseph A Stein (Triveni Kala Sangam, IIC, IHC) Habib Rehman (Rabindra Bhawan), Jugal Kishore Chowdhury (IIT), Kuldip Singh (Palika Kendra), Shiv Nath Prasad (Shriram Centre, Akbar Bhawan), PN Mathur (Chanakya), Rajinder Kumar (ISBT), Raj Rewal (Pragati Maidan, STC building), Satuish Gujral (Belgian Embassy), Charles Correa (Jeevan Bharati, British Council), Balkrishna Doshi (NIFT), even MF Husain for a private residence.
The format is simple, the text enticing enough for the lay reader, and the histories fascinating. An you might just discover Robert Tor Russell?s role in giving shape to the emerging city.
The city has been looked at in a more familiar way by another book ? Delhi: India in One City by Malvika Singh (Academic Publishers, Rs 3,750). But this is primarily a photo essay, with photo editor Uday Sahay bringing about a m?lange of visuals. The book is divided into 10 themes, and expectedly, sections like ?The Amphitheatre of the Arts? or ?The Bazaars? are fairly predictable, mixing the old and the new, but fairly commonplace.
There are a few shots that make you sit up though ? a Jama Masjid interior, Rashtrapati Bhawan courtyards, shots of life along the Yamuna, the masses of laburnum, jacaranda and gulmohar that light up the city in spring-summer, being caught in the rain?