New Delhi is to measure the excessiveness of the country it is crucial. Can not see where it begins and where it ends. The first shock is when one tries to obtain a map of the ville.On a choice between the so-called tourist cards, distributed free in hotels, which are marked on some main roads, and publishing detailed Eicher: 10 boards for the comprehensive plan! It's something to be diverted by these wide avenues, woodlands and endless going in all directions, the amount of green space and empty (there is even intramural an airport) within the precincts of the city. In winter, when the Delhi bathed in fog, the feeling is very strange. We see scroll, alignment of almost identical villas on two floors - stylish houses built in modern style for years 50-60, of public buildings and trees through a screen of mist which makes them look immaterial. State capital and a collection of monuments par excellence, New Delhi knows, despite everything and cons, artistic and intellectual vitality that is reflected by the activities of cultural centers, designer boutiques and galleries of contemporary art (see above cons headings "listen / view ' and "buy")
| - the capital of the empire - This immateriality, which contrasts with the density of other cities Indian, may be due to the fact that New Delhi is the application on the grounds of a diagram of the ideal city. In the early twentieth century, the British Empire of India entrusted to the architect Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944) the design and project management of a new capital instead of Calcutta. Bigger than London, the new city was built on a territory steeped in history. It adjoins the former Mughal capital of Delhi (later when Old Delhi) and covers ancient settlements dating back to the 1st Muslim kingdoms in India. New Delhi is designed around a triangular shape. Three major themes connect three strategic points such as Connaught Place, India Gate and the Central Secretaris with the palace of the viceroys (Raj Bhavan). Seat of centralized power, the Central Secretariat and Raj Bhavan were recovered by the Indian state and are home to Independence, among other things, the Presidency of the Republic (President's Estate). It is a huge set of red stone palatial covered domes. So large that it is virtually impossible to have an overview. Lutyens has been great. XXL looks like Rem Koolhaas (1), colossal, to paraphrase Jacques Derrida (2). The Raj Bhavan is the most impressive building. He wears a huge dome which refers, by its form, the Great Stupa of Sanchi built by Emperor Ashoka, the greatest masterpiece of Indian antiquity, and its proportions, at the Cenotaph for Newton , utopian monument designed by Etienne Louis Boullee, architect of France lights. | ||
| "It was loaned to Gandhi and the Clemenceau sentence:" It will a beautiful ruin! "It did not ruin, and no more a palace conquered, as the Kremlin. New Delhi is not a city, it is an "administrative capital", but its prospects colossal red sandstone, with their Sikh guards presented arms in solitude, not open on government - albeit Parliament: they opened the Empire disappeared. Palace, ministries, propylaea. Throughout the British Empire bears the mark of greatness English with an accent that gives the Victorian Gothic Thames. Here, as in the Khyber Pass, the magnitude was Roman's dream of Caesar Alexandria, a mass of power arranged by the vast Hellenistic theater. Half of another dream of a marriage rival Anglo-Indian Indo-Muslim marriage. The Capitol was ostensibly a rival of the Great Mosque of Delhi, one of the largest of Islam, Fatehpur Sikri, the Red Fort, Mughal architecture of all this was the America of Persia. Islam was always there. And England? (...) In a country that has built many famous graves, the only work to rival those of Alexander's successors became admirable, despite the mediocrity of its architecture, since it became the tomb of the Empire. " Andre Malraux , Antimemoires , Gallimard, pp.187-188. | ||
| The palaces are located at the eastern end of Raj Path , a huge straight avenue - the Champs Elysees in New Delhi - which points to the west on the India Gate, a triumphal arch dedicated to the 100,000 Indian soldiers who died during the first world war. The Raj Path is very monumental and official. L Avenue is also lined with that of public buildings (National Archives, National Museum of India, Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts etc..) and serves as a backdrop to the parade of independence. - Connaught Place - Now to the largest square in the capital, built in the southern boundary of Old Delhi. On paper, the place seems idyllic. Initialing a circle 500 m in diameter. Or rather two circles one inside the other. Connaught Place is the inner circle, the square itself, and Connaught Circus outer circle, in fact, a circular street. On the ground, it's a hellish place. One, because it is total chaos, two, because it is circular gives the impression (and often reality) of running in circles. Totalitarian architecture? Paradoxically, Connaught Place shines through no great monument. And a monument, as useless as it is, is a landmark for travelers adrift. Connaught Place and Connaught Circus are lined with identical gantry cranes in the neoclassical style (inspired by the Palladio). The only different building on which we can cling is visually LIC Jeevan Bharati, post-modern office building in red stone and curtain wall built by Charles Correa in the south of the square. This is the address of Air India. We mention this, not to make them free publicity (they do not deserve it!), But because at least one false Air India office is located in the vicinity, with touts at the door to catch in their tentacles tourists disoriented. With its agencies (true and false) of airlines, banks and other services, Connaught Place is a place of passage. It is also a court of miracles made beggars, hawkers and other charlatans who officiate in turmoil. All this is very much alive but also very stressful even if you are not agoraphobic. Underpasses can cross the square without being crushed and also act as shopping malls. About the mall, there's one in the empty circle of Connaught Place, a huge, sprawling and labyrinthine. Forum des Halles power thousand. Connaught Place, it often comes down Janpath Avenue bustling with countless antique shops, textiles and other souvenirs. In a cross is a Tibetan market which has the name of Tibetan but who has something picturesque. The Janpath market aimed primarily at tourists. The prices are relatively high, but you can find beautiful items. After all the commotion, one discovers, on the right, gardens full of palm trees and art deco facade of the Hotel Imperial. Built by Edwin Lutyens, Imperial is one of the most beautiful palaces of the East and the best of New Delhi. Its magnificent salons are lined Art (Paintings, prints ...) and is a museum tracing the history of the city. A hotel suite named after the architect has kept its furniture and its original decor. - mausoleums and memorials - Delhi is a veritable outdoor museum of Islamic architecture. Besides the Qutb Minar and sites of Old Delhi (see our Old Delhi), the city is scattered with an impressive number of mosques, mausoleums, royal residences and other structures built between the eleventh and eighteenth centuries. To the east of India Gate stands the Purana Qila, the Old Fort of Delhi (which predates the construction of Red Fort in Old Delhi). The walk is pleasant, in large spaces. The highlight of the visit is the magnificent Qil'a Kohn masjid mosque built in the sixteenth century. There's also the amazing library of Sultan Humayyun octagonal. The latter will be dead in a fall down the stairs while praying at the mosque cited above. He is buried a little further south, near the tomb of Sufi master Nizam ud Din (see our page on Nizam ud Din) in a large domed mausoleum planted in gardens. Filed under the World Heritage List by UNESCO (as the Qutb Minar), the tomb is the first example Humayyoun of monument Mughal culminating as shown will be the Taj Mahal in Agra. The Mausoleum of Safdarjang, bient later, since it was built in the eighteenth century, took the same party. Note an essential difference between these shrines and those of Agra (the Taj Mahal and Ittimad ad'Daulah) materials. While we have used local red stone in Delhi, were brought from afar the white marble, much more noble and bright in Agra. In the gardens leading up to the Mausoleum Humayyoun on the right, the ancient tombs of dignitaries, including that of Issa Khan seem totally abandoned. Their decrepit state gives them emotional strength we were very moved. We must go early, when there is still that person and the morning mist had not yet emerged. A grand spectacle! Small mausoleums planted in nature, we find everywhere. Down south of the town towards the village of Hauz Khas, we discover, among stately buildings, tombs of the Lodi period, prior to that of the Mughals. Hauz Khas is a strange place. Around an old cistern, which now plays the role of large urban public park pool (another green space!), Stand the ruins of a complex compound of a mosque, steam rooms and other structures. These buildings dilapidated have something pathetic with their coating of greyish stone, blackened their domes and galleries in a row leading to the precipices. Around this curious monument, the area of Hauz Khas village identity has built a pretty nice with its antique shops, art galleries and boutiques of clothing and fashion accessories.
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