ABSTRACT
INDIA HAD ALREADY EXPERIENCED HER INITIATION IN twentieth century urban form with two major developments both dating from 1911. The new capital, New Delhi, had begun to take shape; and the city which was to be the symbol of India’s progress in industrialisation, Jamshedpur, was being built by the steel magnate and large-scale entrepreneur, Mr Tata.1 New Delhi was the personification of British Imperial Power, the last word in ‘civil lines’, built on extravagantly luxurious Garden City principles. The scale of the road layout and the size of the plots for each bungalow far exceeded any English prototype. Lutyens’s designs for the Viceroy’s Palace and the ceremonial grounds before it created a symbolic impression of the strength of British rule. Geddes’ views on the layout of the land and especially the parks of New Delhi were not favourable. He was asked to write a brief report for the New Delhi Commission but this report has, unfortunately, been lost. He and Lutyens had an antipathy for each other which extended to their work and their views on the social evolution of the future.2
