These images are screenshots from the 2010 documentary film, The Light Bulb Conspiracy.

I asked the post graduate students of Industrial Design after our class viewing what they thought of the film. Had it changed their attitude towards what and how they buy, use and design? What was the most striking thing they took away from the film?

One of the students answered that the desecration of the local landscape and people - because of discarded electronic waste shipped to Ghana from European countries under the guise of ‘second hand goods’ - was what had disturbed her the most. And that she would probably think twice now before buying and discarding industrially processed goods.

“But hadn’t she ever noticed similar sights in India, and especially in the NCR?” How was it, I asked, that she hadn’t been similarly disturbed by barelegged children rummaging in rubbish heaps and the mounting trash all around and in our cities and towns? She said she had noticed them but somehow the enormity of it hadn’t registered in her mind.

Thinking about it later, I realised that the reason that she - and the others students in the class - had not linked the sight of children in trash with the malaise of a cycle of endless consumption of toxic goods, was because of the way we plan and build today.

Poor people, like the refuse of our urban life, are pushed away to the peripheries of our cities - and our imaginations. We see them in ones and twos or threes - not altogether. And so it is easy to ignore them. To not think about where they come from, how the live, why they are on the streets at all.

By segregating people and spaces based on different income-groups in economic and urban planning, we have created living hells. Pre-colonial cities - that we often vilify - seem far more humane in comparison.

The French traveller, Francois Bernier, describing the city of Shahjahanabad in the mid-17th century, writes about:

It is clear that the well-off and the not so well-off lived in close proximity in such a city - which makes it difficult to profess ignorance of the condition of the poor or relinquish responsibility for that condition. Not just that, but also the mode of economic production in the city of that time was decentralised and craft-based. Further, the larger economy of the region was based primarily on agriculture and the rural hinterland. Production as a whole was not driven by planned or perceived obsolescence. And so such an economy and its typical city did not create the colossal waste or landscapes of degradation that characterise our economies today.

Bernier has his biases, which are evident in his observations. He avers that ‘there are no streets like ours of S.Denis’, and ‘[t]hat which so much contributes to the beauty of European towns, the brilliant appearance of the shops, is wanting in Delhi’. He is disapproving of the shops here, where:

In his disapproval of the main markets of Delhi where both necessities and luxuries find place, Bernier carries his own cultural references. We see that even before the entire world was cursed by deliberate planned and perceived obsolescence built into industrial production, spatial and economic segregation was seen as a desirable practice in Europe.

We too now seem to have fallen hook, line and sinker for that line of thought. If the Ghazipur landfill site was in the midst of Delhi - next to the School of Planning and Architecture for instance or en route to the Parliament in the heart of New Delhi - would planners, bureaucrats or politicians, in their own interests, not be moved to do something to reduce it?

Unfortunately, as The Hindu reports, living near a landfill site has been normalised - even when it is recorded to be 236 feet tall and covers nearly 70 acres. And so our planning policies continue the waste generated by industrial economies. And we continue to perpetrate heedless and toxic product design and urban design.

Recognising the hidden connections between product design, urban planning, and industrial economies, is the first step towards redeeming our cities and our collective lives. If we buy, use, design and produce with care and thought — for living frugally and mindfully — we will generate minimum waste and leave behind a better planet.

No mere coincidence that Jantar Mantar is where people came together.

To ask for justice.

To demonstrate solidarity.

To reclaim their right to learn and live in an empathetic society.

Let us remember why Jantar Mantar was built 300 years ago in Delhi.

The first and oldest of all the Jantar Mantar Observatories, this was a site for empowerment and education. For experimentation and inclusion.

An open-air laboratory with the objectives of measuring time and space. To correct theoretical calculations by direct observation of positions of stars and planets. To spread scientific learning and its benefits.

Initiated by Maharajah Sawai Jai Singh, who invited and collaborated with experts irrespective of any affiliation — from different regions, faiths and traditions. He encouraged research and analysis of all available existing systems of astronomy, geography, mathematics, instrumentation.

Following a methodology of inclusiveness, he worked together with astronomers, architects and masons to devise and construct these large yantras — instruments accessible to everyone to gaze up at the stars and skies. To discover their own potential, and the inter-connections between each and every one of us in this world.

Over the past months, people led by young students came together at Jantar Mantar to stand for empathy and education. To correct injustice. To inspire inclusiveness. They stood up to lathis, tear-gas, threats, stones, bricks, detentions. They showed us that we can all reach for the stars — even in the face of indifference, reprisals, repression.

To those in governance, it is time to measure up to the hopes, needs and questions of the people of this country, and to what Jantar Mantar stands for. It is time to show empathy and live up to ideals of the Constitution of Independent India.

Bidhir bandhon kaatbe tumi
Emon shoktimaan —
Tumi ki emon shoktimaan!
Aamader bhaanga gara tomar haathe
Emon obhimaan —
Tomader emni obhimaan
Chirodin taanbe pichhe, chirodin raakhbe nichhe —
Eto bal naai re tomaar shoeibe na shei taan.
Shashone jotoi ghero — aache bol durbolero,
Hao-na jotei boro aachhen bhogaban.
Aamader shokti mere torao banchbi ne-re
Bojha tor bhari holei doob-be torikhan.

Rabindranath Tagore, 1905



And so you believe you
Can evade what destiny has in store for you —
So powerful are you?

And so you believe you
Can break us and make us too —
So full of pride are you.

That it is you who
Can always drive us back, keep us under —
That power you do Not possess,
Your hold will sunder.

Encircle us as you might
Know that the weak too can resist, can fight.
Elevate yourself all you will
There is a God higher still.

Suppress us and you perish too.
The swollen ship you steer
Will buckle and sink with you.

Free Rendition/Translation in English: Anisha Shekhar Mukherji

Consultation and advice: Snehanshu Mukherjee and Dilip K Basu

विधि के बंधन को भी काट सकोगे, हो इतने शक्तिमान,
तुम क्या इतने शक्तिमान!

हमारा बनना-बिगड़ना तुम्हारे हाथों, इतना अभिमान,
तुम्हारा ऐसा अभिमान।

हमेशा खींचोगे पीछे, हमेशा रखोगे नीचे,
इतना बल नहीं तुममें, रहोगे नहीं हमें खींचें।

शासन में जितना ही घेरो, है बल दुर्बल में भी,
जितने भी क्यों न हो तुम बड़े, है भगवान भी।

हमारी शक्ति मार के, ख़ैर नहीं तुम्हारी,
बोझा भारी कर के, डूबेगी ही नाव तुम्हारी।

Translation in Hindi: Anisha Shekhar Mukherji

Read this — part of a long statement by Viscount Finlay — in defence of General Dyer, the officer who gave the orders to shoot.

From the archives of the UK Parliament.

There is a huge chasm between the actions of Dyer and the statements made in his support. A chasm of untruths between what was perpetrated and what was proclaimed.

When we recall such justification of violence and injustice through lies and falsehood, let us all remember what is inscribed on our national emblem: Satyameva Jayate,

Truth Alone Triumphs.

This phrase from the Mundaka Upanishad, was first used publicly in 1918 by Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya, President of the Indian National Congress. He suggested its adoption as free India’s motto. It is imperative that we remember this. More than ever, in this age of “post-truth” — a term that came to the fore in 1992 in an essay by the late Serbian-American playwright Steve Tesich.

In a time when facts recede in importance, especially in shaping public opinion, let us remember and reiterate:

Satyameva Jayate, Truth Alone Triumphs.

What if our colony or neighbourhood was inundated by visitors at all times of the day and night? If we had to, at every turn of the road, come face-to-face with the stares and cameras of people we had never seen before?

What if our ward director or councillor decided to spend money and take up space around where we live, to make a series of public toilets — instead of repairing broken pavements and streets or planting trees? If we had no parks and playgrounds to go to, or if they were always locked and fenced off from us? What if cars were banned in the main entrance road into our part of town? If we were forced to drive down side-alleys and narrow lanes every time — even to reach a hospital in a medical emergency?

This is a reality in Shahjahanabad. This is what people here have to deal with, everyday of the week. It is not surprising then that whoever can, has left to live elsewhere. Why do those who haven’t, choose to stay on? Some, because they have no choice. Some, because they have such a strong association and attachment to the place. Despite the everyday problems of life, despite friends and family moving out, they continue here. But what will happen when they are no longer there?

Shahjahanabad today, is chaotic, crowded and dirty. Visitors and tourists come here despite all this. They come because it is vibrant and full of activity. It has streets punctuated with culinary delights, fragments of graceful gateways and buildings, and diverse things to buy. In other words, they come for its characteristic tangible and intangible heritage.

So, this heritage that we extol and seek to capitalise has value principally because of the people who carry it forward: in their memories, in their ways of living, language, food, attire, customs.

When we remove these people from our ‘redevelopment and conservation plans’ and give them least priority, then inevitably there will be no heritage left. To conserve, talk about, or make plans for. At its best it will remain a museum piece, an empty and dead stage-set. At its worst, it will dwindle into isolated, disconnected bits. Or disappear.

.

Methodology

In 1980, a seminar was held in Delhi jointly organised by School of Planning and Architecture, (SPA), Max Mueller Bhawan, Town and Country Planning Organisation (TCPO), and German Foundation for International Development. It brought together landscape architects, planners, historians, conservation professionals, archaeologists, engineers, bureaucrats, local councillors. It correctly identified elements like street structure, size of buildings, community participation, the humane walkable scale of Shahjahanabad, as what we need to retain and revive. It however, still stuck to a professional, outsider-driven, data-collection approach.

Even with the best of intentions, even when we identify that it is imperative to improve its living conditions, we miss this vital fact. This is why, of the 44 listed objectives of the Shahjahanabad Redevelopment Corporation, it is at the very bottom of the list — on point 41 — that we read: ‘To hold regular public consultations and formulate public opinion in accordance with its objectives’.

This is why Shahjahanabad is in the state that it is, even after all these years of declaring it a special area, devoting innumerable studies and seminars to its historic attributes and its heritage value.

SHAHAR, an acronym for Shahjahanabad And Her Residents, is an initiative of understanding the city through its residents, as an alternative method of looking at Shahjahanabad. It recognises the fact that the most important stake-holders in any place, are the people who live there 24 x 7 — followed by those who spend significant time here: workers, shop-keepers, traders. SHAHAR gives importance to speaking to and listening to long-time residents of Shahjahanabad. Its premise is very simple: successful conservation of historic cities, anywhere in the world, has to put people first. They have to be at the top of any list: devising ways of conserving and revitalising the city have to begin with people, and for this, we need to start from the micro to the macro.

Through this, we propose to identify at a micro-scale a demonstration project in a residential area and work with local support and existing community initiatives. For example, in Pahari Imli, the interior and facade/street environs of the Shah Waliullah Library set up by local residents with donated books and personal collections, can be improved to act as a physical landmark. Street studies, documentation, research, designs or the facade and street-environs, can be carried out as part of the project — in collaboration with colleges and institutions. The outcomes can be devised as a travelling exhibition held at the Library and other Libraries/ public spaces in Shahjahanabad. Depending on the scale, and whether these are taken as interior or public space projects, they can be then implemented independently or with support from ward-councillor.

This can then be the methodology followed in other wards/lanes/ localities of Shahjahanabad.

Notes:

Shahjahanabad, Improvements of Living Conditions in Traditional Housing Areas, 1980, Proceedings of A Seminar on Shahjahanabad, 23-29 February, 1980 held at Goethe Institute, Kathmandu, and Max Mueller Bhawan, New Delhi. Ed: Bijit Ghosh. Published by: School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi in collaboration with Town and Country Planning Organisation, New Delhi; German Foundation for International Development, Berlin; Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi

See: https://srdc.delhi.gov.in/en/srdc/objectives-srdc

See shahardelhi6@instagram People’s Library Part 1 and two:

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I climbed up to the first-floor terrace of my aunt’s house with sketch books and crayons for her gardener’s little son and daughter, to find them gazing transfixed up at the mango tree. Their father had climbed up to gather mangoes for us to carry back to Delhi for my cousin.

Our daughter, Treya, one of whose ambitions is to climb every tree, tried to figure out how he had managed to do so. The trunk of the tree was at least a couple of feet away from the edge of the terrace, and none of its branches were within arm’s distance.

Meanwhile, Akhilesh nonchalantly negotiated different levels within the tree, now shaking a branch, now reaching out to pluck another mango. His children shouted excitedly and encouragingly from below. When he had apparently gathered enough, he descended, stretching out one leg from the fork in the tree to balance it on the curved edge of the railing. Holding onto the branch above with one hand, he swung his other leg onto the railing and jumped down on to the terrace.

So that’s how he managed it, breathed Treya.

You’re not to try, I admonished. It may look easy, but it requires a lot of practice.

We handed the sketchbooks and colours to the children. They opened the books, puzzled at their blankness. You can draw on them, I explained.

Akhilesh, as he prepared to harvest the second mango tree, told his son to show Treya what he had written out.

His six year old son came running out with some loose pages. Apart from a few spelling mistakes, they were covered in neat writing, in impeccably formed words making up abstruse sentences about how mathematical models are generated, and the axioms and principles that underlie them.

Is this part of his class work, I asked, dazed at the level of complexity.

I asked his son to get me a piece of paper and a pencil, and wrote out ‘Mango’. Can you read this, I asked? M for monkey, a for apple, n for nest, g for goat, o for orange, he sang out. I was delighted. Very good, now put them together and read out the word. He was silent, then he read out each of the alphabets again, separately.

What sound does M have? He had no clue. But within half an hour of enunciating the sound of the letters in mango, mat, man, map, he had understood enough to be able to string them together. We then tried to read ‘tree’. Mango tree. Right in front of us.

I went in to look for some YouTube videos that explained the phonetics of the English alphabets, and found one that both the child and I liked. I promised to send it to his father so that he could look at it again. I was doing that when Treya came downstairs, asking me if I knew that ants make nests out of leaves.

She said Akhilesh bhaiyya, dusting something off from his perch in the tree had called to her to stand clear, before throwing it onto the terrace. She’d first thought it was a dried mango. He told her it was an ant’s nest. Then she saw them swarming out onto the terrace. He explained how the ants pull together the leaves from a branch and somehow glue them together, making a cocoon.

Different sorts of knowledge. Climbing a tree. Reading English.

Being able to pluck and harvest mangoes. Knowing what to look out for and what to avoid in the actual living world.

Being able to access education. To look out for oneself, gain employment and make a living.

Both useful. Both require observation, skill and practice. One of these also requires physical dexterity and active awareness of the world around us.

But ironically, we have come to a point where so few of us value one of these kinds of knowledge. And it has become necessary for all of us to aspire to master the other — which if you think about it, is not really knowledge but just a way of acquiring it.

Video Credits: Treya Mukherjee

Think of a city like a conversation.

Shahjahanabad is a conversation that is vivid and alive, that can take sudden turns, that is absorbing even when uncomfortable and sometimes difficult to comprehend. Despite its seeming chaos and crowds, the city has structured spaces to pause, gather, listen to, and be heard. Sounds of bells, greetings, honking vehicles, birds.

Its landmarks — Jama Masjid, Lal Qila, Sis Ganj — punctuate and shape your physical and mental horizon. They orient your passage to and fro in its meandering lanes. They mark reassuring points that you double back to if you get lost en route to wherever you thought you were going. They offer a palpable sense of history and geography.

And then there is always the possibility of a surprise. A sudden turn and twist can reveal a hidden courtyard, a beautiful door, a boarded up well, an alcove with flowers and incense, a dead end. It is still a walkable city — but you have to be constantly alert, watchful of poles, and piles of refuse, of rickshaws, of people carrying headloads of all sorts of things.

So, it is simultaneously a vibrant and disquieting conversation — that may suddenly peter off or be interrupted.

For a conversation, you have to have people and there are many people in Delhi.

So far, so good.

But you also need to have time and space. Time is a commodity and a luxury in the humungous sprawl that we call Delhi.

Everyone is trying to get somewhere — isolated in cars, jammed into buses and metros, huddled onto scooters, autos, bikes and cycles. In this daily race, the grandest of urban structures remain distant, as much by design as by circumstance. India Gate, Rashtrapati Bhawan, Parliament House. They have little to do with your routine life, even if you were not physically barred from coming close to them.

Not just landmarks. This, as I have written earlier, is characteristic of New Delhi as a whole, ‘which introduced the bungalow typology: isolated buildings set within large compounds, disconnected from streets and public life, and culminating in the aloof Viceregal Lodge on Raisina Hill. Designed for automobiles rather than people, this model now dominates planned areas of Delhi.’ 1

In some elite parts of the city, blessed with pavements and trees, you have the option to walk at a distance from these boundaries. But can you loiter, gaze, talk at length, hang around on the pavements or under the trees? Only at your own risk, to be looked at askance, questioned, propositioned, or asked to move on.

For the rest, highways, fly-overs and pot-holed roads only allow superficial or life-threatening conversations.

What will you observe of history and geography — and where will you find the leisure or public spaces to walk in and talk of them?

One student had to approach the object only through the sense of touch. A handkerchief was tied over his eyes, and the object was handed over to him. This is what he had to say.

This is a:

• Wooden object;

• On one end, there is a motif;

• The other end is something like a knife.

• There is some thread wrapped around it.

The rest of the students had to approach the object only through the sense of sight.

The object was held up and they all looked at it from where they were seated around the long table in the studio. This is what they said. This:

• Looks handmade;

• Looks like a totem pole.

• Probably has some cultural significance

• Looks as if it is part of something going on for a long time.

When asked what the last statement meant and why they said this, they replied that is the feeling they got based on the material of the object and the face carved on it.

The student who had been blindfolded, thought its function was to break a wax seal. The rest of the class, who had perceived the object only through their sense of sight, were more hesitant about answering the question. They hazarded some guesses:. A stirrer? A spoon?

Isn’t it too small in length, I asked.

A desk prop?

I gave some clues. Its function is related to food — and its place is in the kitchen. Butter knife was one guess

Finally, all the students were allowed to see the object at close quarters, as well as to touch it. Naturally, their level of perception and observation increased, and their description became more detailed and accurate: it is made of bamboo, the head is made of wood; and so on.

This exercise was educative for several reasons.

1. It showed that of these two kinds of ways of approaching the object, the one based on the sense of touch was a sharper response, with less biases, preconceptions or external connections. The object was described primarily on the basis of its perceivable attributes: wooden, motif at one end, something like a knife at the other end (this actually is inferred rather than perceived — it would have been more accurate to describe it as a sharp-edged end).

2. The one based on the sense of sight or the purely visual approach, when asked to describe the object, did not go through a process of first recording or listing the physical attributes — but jumped straight to the students’ associations of these attributes: totem pole, hand-made, long history, cultural significance. At the same time, they were far more reticent in voicing what its function could be, and needed much prodding before they volunteered any guesses.

3. The exercise demonstrated, that by itself, each process was incomplete because it only depended on one sense. The object when deliberately and closely examined through the sense of both touch and sight, revealed much more about itself, than by exclusively depending on just one or the other.

4. This exercise also tells us how we slot certain materials and appearances into certain uses, and exclude the possibility of their being used for other functions. A cheese-slicer — in many of our minds — is an industrial looking object, of steel and plastic. A hand-crafted object does not fit into our conception of a cheese slicer. And so, the limitation of inference, even when we embark on primary, immediate, first-person perception. In fact, interestingly, none of the students commented on, or listed the size and dimensions of the object (about six inches, fitting snugly in one’s hand) in their description.

5. And finally, as I have written earlier in Attributing Design Identity, Identifying Design Attributes: “Shilpa, of which craft is an integral part, also grants premium identity to products linked to their place of origin”. This cheese slicer has a unique identity, derived and linked to its place of origin. It is not like the countless other cheese-slicers available in the market, industrially manufactured through machines — and then superficially styled to make it appear different. Its tactile, visual, and functional qualities are quite special.

Post-script:

We could, of course, have carried this exercise to another dimension: we could have incorporated the sense of smell to figure out if that would have yielded any additional information or clues. Theoretically, (but not practically in this case!) the sense of taste also plays a role in design research and practice.

I remember being struck by the detailed guidance given for choosing an appropriate site for construction in the classic vastushastra on dwelling-types, Mayamatam. The architect is supposed to examine the site minutely, and observe and analyse not just its appearance, but also what grows on it, the feel and texture of the soil — even its smell and taste. Such a detailed examination is not one that we embark on today. Indeed, it may well be dangerous — who knows what we may be ingesting in the site analysis! Nonetheless, we certainly need to observe more keenly — both objects and sites — before we infer or interpret their design possibilities.

Craft is not just about souvenirs.

Or artefacts for display.

Many handcrafted objects have a real functional use, and contain the lakshana or characteristic of sustainability.

As I have written earlier about craft in India: ‘Since nothing was designed as simply utilitarian or purely decorative, most objects had a continuing use, and were thought of in their entirety, to form a way of life that was a celebration of all the senses.’1

This is a series on crafted objects I use on a daily basis, which are beautiful, functional and sustainable.

Let me begin with a quote from 1658:

This description of Shahjahanabad, the then capital of Hindoustan, is by the French traveller, Francois Bernier, who lived in the city for some years. From his description, we learn that Shahjahanabad possessed handsome buildings, but ones that did not resemble those in Europe. We also learn something about Bernier himself: for him beauty is about spectacle, about pomp and show. His main criticism of the city, is that the shops are not brilliant enough, that they stocked and sold too many everyday necessities in comparison to glittering luxuries.

If Bernier could time-travel and visit Delhi today, he would find the situation entirely reversed: most buildings copy those in Europe — whether handsome or not — and markets, from neighbourhood bazaars to big shopping malls, are dominated by expensive clothing and endless consumer goods rather than daily provisions. This reversal prompts an important question: is this progress?

To explore this question, I turn to Shahjahanabad itself — the city established nearly four hundred years ago by Shah Jahan, the sixth Mughal emperor and arguably the richest ruler of his time — and ask a more fundamental one: what is the purpose of cities? In an age when urbanisation is presented as both inevitable and desirable, and when cities are growing rapidly in size and number, it is worth pausing to reflect on how cities should be made. Shahjahanabad, I suggest, offers valuable lessons for such reflection.

What Bernier Saw—and What He Missed

To return to Bernier, he describes the two principal streets of Shahjahanabad running straight ‘as far as the eye can reach,’ lined with arcades where artisans worked, bankers conducted business, and merchants displayed their wares. Merchants’ houses rose above, behind these arcades, integrating commerce and residence. Five other streets, though shorter, followed a similar pattern. He also observed a range of dwelling types: from the houses of mansabdars, officers, and wealthy merchants — some built of brick and stone, others of clay and straw but ‘airy and pleasant,’ with courtyards and gardens — to the multitude of small, thatched houses of soldiers, servants, and camp followers. Despite his biases, Bernier inadvertently reveals something crucial: Shahjahanabad accommodated people of different incomes, occupations, and social positions in close proximity, and did so within a city that was, by his own admission, ‘pleasant’ to live in.

These observations offer an early glimpse of the city’s founding principles. But how representative are they of Shahjahanabad over time? To answer this, we must look beyond a single traveller’s account.

Identifying the Lakshana of Shahjahanabad

To understand Shahjahanabad more deeply, I draw on the Indic methodology of lakshana-parichaya — the identification of characteristic attributes. An idea or object is known through its lakshana, its distinctive attributes. Applied to a city, this requires examining its form and functioning across time, using archival sources as well as lived experience.

Such an examination quickly reveals that Shahjahanabad today functions very differently from how it did originally. The city suffered major disruptions: the destruction caused by Nadir Shah’s invasion in 1739; the devastation wrought by the British during and after the great uprising of 1857; and, perhaps most decisively, the construction of British New Delhi in the early twentieth century. New Delhi displaced Shahjahanabad as the political and cultural centre of the city and imposed a new urban template that would shape planning across the subcontinent. Partition in 1947 and subsequent waves of migration, redevelopment, and “renewal” accelerated these transformations — often at the expense of the old city. Yet despite these upheavals, several key lakshana of Shahjahanabad remain legible. They can be summarised as location, scale, shape, and spatial structure.

• Location, Scale, and Shape

Shahjahanabad was originally sited on the banks of the Yamuna, flanked and protected by the Aravalli outcrops and positioned at the intersection of major land and river routes. The river was central to the city’s life and identity. Over time, the Yamuna’s course shifted, and later planning decisions — especially under the British — further severed this relationship. Unlike Shahjahanabad, British New Delhi was deliberately planned away from the river. This negation of the river is a pattern that continues across Delhi today.

In plan, Shahjahanabad formed a rough semicircle, enclosed by walls. The straight edge of this semicircle ran along the river, with the Red Fort at its centre. This geometry ensured that most parts of the city were equidistant from both the Fort and the river. Although the walls no longer exist, the city’s outline is still discernible. The city’s scale reinforced this coherence. With a perimeter of about 8.5 kilometres and a longest street — today’s Chandni Chowk — measuring roughly 1.5 kilometres, Shahjahanabad was eminently walkable. British New Delhi, by contrast, was spread over an area nearly four times larger, lacked a clear overall shape, and was designed for movement by car rather than on foot. Contemporary Delhi is larger still: so vast that approximately seventy-nine Shahjahanabads could fit within it.

• Spatial Structure and Built Form

Shahjahanabad’s spatial structure reflected a clear hierarchy. Ceremonial and public spaces were formally arranged, while residential areas followed a more organic pattern. Built density was lowest along the river, where the Red Fort stood amid orchards and gardens, and where large havelis of nobles and officials were located. Density increased towards the western and southern parts of the city, but even here the urban fabric was punctuated by courtyards, gardens, and chowks.

The Red Fort itself functioned as a microcosm of the city — physically and spatially integrated with it. This integration contrasts sharply with British New Delhi, which introduced the bungalow typology: isolated buildings set within large compounds, disconnected from streets and public life, and culminating in the aloof Viceregal Lodge on Raisina Hill. Designed for automobiles rather than people, this model now dominates planned areas of Delhi.

The Essential Principles of Shahjahanabad

We see that together the characteristics of location, scale, density, building types, public space worked as markers and tools that made Shahjahanabad ecologically responsive, socially equitable, and economically productive.

First, the city was situated and designed in active relationship with the Yamuna. Historical records note Shah Jahan’s desire for flowing water, river-facing terraces, and gardens integrated with the Fort. The river and its canals were celebrated, not concealed. They moderated climate, structured public space, and sustained daily life. Today, by contrast, the Yamuna is treated as a liability — hidden behind fences, polluted by infrastructure, inaccessible and absent from the lives of most citizens. Along with its feeder nallahs, it is defiled and dirtied as an expendable resource.

Second, Shahjahanabad’s compact form made it efficient and inclusive within the scope of a feudal setup. As a walled city, it fostered a strong sense of identity and supported dense networks of production and exchange, largely based on non-polluting hand skills. The proximity of large havelis and modest dwellings enabled social diversity. All parts of the city remained accessible to the river, the Fort, and major public spaces.

Third, the city provided abundant and layered public space. Grand avenues such as Chandni Chowk housed markets selling both luxury goods and daily necessities, alongside serais, mosques, temples, and tea houses. Gardens like Anguri Bagh and Gulabi Bagh lay directly in front of the Red Fort, open to the inhabitants. Chowks functioned as centres of social and economic life. The riverbanks, with their ghats, were used daily, beginning with the ritual gatherings at dawn for the emperor’s public darshan from his Fort balcony.

The objective of Shahjahanabad, then, was not merely to impress visitors or glorify power, but to create a liveable city — one that provided roti, kapda, aur makaan in harmony with local culture and climate. Space in the city was not just for private use by the Emperor, wealthy inhabitants or influential visitors and travellers.

Accounts from residents and visitors confirm this picture. Anil Verma recalls clean, lively streets even in the 1960s and 1970s, maintained collectively by residents. Chand Tulsian, who lived in Shahjahanabad between 1947 and 1971, remembers it as a complete town, offering housing, work, and strong neighbourly bonds. The eighteenth-century visitor Dargah Quli Khan describes a vibrant cultural life spanning markets, shrines, gardens, and literary gatherings — the real landmarks of Shahjahanabad for him. Historian Shama Mitra Chenoy notes that Shahjahanabad’s urban culture operated simultaneously at multiple levels — popular, artistic, and spiritual — drawing participants from across society. The poor and the less wealthy were not rendered invisible, or pushed out.

Conclusion: Lessons for Cities Today

Can this help us to better understand traditional space in Shahjahanabad? Can this in turn help us to figure out what we can do with such traditional space in the context of our cities today? Can it perhaps even generate better urban models?

We see that these attributes of Shahjahanabad reflect a broader tradition of urbanism in the subcontinent, where cities were conceived as places of enterprise, exchange, and collective life. Such cities fostered innovation, art, philosophy, and economy precisely because they brought diverse people together within shared spaces.

It has been argued that ‘spatial structure does not influence social behaviour nor social structure.’ However, John Habraken reminds us that different cultures hold different collective images of public space. In Western contexts, public space is generally fixed and formally defined. In many Asian cultures, public space is an arena as well as an outcome of negotiation, shaped by use, relationships, and participation.

Contemporary cities increasingly deny this conception. Public space is fenced, controlled, or commodified; it is no longer truly of, for, or by the public. The consequences are visible. Air quality across the NCR ranges from poor to hazardous. Even in Shahjahanabad — despite its human scale — civic infrastructure is under severe strain. Regrettably, investment here often prioritises spectacle and exclusion over everyday life. Following Bernier’s lead, we do not recognise the value of traditional urban spaces. In our expanding urban landscape, such spaces are either neglected and ghettoised, or selectively “revitalised” to suit modern commerce and control. In doing so, we continue colonial patterns of exploiting both people and nature, long after political independence.

Re-examining Our Values

At its root, a city is about citizenship — about belonging, rights, and shared responsibility. The spatial structure of Shahjahanabad — reflecting characteristics and values of permeability and integration — enabled not only economic exchange, but also the circulation of ideas, skills, and experiences. In keeping with such meanings of a city and in keeping with the original lakshana of social and spatial permeability and integration in Shahjahanabad, I imagine the tarred roads in front of the Red Fort transformed into orchards and groves where residents from Shahjahanabad and the rest of Delhi, gather daily to play, stroll, sit. I imagine Chandni Chowk shaded by trees rather than cluttered with fussy bollards and planters collecting dust and trash. I imagine craftspeople, musicians, storytellers, and vendors as everyday features of our city life, not occasional spectacles in melas. Cleaner air, cooler streets, richer human interaction.

This may sound utopian. But, as Kevin Lynch cautions in Good City Form: ‘Without some sense of better, any action is perverse. When values lie unexamined, they are dangerous.’ Imagining alternatives is thus not indulgent but essential. If we are serious about answering the question about the purpose of cities — and how they ought to be made — we must begin by re-examining the values embedded in our urban form. Identifying the characteristic attributes in such urban form can work as both markers and tools to help us do so.

This is a model of the Alai Darwaza.

Made in wood (Balsa and Tun) at a scale of 1: 50, the model is not only remarkably well-detailed and crafted, but it also captures all the essential features of the Alai Darwaza. The profile of its arches; the division of its elevation into a clearly delineated base, body and dome; the variation in texture through patterns, carving, and jalis — all these distinguishing characteristics of this building have been communicated even at this small-scale.

What is even more remarkable is the way in which this model has been made.

As a historic building, information about the Alai Darwaza is inevitably incomplete. When I started searching for recorded information, I found that no measured drawings of the Alai Darwaza were available in the public domain. I however, discovered some basic documentation of it in a series on Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). This publication, A Historical Memoir of the Qutb: Delhi by J A Page, Superintendent of ASI, was first published in 1926. It has been republished by the Director General of ASI, and is an important resource on the Qutub complex. Apart from some photographs dating from that time, the Memoir contains some drawings of the Alai Darwaza: a Cross-Section, North and South Elevations, and a scaled down Plan.

Useful as these drawings are, they do not date from the fourteenth century, the time that the Alai Darwaza was constructed in. They thus do not represent the Alai Darwaza as it may have originally been, but as it is surmised to have originally appeared. The Alai Darwaza was extensively repaired in the early 19th century, with some changes made to its facades. The drawings by the ASI as printed in the Memoir, depict the Alai Darwaza based on conjectures about the original appearance of those parts of the Alai Darwaza which were repaired in 1816, and measurements and studies carried out by the staff of the ASI of the extant parts of the Darwaza in the early 20th century, as well as conservation work and excavations on its south face carried on from 1910 onwards.

This information about the Alai Darwaza is very much less than that normally available for model-makers. In newer buildings, drawings are more easily accessible since the process of design followed is that details are first worked out through various drawings by architects prior to constructing the buildings. These drawings are then available to make models as required.

For the Alai Darwaza, since only a few basic drawings were available, as a prelude to commissioning the model I had to specially take a series of photographs from the inside as well as the outside of the Darwaza. This was necessary to communicate the three dimensional aspects of the building as well as to explain its important structural and special details.

To further clarify my understanding, I undertook some geometrical and spatial studies of the plans and elevations, to see if there were any links I could uncover between the size of the building, the proportions of its different parts, the location and size of its doors and windows, etc. It emerged from these studies that there was a strong geometrical and spatial relationship between various parts of the Alai Darwaza, which was very useful to determine missing measurements and decipher discrepancies in measurements.

This was then the basis on which the modeller had to make his model.

Not an easy task. Pammi ji undertook to take on this task. And with his team of Mohan Lal and Rajesh, he fulfilled it in time — within two months — creating a model of great aesthetic sophistication.

Making this model is thus not just about craftsmanship — though it is beautifully crafted. It is equally an intellectual exercise: to study and distill the information, and match this with thorough knowledge of the materials that the model was to be made in. To then decide how these materials could best be put together in order to simulate the distinguishing characteristics of the Alai Darwaza. This requires visualisation of a special kind: it requires that the appearance and space of the building is assembled in the mind, and then translated into materials and processes completely different from that of actually constructing a building in stone, bricks and mortar.

There are very few takers for wooden models these days, primarily because of the rise of plastic models which are cheaper and faster to make. But plastic models come at a greater environmental cost and cannot produce the same aesthetic or tactile effect as a model of wood. Only a discerning few, who have the means to pay for the effort and hand-craft invested in a wooden model, and are also concerned about ecological impact, opt to get models made in wood.

And there are very few model-makers who are willing to respond to this challenging task. As Pammiji says:

How and why does Pammi ji manage to continue?

The first reason that he does so is the sheer challenge. The second is that he cannot find it in himself to refuse to make models for people with whom has had a long and happy working relationship with — Snehanshu, in this case, whom I asked to request Pammi ji if he would be willing to make this model. At fifteen hundred rupees a day for a skilled model-maker, a team of even two or three people requires an outlay of ₹80,000 to 12,00,000, excluding the cost of material and equipment and tools.

This is an expensive proposition, and there is no continuity of work. Pammi ji has therefore branched into interior-works. This is how he subsidises his model-making enterprise. He values this craft and does not want it to become extinct, and he values the stimulus of the intellectual and creative challenge of making a model with his own hands.

For a new building, the design process is that architects usually start with planning out interior functions. They then generate door/window-positions, connections with the outside spaces and exteriors based on these functions — in tandem with the overall requirements of the site. All this further informs the building materials to be used and the external and internal appearance. Architects, therefore in many ways, work from the inside out.

I asked Pammi ji about the way in which he starts to plan a model. He said that he first studies the exteriors and the facades, and then mentally works his way into the building. He visualises the space inside through the medium of the material that he will make his model in. He then refers to the plan to structure his understanding of the facade and the elevation, mentally subtracting thicknesses of the material. This is then the reverse of how architects visualise their designs of buildings.

This ability of Pammi ji of working from the outside in, to reach how the internal spaces would look and be fabricated was especially important for this model — because, unlike most models, it was not meant to be just seen from the outside. The inside of the Alai Darwaza was to be both visible and accessible, especially to blind or visually challenged students.

The immediate objective of making this model was to use architectural models as tools for teaching history, an exercise initiated by Professor Radhika Chadha from the Department of History at Miranda House. How does one explain the main features of historical architecture for visually-challenged students of Miranda House, especially the structural logic of basic building elements and techniques? A tactile 3-dimensional model was felt to be an effective way to communicate the forms, proportions, volumes and profiles of built structures. By appropriately scaling down these built spaces, the students would be able to touch and explore doorways, ceilings, roofs, internal and external wall surfaces, etc.

For the Alai Darwaza, three important areas needed to be accessible to them. These were:

• the square floor plan;

• the walls that transition from four-sides to sixteen-sides and form the base for the circle of the dome;

• and the circular dome itself.

Within these three broad areas of the interior, the important structural elements of Alai Darwaza needed to be included so that students could understand the geometry and volume of the spaces and how the building was roofed. The exterior, as mentioned in the beginning, had to be made such that even just through the sense of touch, the main elements of the facade as well as the entrances and ways of spanning them, could be easily understood. This then was how the project of using architectural models as tools for teaching history for visually challenged students was conceived, and the first part of it completed — thanks to Pammi ji and his team.

Our cook’s daughter accompanied her mother to our house some evenings. A bright child, she had studied in a school in her village in Bengal, where the medium of instruction was Bangla. Since her parents had moved to Noida, she had been unable to go to school, where most subjects were taught either in Hindi or English. I could only manage to teach her on a few days of the week, and both the mother and daughter were keen that she attended regular school. But the principal of Nayi Disha, a local school run by a charitable trust, told me that the child was overage for Class 1, and could not follow the level of teaching in Class 2. So she suggested that I teach Dulali at home, and if she was able to clear the First Term exams, they would give her admission.

The chapter on ‘Shelter’ in one of the school text books brought me up short. I was reading out the different types of houses shown there, when I came across this sentence under the picture of a thatched mud house: ‘Yeh ek mitti ka ghar hai. Aise gharon mein nimn jati ke aur garib log rahte hain’ (‘this is a mud house. Low-caste and poor people live in such houses’.) This categorization, in a book in schools in 21^st century democratic India? Since Dulali could not read as proficiently as I could, I managed to skip this offensive statement without her noticing the fact of its presence. What did the teachers in class do, I wondered – especially in a school where most of the students would come from poor or rural backgrounds? Did they register how insensitive and incorrect this statement was?

Curious to see how my daughter’s text books dealt with this, I looked up her EVS book for class 1 in DPS Noida. It did not make the direct statement between mud and poverty, but categorised houses as ‘katcha’ and ‘pucca’. So much so, that the term katcha and pucca which dot our lexicon today, carry overtones of affluence and respectability - or the lack of it.

Perpetuating a Stereotype

The prejudice against houses made of mud and thatch is inculcated in less obvious ways as well, from the time that our children are even younger. I renewed my acquaintance with the Three Little Pigs some years ago. As I read out the story to my daughter, I huffed and puffed with the Big Bad Wolf when he successfully blew down the house made of straw and the house made of stick, and was defeated by the house made of brick. Unstated Moral of the Story? Smart Pigs build their houses of bricks.

When I studied architecture two decades ago, in one of the leading schools of architecture in the country, the instruction then - as now - was heavily oriented towards making us smart pigs. Concrete, steel and brick construction was what we were taught to build in. Luckily, as part of the curriculum we also had to document and study vernacular homes and communities. So we experienced houses made of mud, straw, stone and sticks. And though we weren’t exactly encouraged to include traditional modes of construction in our design studios, the more adventurous students at least experimented with these ostensibly regressive materials.

So, are the Three Little Pigs a result of an imperialist industrialist mindset? The Western mind seems to have become ill-disposed towards ‘katcha’ materials for at least the last three hundred years. Our disparagement for mud and straw is more recent. Before the British assumed ascendancy in the political, cultural and the economic landscape of India, mud was recognized and patronized by rural and urban alike, ruler and ruled. The current derogatory connotations of ‘katccha’ today are one of the relics of the Raj. The recollections of a Professor C. H. Reilly, who arrived in company with Sir Edwin Lutyens to India in 1928, to write the architectural part of a book on New Delhi, reveal this. Reilly, on his return to London, contributed - according to the editor of Architectural Design and Construction - ‘a wholly delightful chapter...with unequalled richness of reminiscence and acuteness of observation’ to its November 1934 issue. This is one of Reillys’ ‘acute observations’:

‘Everything of Lutyens is detailed with extraordinary care, and at Delhi some of his working drawings are dimensioned to three decimals of an inch. To Indian builders and craftsmen accustomed to their slipshod “kutcha” methods, such accuracy was a revelation and a very valuable one.’

The construction and majestic accuracy of indigenous Indian architecture—which Reilly could scarcely have missed seeing in Delhi, would never have been achieved by slipshod methods. In actuality, each material has the potential to be worked well or in a slipshod manner – it is as misguided to believe that all mud houses are inherently deficient as it is to believe that concrete is the panacea to all ills. The reflections of a better known traveler and writer who preceded Reilly by a few hundred years, Francois Bernier are interesting in this respect. Bernier travelled in India in the latter half of the 18^th CE, a few years after the new Mughal capital of Shahjahanabad was established. In his book, whose English translation by Archibald Constable is titled Travels in the Mogul Empire 1656-1668, first published London 1891, Bernier writes:

What is interesting in this description is that it is the spatial arrangement and workmanship that distinguishes the quality of a house, not its material. The associations of ‘mud’ solely with ‘poor people’ or ‘poor workmanship’ were entirely absent in the imperial city of Shahjahanabad, home to arguably the richest ruler of the medieval world.

This is one of the points that our friends Vivek Rawal and Alka Palrecha have been trying to demonstrate in their work with communities affected by floods, earthquakes and other such disasters. However, their criteria in assessing the vulnerability of habitats where each building-type (whether mud, concrete, timber) was assigned a maximum rating of 10, was contested by government departments who were unwilling to accept that a mud house could have a rating of 10 in any circumstance.

The belief that mud or wattle-and daub houses are inherently inferior to more ‘permanent’ materials echoes a Reilly-like colonial perception. For instance, the compensation to families affected by disasters if their houses were made of mud or ‘katcha’ materials, is 14 times less than the compensation to families whose houses were made of concrete. This bias, that makes distinctions between communities affected by disasters, solely on the construction-material of their dwellings, is shocking. It is also perplexing when it has been shown that houses made in concrete have generally performed badly in our country, not just in disasters but even in normal situations.

As I experience the effects of the ‘falling plaster’ of our barely twenty year old AWHO flat despite repeated repairs; as I witness the spalling concrete in the State Complex of Chandigarh, the Mecca of most ‘modern’ architects; as I look at what to me are unquestionably beautifully crafted and detailed bamboo and mud houses built by villagers in Kosi, as part of the Owner Driven Reconstruction Collaborative Vivek and Alka have been associated with; as I see the beautiful qualities of light and space in the buildings made of rammed earth, thatch and stone with minimal use of concrete and steel, by our architect friends, Krishna and Anu at their Centre for Learning in Sittilingi village[1]; it seems to me it is more than time we stop being pig-headed and cease to perpetuate stereotypes.

It was 33 degrees centigrade at 7.30 am.

But, as we crossed the Yamuna, we noticed a perceptible drop in the temperature. Even in its denuded, smelly state, the river exercised this effect on the climate.

What must it have been like living in Delhi, I wondered, in the time of Shah Jahan? In the Red Fort, right on the banks of the river? Ringed around by trees and orchards, within and without. And green fields extending beyond the expanse of the Yamuna?

Of course, as always, the emperor and his family would have had the best of it. And further north along the Yamuna, the noblemen with their large havelis amidst their garden-orchards, would also have been close to the cool breeze.

The river, in fact, permeates the very conception of the Red Fort. In court histories such as The Shahjahanama of Inayat Khan, we read that: “he envisioned that streams of water should be made to flow through the proposed fort and that its terraces overlook the river.1

But, as I reflected on the inevitable benefits of privilege, I realised such a location was not merely a simplistic situation of using power for personal benefit. It also accommodated a larger public function. A dense collection of small, private dwellings or buildings would have in practical terms, blocked the river breeze and the river view — as well as public spatial access to the banks.

The Jali motif and a permeable river-front

It was the low-density of built structures ranged within trees and gardens along the Yamuna, and the provision of open public spaces, that made the river-front permeable. Just behind the enclosing city walls, the urban landscape as well as that within the Fort featured many orchards amidst which were set a very few buildings. In contrast, it was the western end of the Red Fort and the city, farthest away from the river, which had a relatively denser built-mass.

This device of constructing a small proportion of built structures close to the river, helped to reduce temperatures in two ways. It increased the bio-mass in the vicinity of the Yamuna, and it channelised the micro-climate created by the Yamuna deeper into the city. This configuration may be seen as another version of the ‘jali motif’ — the perforated screens that interspersed and connected what seemed to constitute the continuous facade of the imperial pavilions along the river banks. Such urban and architectural planning ensured that the breezes and cooling effect of the Yamuna were not just confined to the imperial palace-pavilions, or colonised by those lucky enough to be located next to the river.

Not that the Yamuna riverfront was taken over entirely by private, or even by imperial functions. The Red Fort commanded a swathe of the central river-view towards the eastern end of the city, and its high fortification walls did come between the main Chandni Chowk street and the Yamuna. But on either side of the Fort, the view opened up through public gardens. There were many public ghats too. Flanking the banks on the city-edge beyond the Red Fort, their airy pavilions and chattris stepped down along wide steps to the river itself. And the sandy embankments at the foot of the river-front walls of the Fort were also open to the public.

Even 200 years after the founding of Shahjahanabad, despite the appropriation and apportioning of many gardens and open spaces, and the incursions into its physical and social fabric by the British, a fair number of these still remained — as shown in records such as paintings of the river-facade of the Fort from as late as the 1820s, or the detailed 1846 map of Shahjahanabad, or photographs of the city from a little before or around 1857.

Freeing the river

It seems incredible to me that in all my under-graduate years at the School of Planning and Architecture, I was unaware that the Yamuna flowed practically under our noses — located as we were on its erstwhile banks, just a few kilometres south of the Red Fort. In the late 1980s and early 90s, the intimidating width of the Ring Road and the looming bulk of the Indira Gandhi Stadium, effectively obscured all sight or sense of the river. On the few instances when I did venture beyond them, as during a memorable bicycle relay-race at our college festival, I was concentrating much too hard on evading the traffic (and ensuring that we did not lose our lead!) to even register the proximity of the river.

That I missed this vital component of Delhi may have been merely my lack of personal association with it, growing up as I did in far-flung army cantonments all over India. But neither do I recollect the river — the very reason for continuous inhabitation in the region of Delhi from pre-historic times — figuring in the academic design exercises set to us by our galaxy of distinguished faculty, which included many very famous architects. We did go far afield within and outside Delhi to study various architectural and natural contexts.

We were also frequently dispatched to the ruins of Firoz Shah Kotla in our neighbourhood, to observe and analyse its buildings. Indeed, we could scarcely escape the sight of them right from first-year — especially those of us who had places assigned next to the windows, and spent a good portion of our time gazing out from our class studio on the third-floor. But the Yamuna did not have any presence or role in developing our design thinking.

I wonder why?

Was it because it had already been rendered invisible and superfluous in the planning of the city? Is that why the Yamuna continues to evade the collective imaginations of generations of graduates and practitioners from reputedly one of the premier institutes of architecture and planning in the country? And so, does it mean that the first step in making the Yamuna and other rivers relevant again, is to make them visible? To create free and public access, and release their banks from colonisation by large buildings, tarmac, high fences, barred stretches, and noxious use?

The Multiple Affiliations of Urban Space

And how about the rest of the city, away from the river?
If we look at Shahjahanabad, pre-1857, we see that even those of its parts located away from the Yamuna, were devised with an ever-present awareness of the river and its canals and feeder channels. And with a sense and sensibility that made water a central part of planning and living in the city; that ensured that topographical routes, natural courses and routes to the river were not interrupted, built upon or polluted.

Trees lined Chandni Chowk and Faiz Bazaar: the two most ceremonial and important streets in the central east-west and southern part of Shahjahanabad, where the maximum amount of traffic and activities were centred. Canals drawing from the river-system flowed down their length. Large public gardens — which were essentially orchards — were located adjacent to these streets, and formed the grand finale around their junction with the imperial chowks right in front of the Fort. These acted as heat sinks: cooling tempers, shading the ground, recharging ground-water levels, filtering dust, and creating places of beauty.

Neither were the poorer people rendered invisible, or pushed only to the outskirts.

They were a part of each precinct and neighbourhood, making the city a place of mixed land-use and mixed-income groups. Availability and ownership of space in Shahjahanabad was not reduced to a single denominator of wealth. It revolved around an overlapping basis of multiple affiliations. The home of each nobleman or prosperous trader or important official did not just house their families, but also incorporated around them various other homes and families with whom there was a mutually dependent relationship of patronage and service.

Neighbourhoods, mohallas and katras were organised according to shared trades and professions, and accommodated many income and skill levels related to those communities of trades. Just as within the walls of the Fort, space was organised not merely for imperial use but for a multiplicity of interlinked functions from karkhanas to kitchen-gardens to courts of justice. And for active users, including administrators, soldiers, attendants, craftspeople.

Large havelis — around which smaller habitations clustered — disposed throughout different precincts instead of being concentrated in just one part of the city, repeated the same urban motif of social and spatial permeability. Architecturally, these havelis echoed on a smaller scale the pattern of buildings within the Fort, set around and within fountain-courts or gardens of orange, pomegranate, and other fruit trees. Fountain-courts and small orchards similarly formed the theme around which smaller homes in the city were arranged.

Like an Escher painting, as you zoom in and out of the city and Fort, different variations and scales of this interlinked pattern reveal themselves, simultaneously simple and complex. Tried and tested in the Indian subcontinent from Harappan times, this pattern was composed of sequences of walled courtyards-verandahs-halls-pavilions: a fluid building typology with some of its finest examples visible within the Fort, as analysed and described at length in The Red Fort of Shahjahanabad.

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