Indulekha Aravind takes a look at how Indo-Islamic architecture is surviving today.
In tony Lodhi Estate in south Delhi, opposite the staid Mausam Bhawan of the meteorological department, stands a building unlike any other in the neighbourhood. With its large domes, calligraphied walls and coloured tiles in an otherwise contemporary structure in sandstone (used in many of the structures on Raisina Hill), the five-year-old India Islamic Cultural Centre building represents a unique example of the modern day adaptation of Indo-Islamic architecture — unique because it is one of the few successful translations of a great architectural tradition, once used widely, in the modern idiom. Today, apart from a few exceptions, Indo-Islamic architecture is alive mostly in the use of select elements and amalgamations than in the obvious.
Islamic architecture owes its name and form to those regions in West Asia which were the cradle of the religion. The region being arid, stone and mud were the materials of choice and the arch, dome and vault its hallmarks. In India, this style of construction, brought in by the various Muslim invaders who later became rulers, absorbed local traditions, skills and material, evolving into what we know as Indo-Islamic architecture. Thus forts, mosques and tombs were built which were intrinsically Islamic at first glance but also had distinctly Hindu elements, such as a lotus atop the principle dome. “Islamic architecture in India was never the same as that in Arab countries but neither did it change beyond recognition. Instead, it reinvented itself using local colour and flavour,” says Rajat Ray, dean of Sushant School of Art and Architecture in Gurgaon.
After Independence, architects were confronted with the challenge of which school to follow, with many being inspired by the flatness and clean lines of Corbusier’s Chandigarh. Many now cite this as a period during which local traditions were ignored. And yet, from this emerged other architects who married Indo-Islamic elements with the contemporary, like Charles Correa. In fact, in the British Council Library in the Capital, Correa, has used the char bagh of Islamic architecture as well as the bindu of Hinduism, though no one seeing the building would hesitate to term it contemporary.
Opinion is divided on the extent to which Indo-Islamic architecture is being kept alive now, when there are no major mosques under construction and steel-and-glass skyscrapers dominate many a skyline. “You see some of it in institutional buildings but hardly anything in private construction and the bulk of our urban scape is dominated by private developers,” says Suparna Bhalla of Delhi-based Abaxial Architects. “Private developers prefer designs that are cost-efficient, saleable, fast to construct and aspirational.” Ashish Srivastava, an architect in Lucknow, famous for its mosques and palaces, too feels the Indo-Islamic influence has almost vanished from contemporary construction. “There is not much demand for buildings in this style from clients, since there is little awareness about it,” he says. And the mosques that are being built today employ the obvious symbols of Islam, such as domes and minarets, but are unlike those in West Asia which have transmitted Islamic elements into newer materials and technology exquisitely, says Ray.
Another question that arises is whether we have such skilled craftsmen. The India Islamic Cultural Centre, for example, employed engineers, craftsmen and calligraphers from Iran. Many feel we do. “My big answer to this recurring theme is an astounding yes! We have the craftsmen to do any kind of work. We need to look for them and provide them opportunities to practice their craft,” says Navin Piplani, the director of ShilpSala, a craft-based conservation practice and director of conservation studies at the University of York. Rajasthan, where Islamic architecture combined with the local milieu to an extent that the one became indistinguishable from the other, is a particularly rich resource, says IM Chishti, architect and professor at the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi.
At the same time, there are architects who get requests for Indo-Islamic elements from clients and others who use it even otherwise. “Some of my clients from Hyderabad demand Islamic architecture and the Mughal touch in the construction of their homes and bungalows,” says Nazeer Ahmed Siddiqui, a Hyderabad-based architect. In an interesting twist, Sanjay Bhardwaj of architecture and design firm Morphogenesis says he turned to Meena Bazaar in Old Delhi when he had to design MGF Metropolitan Mall, one of the first malls in the country, because there were no contemporary designs in India he could use as a reference point. The Saifee Hospital in Mumbai, commissioned by members of the Dawoodi Bohra community, is another example. The modern structure has projected portals and domes, arches, and iconographic inscriptions from the Islamic tradition. And examples abound of elements being adapted in contemporary structures, such as luxury hotel The Aman in Delhi, with its rows of intricate jaalis, and the Aga Khan-award winning landscaped gardens of the Mughal Sheraton in Agra, reminiscent of the char bagh.
Thus, despite the shape our cities seem to be taking, it may not yet be time to sing a requiem to Indo-Islamic architecture. As Chishti says, “A tradition with any merit to it will continue to be used.”
(Virender Singh Rawat in Lucknow and Prashanth Reddy in Hyderabad contributed to the article)