A walk back in time through Pragati Maidan, a cultural hub like no other

For years, Pragati Maidan was the centre of Delhi's social life, with iconic structures that students of architecture came to study

Living cities are in a constant state of change. Sometimes their spaces evolve organically. At other times, the transition is effected externally. Spaces leave behind a story as they change, but not all stories are preserved. Some, though, live on, in private or public records, museums and memories.

Pragati Maidan’s is one such story. The space emerged in a glitzy new avatar last week, unrecognisable from the original, with every corner of the redeveloped 123-acre complex shouting “scale”. Its showpiece, the International Exhibition-cum-Convention Centre (IECC), now named Bharat Mandapam, is touted to be among the world’s top 10 exhibition complexes, its