In building and planning New Delhi, British architect Edwin Lutyens shaped this city, and others in India, much more than he can possibly have expected.
It's true that India has no Lutyens School of Architecture to formally spread his ideas, as one well-known writer lamented recently in an interview with India Real Time, but I'd venture to say the Lutyens School of Planning is alive and well – and more's the pity.
Edwin Lutyens and fellow architect Herbert Baker created a city center that is astonishing in its use of space and location to indicate social status.
The most important manifestation of east-west fusion in New Delhi isn't the fretwork or stone umbrellas, it's the way the layout allowed British racism and snobbery, which focuses on color and class, to fuse with Indian caste segregation, which focuses on occupation.
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