The Photoink gallery, in collaboration with curator Ram Rahman, will present through July 2nd seventy images of photographer Madan Mahatta. The images trace the birth of modern Indian architecture in Delhi in the 1950s and 60s.
Trained in Great Britain, Madan Mahatta returned to India in 1954, where he joined the family studio in Delhi, one of the most prestigious in the capital. While working as a studio photographer, he photographed Delhi’s independence and architectural expansion. In the 1950s, Jawaharlal Nerhu, named Prime Minister in 1947 after the independance of India, launched an ambitious construction campaign in the Indian capital, one that would give rise to an independent, modern and triumphant India.
A large number of new buildings went up: for the administration, for foundations, for the 1951 Asian Games, and for universities like the Indian Institute of Technology de Delhi (IIT), one of the country’s elite engineering schools.
At the time, the architects selected by the government were usually trained in India and the West. Among the most active were: Habib Rahman and Achyunt Kanvinde, trained at Harvard and MIT by Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius; the American Joseph Allen Stein, director of the architecture department of the Bengal Engineering College of Calcutta; and even Jugal Kishore Chowdhury, who worked with Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret to create Chandigarh, capital of the state of Punjab, commissioned by Nehru in 1951.
This double influence gave birth to projects that rely both on traditional Indian architecture and on more contemporary forms and materials, like concrete. These buildings are also marked by a functional character and sobriety inspired by Ghandism, which advocated a certain asceticism.
Although Madan Mahatta’s photos are mainly exterior shots taken with a medium format Linhof camera and a very wide-angle lens to keep the perspectives from being distorted, the exhibition also presents a few interior shots that emphasize the special attention paid to the décor. The living room in Achyunt Kanvinde’s house is emblematic of a well sought harmony between the room’s dimensions and its decoration.
Modern Delhi: The Architectural Photographs of Madan Mahatta shows, through pictures, Nerhu’s dream of a new democratic nation founded on Indian culture and history. This bygone era has given way to a lack of reflection on architectural development in Delhi since the 1980s. For example, the Indian federal government, according to curator Ram Rahman, did not seek the contributions of any Indian architects to construct the buildings and sports facilities for the Commonwealth Games organized in Delhi in 2010.
Modern Delhi : the architectural photographs of Madan Mahatta
Until July, 2sd 2012
Galerie Photoink
Hyundai MGF Building, ground floor
1 Jhandewalan Faiz Road
New-Delhi 110005, India
