DELHI'S CONCRETE GIANTS

August 27 marked the 60th death anniversary of Le Corbusier whose work continues to inspire architectural modernism in India, & who brought in architectural styles drawn from Brutalism. TMS explores the huge, raw concrete Brutalist buildings of Delhi with an expert.

- PANKIL JHAJHRIA

THERE is a striped concrete construction that peeps from above the trees at Siri Institutional area. Locals call it the "Pyjama building". The National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) building in the capital is known as such because its structure appears similar to that of a pair of pants and this zig-zag property is one of the apt examples of the city's Brutalist architecture.

According to Rajat Ray, former professor and Dean of Architecture at Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University in New Delhi, the word "Brutalism" comes not from "brutal" or a sense of harshness but from the French word 'béton brut', meaning raw concrete. This modern style emerged in 50s England, roughly after World War II and was characterised by sophisticated, geometrical forms, built out of exposed concrete, unlike traditional decorative ornamentations. Buildings no longer needed to imitate stone palaces or colonial facades. Architects now got their hands on to a different expression, using concrete, steel, and glass.

The term 'New Brutalism,' derived from the Swedish phrase 'Nybrutalism', was first used by British architects Alison and Peter Smithson to describe their distinctive design approach. "Until the 1940s, even when technology changed, buildings were still made to look like old ones," Ray explains. Steel and Concrete replaced stone and brick inside, but outside, people still decorated them like imperial buildings. Brutalism broke that mismatch.

Additionally, the new architectural form was also about politics. It was linked with modernism, socialism, and democracy. The monumental concrete structures were symbolic of the 'people's architecture', public, egalitarian, and free from the excesses of feudal styles.