The old Town Hall, Old Delhi, India

The old Town Hall, Old Delhi

1863

Yellow-painted brick and stone, carved white stone trim

Chandni Chowk, Old Delhi, India

Photograph, caption, and commentary by Jacqueline Banerjee

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This building is near St Stephen's Church in Old Delhi, and was completed soon after it. According to R. V. Smith, a raconteur of Delhi's past, "before becoming a rabbit warren of a municipal office" it housed a library and museum. Today its substantial and rather grand façade brings to mind Jan Morris's comment on colonial buildings in the subcontinent generally: "Built into their masonries we may detect the mingled emotions of British imperialism, at once so arrogant and so homesick, and they provide an index to its techniques and aspirations: how it worked, what it wanted, what it thought itself to be." Morris adds, "If Britain anywhere left stones of empire in a generic sense, then India is the place to find them" (11).

Sources

Morris, Jan, with Simon Winchester. Stones of Empire: The Buildings of the Raj. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Smith, R. V. "Good Old Colonial Halls of the Raj." The Hindu Online. 11 Sept. 2006. Viewed 31 March 2008.

Last modified 31 March 2008