The Civil Lines area of Delhi, immediately north of Shahjahanabad/Old Delhi, had started to be occupied by the British from the early decades of the 19th century Continue reading
Category Archives: Mid-20th c Delhi
Best of Desi Deco in Shahjahanabad (Excluding Daryaganj)
The building stock in Old Delhi that we see along the streets and lanes throughout the old city, if it hasn’t been altered in recent decades, is mostly from the late-19th c and early-20th c. Among the buildings constructed in the early-20th c, there is an interesting variety of architectural styles used in the design of the buildings. Continue reading
Daryaganj VI: West of Ansari Road
The residential neighborhoods in this area are interspersed with institutional buildings and compounds. Even with this difference, this area follows the same pattern as the area south of it Continue reading
Daryaganj V: South-West of Ansari Road
This portion of Daryaganj includes uniformly designed town-house style developments, as well as areas that have more organic growth Continue reading
Daryaganj IV: South-East of Ansari Road
More early-20th c architectural goodness from the Daryaganj area. Continue reading
Daryaganj III: North-East of Ansari Road
While the commercial part of Daryaganj was redeveloped in the early-20th c along Faiz Bazaar road (now Netaji Subhash Marg), the inner areas of Daryaganj, to the east of Netaji Subhash Marg, were developed into residential and institutional zones. Continue reading
Daryaganj I: Along Netaji Subhash Marg
The area of Daryaganj is the south-eastern part of the walled city of Shahjahanabad, and used to lie along the banks of the river Yamuna (the floodplain of the river was “shifted” roughly a kilometer to the east by the British), south of the Red Fort. Continue reading
Governmental Modernisms Along Asaf Ali Road
Asaf Ali Road runs along the southern edge of Old Delhi, and is in a way part of the transitional space between Old Delhi and the late-colonial architecture and urban space of Lutyens’ New Delhi to the south. Continue reading
Old Delhi’s Old Cinema Halls
While exploring Old Delhi and adjoining areas like Sadar Bazaar and Pahar Ganj, I’ve come across some deliciously intriguing decades-old cinema halls. Some are doing fine, some just getting along, while some seem to have shut shop or might be under litigation. This post is a visual exploration of those theaters – I haven’t gone into their histories, though I’m sure each and every one would reveal interesting stories with a little digging into. I’m assuming that these cinema halls all came up between the 1950s and 80s, though dates would have to be confirmed. Continue reading
Delhi Cities / Historical Timeline
I recently created a timeline for Delhi and it’s various “cities”, to help me place historical figures and events and buildings in time and place (by “place” here I mean which city in the sequence of cities that make up Delhi). Hopefully it’ll be easy enough to decipher, and at least some people should find it useful, so I thought I’d put it out in public. Continue reading
Sarson ke Khet 