Delhi is a city that has seen both glory and destruction in its long and chequered history. It has been plundered, defaced and ruined time and again only to spring from its ashes to become the capital of powerful dynasties.. Fortunately, the resilient and enduring culture and heritage has withstood the test of time and the city continues to live. No city reflects the endless drama of change better..The heart of Delhi can be found in Old Delhi, 350 yrs old, yet strong and beating. Its many-branched arteries are narrow with age, its veins jostle for space, and its lifeblood is bound to get clotted at some places at any time( a first time visitor may have many anxious moment). But ,elsewhere inside an old vacant building it can relax, and flow the peace of silence.

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ShahjahanabadThe key constituents of such a cohesive conglomeration like shahjahanabad are:

A centrally located Friday mosque.

A bazaar around it with very distinct socio-economic differentiations from centre to the periphery.

A fortified city wall.

An imposing citadel

Intraurban almost labyrinthesque divisions of living quarters

Blind alleys.

The meeting of Shahjahanabad, or Old Delhi(north) and New Delhi (South). The two are separated by the walls of the Mughal city, and a band of open space- the Ramlila ground, acting as a cordon sanitaireThis part of New Delhi, around Turkman Marg, was designed as a residential district for low rank government workers.The street pattern is radically different from that of the Islamic city.3

Key Constituents of an Islamic City``

The city originated, when •The fort at Agra faced the agonizing heat, coupled with insufficient accommodation and space for Shahjahan’s lavish lifestyle and his grand ceremonial processions.

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•The Fort and its buildings cost nearly 6 million. On the auspicious day of 8th April 1648, Shahjahan finally entered Shahjahanabad.• From 1803 to 1857 the East India Company virtually controlled Delhi. The city was taken over by the British after the defeat of the Marathas at the battle of Patparganj in 1803.

The Red Fort and Jama Masjid were the straight point for two straight thoroughfares that framed the city. From Lahore Gate ran a broad avenue with a covered arcade-designed and paid for by Jahan Ara-that housed over 1500 shops. Today known as Chatta Bazaar.

The remainder of Shahjahanabad took shape within the city walls with its havelis, mansions, mosques, temples, sikh shrines and the gardens of the nobility. The walled and guarded establishments of these grandees included private living quarters for the nobles and their harem.

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CHANDNI CHOWK

RED FORT

JAMA MASJID

Chandni Chowk or the Moonlight Square , which was once the biggest commercial center of the East, is a world in itself. Noisy, clutters yet magical.. Its bazaars, galis, mohallas, katras (fort markets) and kuchas (streets) are anchored in a bygone era.Chandni Chowk was originally built as an open octagonal space located outside Begum Bagh. A branch of Yamuna canal passed down the middle of the street and formed a pool that reflected the moon, and this is how the name Chandni Chowk came about..

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4 Division of city sectors :

At the neighbourhood level the city of Shahjahanabad was defined by the following elements:

Thanas/wards/Mahallahs

Streets/bazaars and chowks

  Individual havellis

A. Thanas and Mahallas:

The city was divided into 12 thanas (wards) each under the control of a thanadar.

Each thana was again subdivided into several Mahallas (neighbourhoods).

The spatial system of the city was based on an extensive hierarchical organization which allowed a heterogeneous population to live together.

Fig.1: The urban chaos that Shahjahanabad finds itself in seems inevitable, yet one can still glimpse the old world charm.

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The local representatives of the different social and ethnic groups aligned their buildings and the adjoining streets in a functional manner.

The Mahallahs were sealed, homogeneous units within the city. They could only be reached by means of several gates. The alleys in the Mahallah were therefore semi-private space, while the courtyard houses were private space separated once again from the outside world by a gate.

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ShahjahanabadSpatial order :

•Creation of the architectonic expression of what has often been called the ‘patrimonial system’ in its climax.

•The shurafas originated from the qasbahs, garrison posts and administrative settlements in which Islamic scholars also met their clients and where an integrative or even syncretist culture prevailed – usually established around a tomb or a waqf.

•The shurafa usually were situated to the west of the palace, along one of the two boulevards-at the Chandni Chowk-, and, originating from the emperor’s palace, thus furnishing the city with an unequivocal structure.

•Those professional groups delivering fresh agrarian products to the city ther for must have settled along the southern and south-south-western rim of the city walls (Delhi Gate and Turkman Gate) : this is where their ritual institutions, such as, eg., Masjid Gadariyon (shepherd’s mosque), Masjid Kasai (butchers’ mosque) were located. Thus we find the narrow lanes and mosques of this part of the city to be populated by rough potters, metal workers, masons, the coalers etc. can be found. They all represent ‘low ranking trades’.

•The closer to the core of the city the more socially recognized are the professions settled there: weavers, producers of wool, traders of saddle-horses, oil-extractors and manufacturers of straw goods, each of them represented by their respective mosques.

• Further, in the direction of Chandni Chowk, mostly representatives of the trading professions, eg.: traders of fabrics, fish, meats and luxury goods, but also some of the professional groups processing goods, eg: producers of water pipes can be found. All of them are characterized by the spatial proximity to the imperial house.

a view of the kuchha shops that once surrounded the Jama Masjid

Streets, Bazaars, chowks:The city was separated from the surrounding land by a wall and a moat. Passing through the city’s gates marked the passage from one dominion to another. The main thoroughfares, the secondary roads and the bazaars were public space.

Interior courtyard of a havelli in the Walled City. Notice the spill out of day to day activities in the courtyard- thus the typology was not only suited climatically but also enhanced the living experience. Havellis:

The members of the imperial household who lived outside the fort/palace built large mansions (havellis) on the model of the imperial design of the Red Fort.3. As a rule these city palaces accommodated not only the owner and his family, but also their numerous followers, servants and craftsmen with their workshops (karkhanas). The internal organization of the space within the havellis was therefore also based on the strict distinction between the public, semi-private and private space

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Streetscapes:There emerges a hierarchy of streets in the layout of the city. •The primary streets were the main axes of the city – the Chandni Chowk and Faiz bazaar.•The secondary streets were the ones which entered the south of the city from Chandni Chowk. (Thus they were perpendicular for some distance and then assumed an organic form once deep in the city). •The secondary street structure also includes the streets that are parallel to the city walls – forming a concentric ring so to say, in the southern part of the city. They then intermingle at chowks with the third layering of streets, which derive their character from the fact that they are perpendicular to the main mosque, Jama Masjid.

The urban infrastructure was laid out in a geometric pattern .Shows traces of both Persian and Hindu traditions of town planning and architecture with the Persian influence largely accounting for the formalism and symmetry of the palaces, gardens and boulevards.

The designed infrastructure of Shahjahanabad comprised •The fort•The Friday mosque •The other major mosques, including the corresponding waqf properties•The two main boulevards •The bazaars around the Friday mosque•The elaborate system of water channels•The major gardens and the surrounding city wall. •The arrangement of these planned elements was influenced by certain site features, which precluded absolute geometry.

The City Form – MORPHOLOGICAL ELEMENTS

The area of Delhi as it stood in 1857, before the “Mutiny”: drawing by A.Maclure. The walled city of Shahjahanabad is intact. The Red Fort stands besides the river; on axis beyond it is Chandni Chowk, a street lined with water channels and trees. The Jama Masjid rises on a height to the left. Outside to the right (north), on the Ridge, is the British cantonment; a few villas are scattered nearby, this remained the civilian area, until the creation of New Delhi, in 1912, to the south.

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The city was planned according to Hindu planning principles of Shilpashastra from Vaastushastra. The site was placed on a high land as in the Shastras and was Karmukha or bow shaped, for this ensured its prosperity. The arm of the archer was Chandni Chowk The string was Yamuna.The junction of the two main axes is the most auspicious point in the whole region and was therefore the Red Fort.

The Kalan Masjid (built by the prime minister of Feroze Shah in 1387) was skillfully incorporated in the new cityscape and the highway leading out of from Feroze Shah’s citadel to his hunting lodge on the northern Ridge become the other main avenue of the city- Faiz Bazar (present day Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Marg).

The 1850’s map shows the skillful integration of the extant Kalan Masjid (shown as Kali Masjid) in the streetscape of the new Imperial city.The pink border running across the map depicts the ward boundaries of that time (demarcated by the British administration for ease of governance).

PLANNING OF SHAHJAHANABAD

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MORPHOLOGICAL ELEMENTS AT THE CITY LEVELThe defining elements of the city can be divided

in two parts:At the city level: 1.The Red Fort2.Water Systems and Canals3.Mosques 4.GardensAnd at the street level:1.Thanas/wards/Mahallahs2.Streets/bazaars/chowks3.Havellis (private mansions based on courtyard

typology)

The elements that helped define the city were:

The RED FORT / PALACE :-

The Fort just as Shahjahanabad was divided into imperial (fort/palace) and ordinary space (city) .Its axes were precisely aligned with the cardinal points of the compass. The Fort throughout is based on an extensive grid of squares.

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GARDENS:

The Mughal gardens were laid out according to the Persian char-bagh conceptThey were less rigid because of the fusion of various Indo-Islamic traditions and Hindu craftsmanship.Many large courtyard residences (havellis) in the city also had enclosed gardens.

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WATER SYSTEMS AND CANALS:

The hot dry climate of Delhi made it necessary to develop an hydraulic strategy in order to ensure a constant, year round supply of water. Shahjahan ordered his architects to restore the Firoz Shah canal and extend it to the new city. The canal ran through the outskirts of the city, watering gardens and fields. It entered the city through the Kabuli Gate in the north-western part of the city and then split into two branches. One flowed down the middle of Chandni Chowk. The other one passed through the gardens north of Chandni Chowk and then entered the palace through the Shah Burj.

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Topographical response and its influence on the city structure:

 On viewing the map of Shahjahanabad there seems to be :-

•A clear preference for placing the Char-Baghs and other planned open greens towards the north of the Chandni Chowk.

•Their is possibility that apart from the topography being conducive (Char-Baghs were traditionally laid out on large tracts of flat land)

•There was a clear preference to keep the northern side of the settlement less denser, more elitist and more of a visual treat than the southern side which was much more denser with no large greens worth mentioning.

• The streets from the Jama Masjid are perpendicular to it till a point before they appear to slope downwards.

•The overlay shows the assumed extent of the Bhujla Pahari hillock on the basis of the street structure.

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Elitist image reinforced by distribution of resources:

 

The city planners seem to have a very conscious decision it is evident from :-

• The way the water from the canals has been channeled from the Kabul Gate to the Chandni Chowk Bagh and then through the Red Fort again.

•The water distribution of the city enters the city in the form of the water canal from Kabul Darwaza in the north west of the city. It then flows down the Chandni Chowk Bagh (rendering it with the char bagh character) and flows into the Red Fort through the Asad Burj and flows out again to enter the Faiz Bazar.

•Thus water has been used to enhance the urban nature of the main axes but not for supply to the residents south of the city. It makes one wonder if there could have been a better use of the resource apart from just the aesthetic point of view.

 

Entrance to Ballimaran BALLIMARAN is located opposite Katra Nil and right next to Fatehpuri Masjid.

Analysis of Wilson Sheets :

Such a plethora of activities can be understood by looking at the plan of the street : narrow gullis branch off from the main street and lead up to enclosed triangular or otherwise irregular spaces, open to air which act as a container of all human activities.

The bewildering maze will often lead up to small masjids where people still flock to five times a day.

The character of the street is commercial yet as one progresses from Chandni Chowk side to the end of the street one is struck by the decrease in commercial activity.

It is almost as if the street has put on a façade to respond to the new materialistic world it finds itself in and as one moves further it reveals it true colours – chowks, sweetmeat shops, kabbadiwalas, quaint little shops selling odds and ends and a riot of colours, sights and smells. Children, goats, the rickshawpuller all jostle for space.

Ground floor space used as shops

The narrow lanes with G+2 storeys above

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According to the latest masterplan of Delhi 2001, the Old Delhi area (Shahjahanabad) have been given a special status.A mixed land use has been suggested.

Parting shot …Shahjahanabad has all the elements and ingredients of a typical ‘Islamic City’. Such an observation holds true not only for the city’s formal characteristics, but also for its institutions and very obviously also for its urbanity.

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THE RED FORT : a brief history. . . .•In 1638, Shah Jahan moved his capital to Delhi from Agra.

The location of the Red Fort at the junction of the

two main urban axes of Shahjahanabad.

•The Red Fort (Lal Qila) was begun in 1639 and largely completed by 1648. .

• It stands within a massive defensive wall, constructed of red sandstone, 2.5 km long and up to 33 m high.

• It is entered by two massive gates, the Lahore Gate and the Delhi Gate. The Diwan-i-Am, used for public audiences, is a large and splendid hall.

• The Diwan-i-Khas, the private audience hall, was seen as a premonition of Heaven .

•The Fort was badly damaged by marauders in the 18th century and even more seriously by the British, after the suppression of the 1857 First War of Independence, when the buildings were used as barracks.

•Restoration began in 1903.

•The Fort was the climax of built form along the main axes with no possibility of a grander structure rearing up behind it.

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SYMBOLISM AND THE ARCHITECTURAL LANGUAGE OF THE FORT . . . .

Movement routes of the Emperor within the Red Fort

The Main Public Entrances A and B on the Western and Southern faces of the Red Fort; and the Emperor’s Private entrance on the Eastern

Movement routes of the inmates of the Imperial Seraglio within the Red Fort •The external and internal space had specific

functional and symbolic values

• The structures in it were spatially composed such that the public and private realms were in close proximity, yet visually separate.

• Shahjahan conveyed grandeur and individual buildings were single storied, in preference over vertical complexes in the Red Fort.

•Infinite horizontal axis-a series of progressively grander courts and a succession of gateways finally leading to the Diwan-e-Am or the Emperor’s Hall of Public Audience.

Spatial systems in the Red Fort: Positioning of built structures with reference to Open Space.

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•The exact position of the Fort may have been chosen because of the proximity to the Salimgarh citadel, the general siting would seem to be dictated more by reasons of urban design than defense. •The Fort was positioned in a way that made sure that any visitor to the city would be confronted with its grandeur- whether he came by road or river.

•In plan, the Red Fort is roughly like an irregular octagon, with its two long sides on the east and west sides, and six smaller ones on the north and south.

•The layout of the Fort was a development of an unequal octagon, with the chamfered sides shorter than the straight ones- the mutthaman Baghdadi.

•The octagon is based on a rectangle with the proportions 10:6

•The northern and southern end of the Emperor’s domain was restricted to the boundaries of the rectangle formed in the proportion of 10:6 grids.

The system of grids on which the bastions of the Red Fort are positioned showing their relationship with the positions of the designed Imperial spaces within the Fort (Based on a study of the positions of the extant Mughal structures of the Fort).

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According to a decree of Shahjahan, “in every lane, bazaar, square and street” a mosque was to be founded.

Shahjahanabad was built around the twin foci of the palace/fort and the Jama Masjid.

•Erected on a hillock known locally as ‘bhujla pahari’ about 500 yards south-west of the fort and well above the surrounding city, the Jama Masjid stands on top of a massive sandstone terrace placed in a system of radiating axes.

•The courtyard of the mosque is reached on three sides, east, north and south, by three broad flights of steps.

•The eastern gate, facing the fort/palace, was the main gate or the ‘royal entrance’.

Old view of the Jama Masjid

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ShahjahanabadPrimary mosques were namely:-

Masjid Fatehpuri, Masjid Akbarabadi, Masjid Sirhindi, Masjid Aurangabadi, Zinat-al-Masjid, Sunahri Masjid, Masjid Sharif-ad-Daulah, Fakhr-al-Masjid.

1. They were located next to the two main lines of communication which subdivided the city.

2. All but one of these ‘secondary’ mosques were located on the two main boulevards of the city.

3. Second in rank to the Jama Masjid was the Fatehpuri Masjid built by Nawab Fatehpuri Begum at the western end of Chandni Chowk in 1650. It is built of the same red sandstone which was used for the Red Fort and Jama Masjid.

•Numbering about 200 in Shahjahanabad.

•These mosques often bear the name of their founders and they are mostly located on ‘secondary streets’.

•They were at the bottom of the hierarchy and lay scattered all over the city.

•They served the people in the immediate vicinity and were built by prominent or wealthy residents of the respective Mahallah or by guilds of the merchants or artisans.

•All of the smaller mosques received their income through religious endowments.

Secondary mosques were the mahallas mosques :-

Fatehpur Masjid relatively uncluttered in the past

Fatehpur Masjid too clustrophobic now.

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The entrance to dariba kalan street

Thus, the built volumes opposite each other may respond by staggering their windows even when the physical distance between them is a mere 120 inches. Further more the day to day activities spill out into the streets as well.

The streets act as a container for spill over activities

The lack of open spaces on the street front are adequately compensated by enclosed spaces in the interior of the built mass. Thus we find a healthy amount of courtyard spaces of varying sizes.

On examining the plans of the street over a period of 60 years, i.e. from the 1850 map to the 1912 plan we find that the human activities have increased exponentially while the space still remains the same. As a result, the ground floors of the living quarters double up as shops and the first floors are often hold the living spaces

DARIBA KALAN STREET  The typical characteristics of the Islamic city are inadvertently repeated here- blind alleys, cul-de-sacs and narrow almost perplexing street layouts.

The street is organic in nature on account of the subtle understanding of the way of building and indeed encroaching. The Islamic laws which dictated all building activity emphatically stated that the neighbours right to privacy is supreme and to be respected at all times.

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Transformations:

Firstly the First War of Independence of 1857 resulted in major destruction of the traditional urban fabric. Its reconstruction coincided not only with far-reaching architectural and spatial changes in the old city, but even more so in the fort and its imperial Mughal architecture.

Second –and probably more important, its traditional population structure was more or less totally changed as a result of British retreat and the partition of the Indian subcontinent into an Islamic Pakistan and a predominantly Hindu-populated India in 1947. the exodus of muslims from Shahjahanabad/Old Delhi and their replacement by Hindus have, of course, greatly changed the ‘Islamic’ character of the city.

The Palace-complex (hereafter called the Red Fort) was emptied of its inhabitants. The army moved into the Fort, bulldozed most of the palaces and erected tall dreary barracks. Many houses, shops and public buildings were destroyed and the organic link between the palace and the city was broken.

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ShahjahanabadConclusions on the basis of the overlays:•The red grid lines represent the major streets formed on the basis of their direction: which is essentially from one gate to the other. They intersect at nodes : which are the chowks conveniently help in dividing the city (at least the southern part of it) in a legible coherent manner. Thus they form one of the layers in the perception and legibility of the city in the human subconscious. The streets help create a mental image of the cityscape.

•The black grid lines represent the inner divisions in the Mahallahs. These divisions almost always skirt private property, and are used as public thoroughfares. Notice how these divisions change on the basis of the class of people. The grid lines in the south of the city (near Turkman Gate) are less denser due to the nature of their jobs which essentially need to be done in the open. This allows greater flexibility in the use of open space and also exhibits a lack of fear in terms of the physical aspect i.e. : the occurrence of kuncha gates and other preventive measures which Mahallahs used to employ are not noticeable or are few in number here.

•The street system is represented in the form of the streets parallel to the city walls (orange), those that originate from Chandni Chowk(black) and those that derive their form due to the Jama Masjid. The intersections are also marked as circular rings which are the nodes ( another orienting point, much like a compass for the local populace).

•The Red Fort acts as a continuation of the system of axes imposed on the city. Thus these two axes have been demarcated in the Fort. The main axes of course are the Chandni Chowk and Faiz Bazaar.

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Red fort

Char Bagh

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ACKNOWLEGMENTS

We are extremely grateful to Mrs. Neerja Tikku for all her vision and support and also for her invaluable guidance during the course.

We would also like to thank Mr. Sharat Kaicker for all his help and and criticism during the course of this study.

SPECIAL THANKS:-

anKIT ,FOR ALL HIS TIME SPENT AT SAURABH’S HOME WHEN HE WOULD RATHER HAVE BEEN DOING HIS DESIGN WORK.

priYANKA , FOR THE TIME SPENT IN THE COMPUTER LAB AND HER VALUABLES SUGGESTIONS AND HER EFFORTS TO MOVE THE BACKGROUND FILE.

shrEYA , FOR ALL HER HELP IN EXTRACTING THE VIDEOS AND SITTING GLUED TO THE COMPUTER DURING THEIR EXTRACTION WHEN SHE BETTER OF SLEEPING OR PLAYING WITH…….._Iy_

To the rickshawwala who drove us all through shahjahanabad so we could shoot our videos.

To Saurabh’s Mom for making us her delicious dishes……and opening the door well past midnight……

To the café coffee day people for tolerating us even after shutting down……