Introduction: Architectural Modernities of Imperial Pasts and Nationalist Presents

In 2011, one hundred years after King George V proclaimed his intent to commission a new capital city for British India, independent India designated Edwin Lutyens’s and Herbert Baker’s imperial masterpiece, New Delhi, a protected heritage zone. The government’s decision came amidst many changes that had recently remade the landscape of greater Delhi, both to accommodate its role as host city for the XIX Commonwealth Games in 2010 and to facilitate the ongoing construction of its Metro Rail system. As part of the heritage commemoration, museums and cultural institutions also sought to revive the sense of majesty surrounding the 1911 proclamation through exhibitions of photography and other historic materials. In many ways, then, although New Delhi was celebrating its centennial, the scale and pace of construction in 2011 combined with a surge in imperial nostalgia to create conditions mirroring those that had attended King George’s proclamation.