THE IMPERIAL NEW DELHI
HERITAGE HOTELS
On February 10th, 1931, New Delhi was officially declared open for business. Two weeks of celebrations followed, heralding a new era with government and the civil service now housed in Lutyens-designed ‘Delhi Order’ buildings. One plot of land, however, had been left vacant, anticipating the need for a luxury hotel in keeping with the capital’s new international status.
The Imperial New Delhi, which opened in 1936 amid elegant grounds, is a five-star luxury hotel that, thanks to a sympathetic renovation in the 1980s, retains the glamour and elegance of its late Edwardian heyday.
The chance to build the hotel came about as a result of the 1911 Delhi Durbar. The durbar, a spectacular piece of imperial choreography with parades of bejewelled maharajas, dignitaries and troops paying their respects to King George and Queen Mary, attracted some 200,000 visitors to a site outside Delhi. As the durbar drew to an end, the King announced the replacement of Calcutta with a new capital to be built there in Delhi, setting in motion an urban planning project of monumental scale and ambition.
Edwin Lutyens was the chief architect and planner of the vastly ambitious new city, which took 20 years to complete. Among the grand avenues Lutyens planned was Queensway, now called Janpath. His colleague, architect DJ Blomfield, was commissioned to design the world class hotel fit for a new capital that would occupy the plot on Janpath.
In The Imperial, which opened in 1936, Blomfield introduced a touch of Victorian nostalgia in the pair of bronze lions at the entrance portico. The broad, wood-panelled, marble-floored corridors, atrium tea court and ballroom (which still has a sprung floor) are in grand Edwardian colonial style. Pulling the design together is Blomfield’s classical, minimal take on Art Deco – gleaming white exterior walls with tall, flattened columns, slender recessed windows and, inside, delicate wrought-iron balconies. The landscaping, with a parade of king palms approaching the entrance, echoes the geometry of the hotel.
At a time when political tensions were running high – British rule in India would end only 16 years after the hotel opened – The Imperial provided a private and relaxed venue for leaders including Mahatma Gandhi, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Lord Mountbatten and Pandit Nehru, who maintained a suite at the hotel, in order to meet and debate the future of India and Pakistan with his peers. High society rubbed shoulders with politicians and industrialists in the glittering bar and restaurant where today, film stars, presidents and singers number among the guests.
Architectural Traveller | Page 30
The current owners, grandsons of Sardar Bahadur Ranjit Singh who built the hotel, have restored the Imperial’s reputation after a low point in the 1970s when it had fallen into decline. Walls are now decorated with 5,000 works of art from the Singh’s collection, paintings mainly by late 17th and 18th century artists working in India including William Hodges, James Ferguson and Charles D’Oyly. The antique furniture and sculpture complete a picture of refined luxury that would have been instantly recognisable to the first guests to walk through the cool, classical foyer of The Imperial New Delhi.
www.theimperialindia.com
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