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Architecture
British Colonial Architecture:
Towns, Cantonments & Bungalows
by Ashish Nangia
Urban Design
While British supremacy did not change the fact that India was becoming rapidly
urbanized, it did lead to new alignments and priorities, since the controlling
power was now different. A number of new towns and new suburbs were built to
house the British, and the pattern of new town planning changed. India was
still divided into administrative districts as under the Mughals, and the towns which functioned as district headquarters were
the ones where most of the new architecture was built.
The planning and urban design policies of the British followed certain
principles – (a) their perceptions of the nature of the Indian city, (b) the fear
of further revolts along the lines of the Mutiny of 1857, (c) Haussmann’s plan
for Paris which had become so popular in Europe and which advocated cutting
through and demolishing old city centers to make space for new construction and
boulevards, and (d) planning techniques already in use for Britain’s industrial
cities.
In the main the effort was to physically and socially separate the Europeans
from the indigenous populace – the so-called ‘White’ and ‘Black’ towns of Madras
being an example. This being done an effort, though sometimes belated, was also
made to enforce sanitary and developmental guidelines on the old towns, though
these had little effect as in the main they failed to take into account
traditional ways of community life. In some cases new urban design smacked of
retribution – Delhi and Lucknow in particular, being the centers of the Mutiny
of 1857, lost large parts of their historic areas to new British planning and
city-core demolitions.
 The
economic boom of the later half of the 19th century translated into
frenetic building activity in British India. The application of urban design
guidelines resulted in the unified character that old British settlements in
India still possess. These urban design projects could not fail to be
influenced by precedents in Britain: the Royal Crescent at Bath by John Wood,
and the Quadrant in Regent’s Park, London by John Nash were particularly
influential, translating into Elphinstone Circle (now Horniman Circle)
in Bombay. As pressure on space grew, British architecture progressed from
single buildings set in open surrounding to more densely packed urban schemes,
as in the cities of Calcutta and Bombay.
In addition to major urban design schemes, it was the civil lines and the
cantonments which remain today a major evidence of 19th century
British presence, and which in turn have influenced much middle-class housing
development in modern India. This stems from their perception as the colonies
of the elite. The cantonments and civil lines both were generally laid out as
gridiron planned communities with central thoroughfares (the famous ‘Mall
Roads’), with tree-lined streets, regularly divided building plots and bungalows
as the main housing type. Churches and cemeteries, clubs, race and golf
courses, and other trappings of an easy civil life were soon to follow.
The Cantonment and the Bungalow
Kabul Cantonment
The Cantonment was a British military settlement which was
to spread out all over India wherever the British were present in sizable
numbers. Originally conceived as a military base for British troops, the
cantonment also began to house civilians who were associated with servicing the
military, and developed into a full-fledged mini-city of its own. The
second half of the 19th century saw this transformation complete.
Bangalore cantonment had, for example, a population of 100,000 by the early 20th century and
consisted of public offices, churches, parks, shops and schools. It was an
entity distinct from the old city – traffic between the two had to stop at a
toll-gate and pay entry tax. The cantonment thus developed into a European town
in India, whose main house type was the bungalow.
The
bungalow’s design evolved as a type over a hundred years. While the actual
model for a bungalow remains controversial, it appears to have dual origins: the
detached rural Bengal house sitting in its compound (from the word root
bangla – from Bengal), and the British suburban villa. It was a fusion of
these two types that led to a building form which would later become an enduring
symbol of the Raj.
 The first
bungalows inhabited by the East India Company agents were initially the same as
the kutcha local ones, but gradually outstripped their origins to become
an accurate reflection of hierarchy amongst the English community. The typical
residential bungalow for the wealthy, for example, was set back from the road by
a walled compound. The amount of land enclosed was a symbol of status. For a
senior officer a ratio of 15:1, garden to built form, was appropriate, while for
a beginning rank it could even be 1:1. In this sense the British showed a
hierarchical system no less developed than the complex caste system which they
ascribed to India.
 The early
bungalows had long, low classical lines and detailing. The Gothic revival in
England brought about a corresponding change in bungalow design – spawning
buildings with pitched roofs and richly carpentered details including such
features as the ‘monkey tops’ of Bangalore. The Classical bungalow with its
Doric, and later, in New Delhi for instance, Tuscan orders became a symbol not
only of an European heritage but also of the military and political might of
Britain. That the bungalow continues to evoke associations of wealth and power
is evident from its continued relevance as a building type in India today.
September 12, 2004
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