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Marg Magazine: A Tryst with Architectural Modernity

Modern architecture as seen from an independent India
Le magazine Marg : un rendez-vous avec la modernité architecturale. L’architecture moderne du point de vue d’une Inde indépendante
Rachel Lee y Kathleen James-Chakraborty

Resúmenes

Fundada en 1946, en vísperas de la independencia, Marg fue la primera revista india en ocuparse de la arquitectura moderna y la planificación urbanística. Al tiempo que atendía el arte clásico y contemporáneo indio, la arquitectura, la artesanía, los bailes y la fotografía, daba cuenta del arte y la arquitectura contemporáneos extranjeros, especialmente de los Estados Unidos y Europa. Frank Lloyd Wrights y Richard Neutra aparecieron en sus páginas junto a Le Courbusier y Erich Mendelsohn.
Este artículo se centra en los actores involucrados en la fundación de la pionera revista -desde figuras culturales como Mulk Raj Anand y Homi Bhabha a arquitectos del Modern Architectural Research Group (marg), incluyendo a Otto Koeningsberger y Minnette De Silva. Trata de la defensa de la arquitectura moderna como el único estilo apropiado para una India independiente, publicada en la número inaugural aparecido en 1946, y examina el papel dominante que juega Le Corbusier y la manera en que su postura respecto a la planificación urbanística fue presentada en Marg entre 1949 y 1961, esto es, antes y durante su implicación en el diseño de Chandigarh, nueva capital del estado Punjabi. El artículo analiza además proyectos de arquitectura india, de autores tanto extranjeros como nativos, publicados en Marg, y sostiene que la defensa entusiasta de la arquitectura moderna europea y americana de Marg es un claro ejemplo del modo en que, durante este periodo postcolonial, los intelectuales prestaban apoyo a la arquitectura moderna para distanciarse del antiguo lenguaje colonial, considerado como menos arriesgado. En el caso de Marg, esto ocurría en el contexto de una amplia y orgullosa cobertura del arte del subcontinente, que, sin embargo, en el caso de la arquitectura (a diferencia de otras manifestaciones), los editores ya no consideraban una tradición viva susceptible de implicar a sus contemporáneos.

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  • 1 Mulk Raj Anand, “Planning and Dreaming,” Marg, vol. 1, no. 1, October 1946, p. 3–6 (here p. 5).

It is because an architect seems to us a symbol of the resurgent India, that the Modern Architectural Research Group has come forward to sponsor this magazine on architecture and art.1

Introduction

  • 2 A recent example is Jean-Louis Cohen, The Future of Architecture. Since 1889, London: Phaidon, 201 (...)
  • 3 Lawrence J. Vale, Architecture, Power and National Identity, New Haven, ct: Yale University Press, (...)

1Historians of architecture have typically focused on the role of the architect more than that of the client. This has been particularly true for historians of buildings erected since the 18th century and designed by professionals, who increasingly worked either for governments or for patrons who were their social, if not always economic, equals.2 Research on 20th-century European architects who worked in other parts of the world for clients of other races has often presumed that foreign architects imposed modernist solutions on clients who were insufficiently appreciative of indigenous traditions.3 Contradicting such a view is the case of the Indian journal Marg, which simultaneously published path-breaking scholarship on pre-colonial Indian art and architecture and introduced its readers to contemporary Western architecture and urban planning, whose importation into contemporary India is consistently defended.

Surveying and supporting contemporary architecture in India

2Founded in 1946 on the eve of independence, Marg surveyed classical and contemporary Indian art, architecture, clothing, crafts, dance, and photography, but also reported on contemporary foreign art and architecture, especially that of the United States and Europe (fig. 1).

Figure 1: Title page of Marg, vol. 1, no. 1 (October 1946).

Figure 1: Title page of Marg, vol. 1, no. 1 (October 1946).

Source: Marg.

3In the editorial of the first issue, the span and critical parameters of the magazine were outlined as follows:

  • 4 Mulk Raj Anand, “Planning and Dreaming”, op. cit. (note 1), p. 6.

We consider Architecture, of course, as the mother art. And, therefore, we shall naturally include within our orbit of discussion all the arts which help us to live and move in the houses and workshops we build. And the criterion which we shall bring to bear on these arts will be the simple one of Beauty, a term which may be defined here to cover the formal materials of a work of art as well as its subject matter and the function it fulfils in society.4

  • 5 Through his friendship with Eric Gill, Mulk Raj Anand came into contact with MARS during his time (...)

4Marg means “pathway” in Hindi, and is a term often applied to large streets or boulevards in Hindi-speaking parts of India. In this case, however, it also stood for Modern Architectural Research Group (marg), the name of the group of devotees of modern architecture responsible for founding the journal. They clearly modeled themselves upon the mars Group, founded in Britain in 1933.5

  • 6 “Mulk Raj Anand: Father-figure of the modern Indian Novel,” The Independant, 29 September 2004.
  • 7 Mulk Raj Anand, Conversations in Bloomsbury, London: Wildwood House, 1981.
  • 8 Mulk Raj Anand, Persian Painting, London: Faber and Faber, 1930, and Mulk Raj Anand, The Hindu Vie (...)
  • 9 Mulk Raj Anand, The Untouchable, London: Wishart, 1930.

5Foremost among the members of the Modern Architectural Research Group was the founding editor Mulk Raj Anand. Born in 1905, Anand died in 2004 at the age of 98.6 Anand was widely regarded as one of India’s preeminent novelists of his generation writing in English, which was not yet the norm for aspiring Indian writers. Born in what is now Pakistan, he studied at University College London, where he came into contact with the Bloomsbury Group and T. S. Eliot.7 His first book and foray into art history, Persian Painting, was written in response to an exhibition held in London in 1929–30 and was followed up by The Hindu View of Art in 1933.8 E. M. Forster wrote the preface for Anand’s first novel, The Untouchable, which was published in 1935, the same year he co-founded the All-India Progressive Writers’ Association.9 Anand assumed the editorship of Marg shortly after returning to India from London, where he had spent most of the previous two decades.

  • 10 Architectural Forum, June 1946, p. 89.
  • 11 Otto Koenigsberger Private Archive, from lecture notes from the following lectures: “Scientific Re (...)

6Among the other important figures involved in the founding of Marg was the architect and town planner Otto Koenigsberger (1908–1999). A native Berliner and student of Hans Poelzig, Koenigsberger fled Germany in 1933, via Egypt and Switzerland, arriving in India in 1939. As Mysore State’s chief architect, Koenigsberger was responsible for designing many of Bangalore’s buildings over the course of almost a decade, as well as developing town planning schemes for towns in the region. Koenigsberger also worked on private commissions for clients that included Tata & Sons, producing the Jamshedpur Development Plan in 1944 and several buildings at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, including the dining hall and auditorium, which was published in Architectural Forum in 1946.10 Understanding architectural modernism as a methodology rather than a palette of forms and styles for global application, in India Koenigsberger aspired to develop a low-cost, place-specific architecture, derived from the scientific study of local cultural needs, environmental conditions and existing building materials and forms. He also hoped to introduce culturally and climatically appropriate new materials.11 With independence, Jawaharlal Nehru called Koenigsberger to Delhi as the Federal Director of Housing. In that position he was responsible for developing housing solutions for refugees and was involved in the planning and supervision of several new towns. Despite his own professional success, Koenigsberger was disappointed with the level of architectural awareness and debate in India. Writing to his uncle Max Born in 1945, and referring to his friend the nuclear physicist Homi Bhabha (1909–1966), he complained:

  • 12 Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge, The Papers of Professor Max Born, Born 1/2/2/6. Letter from (...)

How did you like Homi’s contribution to the [Nils] Bohr jubilee number? I witnessed the birth of his ideas during many common walks and am anxious to know what experts think about them. We are very isolated here with regard to professional exchange of ideas, though it is not quite as bad in his line as it is in mine.12

7With the establishment of Marg magazine, Koenigsberger and the other co-founders intended to begin bridging that gap.

  • 13 Minnette De Silva, The Life & Work of an Asian Woman Architect, Colombo: Smart Media Productions, (...)
  • 14 Marg became part of ciam in 1947 when Minnette De Silva attended ciam vi in Bridgwater as the dele (...)

8In addition to Koenigsberger, several other architects were involved in the genesis of Marg. The Sri Lankan architect Minnette De Silva (1918–1998), who had worked for Koenigsberger in Bangalore in 1944, was a founding member, and the magazine’s architectural editor.13 De Silva also represented Marg at the ciam conference in Bridgwater in 1947, where her task was to introduce the group and the magazine to the assembled international modern architectural luminaries.14 At around the same time, while studying in London at the Architectural Association, De Silva met James Richards, editor of the Architectural Review, who published the following in his magazine:

  • 15 Minnette De Silva, The Life & Work of an Asian Woman Architect, op. cit. (note 13), p. 79.

Things are stirring in India, not just in the political field but among younger architects as well. I have recently heard news from one of their number, who is now in this country, of a small group of young architects in Bombay who seem to have ideas and an international outlook as well as enthusiasm, and have banded together under the name of Marg (Modern Architectural Research Group). They unknowingly chose the same title as the English group that fifteen years ago tackled just the same task in this country, but it also happens that “marg” in Sanskrit means “the way forward”—a promising omen. They have begun by launching a magazine (in English) under the name of their Group.15

  • 16 Ibid. De Silva actually refers to mjp (Minoo) Mistry and jpj (Jehangir) Bilimoria. Minoo Mistry (1 (...)
  • 17 Marlene Fisher, The Wisdom of the Heart: A Study of the Works of Mulk Raj Anand, New Delhi: Sterli (...)
  • 18 Minnette De Silva, The Life & Work of an Asian Woman Architect, op. cit. (note 13), p. 78.
  • 19 Marlene Fisher, The Wisdom of the Heart: A Study of the Works of Mulk Raj Anand, op. cit. (note 17 (...)
  • 20 Ibid.
  • 21 Ibid.

9According to De Silva’s collage-like autobiography, Minoo Mistry and J. P. J. Billimoria were the other two Indian architects involved with Marg and Marg from the outset.16 De Silva’s older sister, Marcia (also known as Anil), who had known Mulk Raj Anand since they met in London in the 1930s, was Marg’s assistant editor and responsible for the magazine’s innovative layout.17 Minnette De Silva describes the early days of Marg as “traumatic,” but the journal became viable when fourteen founding members contributed 1,000 Rupees each and some advertisers were found.18 Interestingly, Anand recalls seven members contributing 2,000 Rupees each as the initial capital investment.19 After “taking to the streets,”20 Anand, De Silva, Koenigsberger and the others procured around 300 subscriptions and twenty-five advertisements—enough to finance the first issue, which was published in October 1946.21

  • 22 Jon Lang, Madhavi Desai and Miki Desai, Architecture and Independence: The Search for Identity. In (...)
  • 23 Partha Mitter, The Triumph of Modernism: Indias Artists and the Avant-garde, 1922–1947, Oxford: O (...)
  • 24 Margit Franz, “Transnationale & transkulturelle Ansätze in der Exilforschung am Beispiel der Erfor (...)
  • 25 e.g. Rudolf von Leyden, “The Sculpture of Ambernath,” Marg, vol. 1, no. 1, October 1946, p. 58–67; (...)
  • 26 Margit Franz, “Transnationale & transkulturelle Ansätze in der Exilforschung am Beispiel der Erfor (...)

10Although always all-Indian in its scope, and international in terms of its contributors, Marg was a product of the Mumbai society of the 1940s. Cosmopolitan Mumbai was then the centre of Indian architectural thinking—many of the British and Indian practices were based in the city, and the Sir J. J. School, under Claude Batley’s direction, was the country’s foremost architecture school.22 Moreover, influential artistic movements, such as the Progressive Artists’ Group (pag), began in Mumbai.23 The formation of pag was catalyzed and supported by a trio of German speaking émigrés: Walter Langhammer (1905–1977), painter and art director at the Times of India, Rudy von Leyden (1908–1983), art critic for the Times of India, and Emmanuel Schlesinger (1896–1968), an entrepreneur and art collector.24 While von Leyden contributed articles to Marg,25 Langhammer’s dinner parties and salons, much like Mulk Raj Anand’s “at-home-soirees,” were social hubs where aspiring young artists and architects rubbed shoulders and exchanged ideas with Mumbai’s cultural and moneyed elites, among which the minority Parsi community was particularly significant.26 As Preeti Chopra has noted, the Parsis were crucial contributors to the development of Mumbai:

  • 27 Preeti Chopra, A Joint Enterprise: Indian Elites and the Making of British Bombay, Minneapolis, mn(...)

The most prominent philanthropists in 19th century Bombay were from the Parsi community. It often seems as if the Parsis, rather than the British, built British Bombay.27

11This trend was still strong at the time of Marg’s founding, and politically and culturally engaged Parsi figures, such as Bhabha, who, like Anand, had recently returned to India from studies abroad, were key in defining modern India.

  • 28 Mulk Raj Anand, “In Memoriam: Homi Bhabha,” Marg, vol. 19, no. 2, March 1966, p. 1-3; Homi Bhabha, (...)
  • 29 Mulk Raj Anand, “In Memoriam: Homi Bhabha,” op. cit. (note 28), p. 1-3; Homi Bhabha, “Leonardo da (...)
  • 30 Marlene Fisher, The Wisdom of the Heart: A Study of the Works of Mulk Raj Anand, op. cit. (note 19 (...)
  • 31 Frank Harris, Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata: A Chronicle of his Life, Bombay: Blackie, 1958, p. 116.
  • 32 Aman Nath and Jay Vithalani, Horizons: The Tata-India Century, Mumbai: India Book House, 2004, p.  (...)
  • 33 Jesse S. Palsetia, The Parsis of India: preservation of identity in Bombay city, Leiden: Brill, 20 (...)
  • 34 The JN Tata Endowment Scheme for higher education was set up in 1892, funding for the Indian Insti (...)
  • 35 Marlene Fisher, The Wisdom of the Heart: A Study of the Works of Mulk Raj Anand, op. cit. (note 19 (...)

12Bhabha, who had met Anand in Cambridge28 and was a close friend of Koenigsberger and acquainted with De Silva, contributed to the nurturing and growth of the magazine,29 however it was another Parsi family—the Tatas—who provided Marg with office space in Mumbai’s Army and Navy Building and financing in the form of guaranteed revenue from seven advertising spaces.30 Since building their first cotton mills in the late 19th century, Tata & Sons had been committed to the “betterment of India,”31 which they aimed to achieve through a combination of pragmatic patriotism, constructive entrepreneurship and philanthropy.32 Under the Zoroastrian maxim and family motto “good words, good thoughts, good deeds,” Tata & Sons realized such diverse projects as India’s first indigenous steel plant at Jamshedpur, the trailblazing Indian Institute of Science at Bangalore and the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai. Despite having “set the standard for industrial growth, technical innovation and economic self-sufficiency in India,”33 and established a longstanding record of philanthropy in technical and scientific education,34 Marg magazine appears to have been the Tata’s first beneficent commitment to education in architecture and the arts, which was how the Tata Trust understood their support of Marg. In return for the office space and financing, Marg was to be an educational, non-profit magazine that was accessible due to its low selling price, “especially low in light of its largely visual content and high production values.”35

  • 36 W. G. Archer and M. S. Randhawa, “Some Nurpur Paintings—A Symposium,” Marg, vol. 8, no. 3, June 19 (...)

13As a result, no publication did more than Marg to make the Indian upper middle classes, whose considerable education did not usually encompass art and architecture, more aware of these aspects of their heritage. Essays by distinguished art historians, such as W. G. Archer, Ananda Coomaraswamy, Hermann Goetz, and Stella Kramrisch, introduced them to the latest international scholarship on the subject.36 Coverage of modern architecture and its implications for India was also central to the mission of the journal in its early years. One reason behind the focus on positive examples of modern architecture was the desire to improve the status of architects in India. Summed up in an anecdote recounted at the beginning of an editorial on architectural education in India, Marg described the unfortunate position of the Indian architect as follows:

  • 37 “Architectural Education in India,” Marg, vol. 2, no. 3, July 1948, p. 4-7 (here p. 4).

The other day, a new servant asked a colleague if he was an Engineer. He said, “No, I am an Architect,” to which the man replies with feeling, “God grant, then, that you may soon become an Engineer.”37

  • 38 Ibid., p. 5. At the time of independence there were only about 200 qualified architects in India. (...)
  • 39 “Architecture and You,” Marg, vol. 1, no. 1, October 1946, p. 7-16; “Architecture and You,” Marg, (...)

14By educating the public in their appreciation of architecture and creating enthusiasm among an upcoming generation of potential architects, Marg hoped to elevate the social standing and public respect of the architect, making architecture a more appealing profession. With less than one qualified architect per million inhabitants, India lacked enough indigenous architects to undertake the task of literally building a new nation.38 In addition, the marg group was committed to international modernism in architecture as the way forward towards better living conditions for all Indians. They spelled out their position in a manifesto, “Architecture and You,” first published in Marg in 1946 and reprinted again in 1963 (fig. 2).39

Figure 2: Excerpt from the manifesto “Architecture and You”, Marg, vol. 1, no. 1 (October 1946), p. 11.

Figure 2: Excerpt from the manifesto “Architecture and You”, Marg, vol. 1, no. 1 (October 1946), p. 11.

Source: Marg.

  • 40 The content of the article is very similar to that in the lectures given by Koenigsberger in Banga (...)
  • 41 “Architecture and You,” 1946, op. cit. (note 39), p. 15.
  • 42 Ibid.

15The authorship of this essay, attributed to the marg group, remains unclear, but it is likely that Koenigsberger, who wrote frequently on architecture and planning issues for the journal, had a hand in it.40 The group argued that historicism was unsuited to contemporary India because of what they saw as the misuse the conqueror had made of traditional Indian architecture. How, they asked, could one distinguish between an Indian Town Hall and a Greek Temple, or a railway station and the Taj Mahal (fig. 3)? Seven years before Koenigsberger organized a trend-setting conference on tropical architecture at the Architectural Association and University College in London, the Marg group stated that climate, materials and topography should contribute the national component to an international style, which they clearly equated with improved economic conditions not only for relatively wealthy readers but also for the masses.41 “Modern science and the machine,” they concluded, “speak a common language, which, in breaking down the old regional and social barriers, gives an expression of life common to all the peoples of the world.”42

Figure 3: Excerpt from the manifesto “Architecture and You”, Marg, vol. 1, no. 1 (October 1946), p. 12.

Figure 3: Excerpt from the manifesto “Architecture and You”, Marg, vol. 1, no. 1 (October 1946), p. 12.

Source: Marg.

  • 43 Thomas R. Metcalf, An Imperial Vision: Indian Architecture and Britain’s Raj, Berkeley, ca: Univer (...)
  • 44 Arindam Dutta, The Bureaucracy of Beauty: Design in the Age of its Global Reproducibility, New Yor (...)

16The Marg group saw the Indian patronage of modern architecture in the context of British colonialism’s effective appropriation of the country’s architectural heritage. Between the 1880s and the 1930s, this resulted in the cladding of almost every imposed institution in references to 17th-century palaces and mosques.43 As Arindam Dutta has astutely described, a romantic approach toward the preservation of craft enshrined technological progress as the exclusive possession of the colonizer, from which Indians were to be protectively shielded, and then blamed for their resulting impoverishment.44 In part because of this, there was little professional training available in India for architects, as opposed to engineers. Marg outlined the problem as follows:

  • 45 “Architecture and Planning,” Marg, vol. 1, no. 3, April 1947, p. 23-28 (here p. 28).

To-day too, when India is probably on the verge of the most tremendous advance in her history, when she will need every Engineer, every Architect and every Planner there is, where are they? The answer is that the last two professions scarcely exist because there are practically no facilities for training them, very few for training the building operatives and craftsmen on whom their works depend for its execution, and little appreciation by the public of what their work involves.45

  • 46 Jon Lang, Madhavi Desai and Miki Desai, Architecture and Independence: The Search for Identity. In (...)
  • 47 “Architecture and You,” 1946, op. cit. (note 39), p. 15.

17In consequence, foreign architects, now mostly continental Europeans and Americans, would play a key role in the major projects of the immediate postcolonial period, replacing the prominence earlier accorded to British expatriates.46 Like Nehru, the first Prime Minister of an independent India and the man directly responsible for the construction of the new Punjabi capital of Chandigarh, the marg group and their readers were keenly aware that by patronizing internationally esteemed architects such as Le Corbusier, they were seizing for themselves the right to be modern, which they believed contained within it the promise of economic advancement (fig. 4).47

Figure 4: Excerpt from the manifesto “Architecture and You”, Marg, vol. 1, no. 1 (October 1946), p. 14.

Figure 4: Excerpt from the manifesto “Architecture and You”, Marg, vol. 1, no. 1 (October 1946), p. 14.

Source: Marg.

Towards a new architecture in India: Le Corbusier and Chandigarh

  • 48 The Vidhana Soudha, completed in Bangalore in 1956, is an example of this neo-traditional architec (...)
  • 49 Wayne Andrews, “The Recent Work of Frank Lloyd Wright,” Marg, vol. 7, no. 1, December 1953, p. 5-1 (...)

18Although many buildings that revived pre-industrial Indian architectural forms would be built in post-independence India, their architects and patrons received no encouragement in the pages of Marg.48 In its early years the journal, whose advertisements for air travel to Europe and America demonstrated the economic status, or at least aspirations, of its readers, while others for cosmetics and fabrics suggested an attempt to attract a female readership, published articles and photographs by or about the work of Walter Gropius and Erich Mendelsohn, as well as Frank Lloyd Wright and Richard Neutra.49 For the marg group, however, by far the most important contemporary architect was Le Corbusier.

  • 50 “The Charter of Athens” in Marg is a translation of a German document, Auszüge aus der Charta von (...)
  • 51 ciam (translated from German by A. B. Schwarz), “The Charter of Athens,ˮ Marg, vol. 3, no. 4, Deep (...)
  • 52 ciam, “Thesen zum Städtebau: Auszüge aus der Charta von Athen,” BAU: Zeitschrift für wohnen, arbei (...)
  • 53 ciam 1949, p. 10-17 (here p. 11). An example of such a mistake: according to both the translation (...)
  • 54 Le Corbusier, The Athens Charter, trans. Anthony Earley, New York, ny: Grossman, 1973.

19In 1949 the Athens Charter, the seminal urban planning document based on texts drawn up sixteen years earlier during the 4th meeting of ciam aboard the SS Patris II, was finally published in an English language journal.50 It appeared in the pages of Marg.51 Mulk Raj Anand commissioned a translation from a German version of the document that was published in the first issue of a new journal BAU: Zeitschrift für wohnen, arbeiten, sich erholen in 1947.52 The translation was made by the architect A. B. Schwarz and Elfriede Vembu and is close to the original German, even including mistakes made in the German document.53 Although a version of the ciam IV document appears in Josep Luis Sert’s Can our Cities Survive? (1942), a full English translation of Le Corbusier’s Charte dAthènes (1943) was not published until 1973.54

  • 55 Partha Mitter, “Bauhaus in Kalkutta,” in Bauhaus global: Gesammelte Beiträge der Konferenze Bauhau (...)

20Marg published the Athens Charter a year before Albert Mayer and Matthew Nowicki were charged with the design of Chandigarh; only in 1951, following Nowicki’s untimely death in a plane crash, was that task turned over to Le Corbusier. Such Indian patronage of advanced European art was not unprecedented; following what may have been his celebration of his 60th birthday in Weimar in 1921, Rabrindranath Tagore organized a Bauhaus exhibition in Calcutta in 1922.55

  • 56 Patrick Geddes, “Trees and Open Spaces,” Marg, vol. 2, no. 3, July 1948, p. 9-15; Patrick Geddes, (...)
  • 57 Ibid. See also Le Corbusier, “Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow,” p. 12-19 of the same issue.

21The Charter appeared in the context of attention paid to town planning that included the publication of essays by Patrick Geddes and Lewis Mumford, as well as an article that had appeared on Le Corbusier already in 1948.56 Accompanied by passages of the architect’s essay “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” in both the original French and an English translation, it described him as “perhaps the best known man in the architectural world of Europe today,” and noted that, “No living architect has so profoundly inspired students as he has.”57 As well as describing his engagement in town planning, the unidentified author noted, “In tackling human problems Le Corbusier gets down to fundamentals, and builds up his views and theories from first principals... He has in fact developed a philosophy of architecture (p. 11).”

  • 58 Marg, vol. 6, no. 4, October 1953 (Deepavali), p. 8-25; Marg, vol. 10, no. 2, March 1957, p. 45-50 (...)
  • 59 “Architecture and You,” 1963, op. cit. (note 39).

22For the next fifteen years Chandigarh, its plan, and its architecture would make regular appearances in Marg. In 1953, 1957, 1961, and again in 1963, individual issues included substantial coverage of the city.58 Whether the buildings surveyed in its pages were designed by Le Corbusier, or his English, French, and Indian collaborators, they were treated with few exceptions as models for the future of modern Indian architecture in general and Punjabi architecture in particular. No other aspects of contemporary Indian architecture and planning received comparable attention until a 1963 special issue on recent Indian architecture.59

  • 60 Le Corbusier, “Urbanism,” Marg, vol. 6, no. 4, October 1953 (Deepavali), p. 10-18.
  • 61 Eric Mumford, The CIAM Discourse on Urbanism, 1928-1960, op. cit. (note 14), p. 204.
  • 62 Jane Drew, “On the Chandigarh Scheme,” Marg, vol. 6, no. 4, October 1953 (Deepavali), p. 19-20, an (...)

23Two 1953 issues included contributions on town planning and urbanism by Le Corbusier.60 The second of these included an article on the Swiss architect by his former employee, the young Indian architect Balkrishna Doshi, who represented the Marg group at the ciam viii meeting in 1951.61 There were also pieces by Jane Drew, who with her husband Maxwell Fry, designed much of Chandigarh’s original housing, and an analysis of the city by Koenigsberger.62 At this point the focus was on explaining the planning concepts.

  • 63 Pierre Jeanneret, T. J. Manickam and Mansinh M. Rana, “Chandigarh Symposium,” Marg, vol. 10, no. 2 (...)
  • 64 Jon Lang, Madhavi Desai and Miki Desai, Architecture and Independence: The Search for Identity. In (...)

24Four years later it was possible, in the context of a special issue on the Punjab, to begin to evaluate rather than simply explain the plan of the new city, as well as to illustrate its architecture. This time the contributors were Le Corbusier’s cousin, Pierre Jeanneret, who, like Drew and Fry, had been charged largely with housing for government workers, many of them on modest incomes, as well as T. J. Manickam, the Director of the School of Town and Country Planning in New Delhi,63 and Mansinh M. Rana, who studied with Frank Lloyd Wright from 1947 to 1951 and was later Chief Architect, Government of India.64 Jeanneret stressed the contribution of the Indians P. L. Varma and P. N. Thapar, who had chosen the site, and contrasted the new city with the colonial capital of New Delhi, adding:

  • 65 Pierre Jeanneret, in Pierre Jeanneret, T. J. Manickam and Mansinh M. Rana, “Chandigarh Symposium,” (...)

Now that India is liberated everything should be created to harmonize with her needs and technical possibilities, even though this may worry timid and traditional spirits whose advice is in any case valueless for creating for the future.65

  • 66 T. J. Manickam, in Pierre Jeanneret, T. J. Manickam and Mansinh M. Rana, “Chandigarh Symposium,” o (...)

25Manickam criticized the High Court, which “would better serve as place for cosmopolitan worship rather than as a place of shelter and comfort for those seeking as well as administering justice.”66 He defended the overall scheme, however, writing that it had

“stimulated the younger architects to search for new forms, designs and expression, and is justified therefore, to serve as a bold experiment in this right direction (p. 49).”

  • 67 Mansinh M. Rana, in Jon Lang, Madhavi Desai and Miki Desai, Architecture and Independence: The Sea (...)

26Rana was more critical, worrying that the new quarters were not suited to their inhabitants, who he described as “earth-loving handsome people.” “Why,” he asked, “give them a space-rocket as symbol of their hopes, desires, and resources?”67

27In December 1961 Marg devoted an entire issue to Chandigarh (fig. 5), whose basic construction was by this time almost complete.

Figure 5: Cover of a Marg issue devoted to Chandigarh. Marg, vol. 15, no. 1 (December 1961).

Figure 5: Cover of a Marg issue devoted to Chandigarh. Marg, vol. 15, no. 1 (December 1961).

Source: Marg.

  • 68 The other Indian contributors to the December issue of volume 15 were Mrs. U. E. Chowdhury, B. P.  (...)
  • 69 Prakash is the father of Vikramaditya Prakash, author of Chandigarh’s Le Corbusier: The Struggle f (...)
  • 70 Jane Drew, “On the Chandigarh Scheme,” op. cit. (note 62), p. 25.
  • 71 Reeta Sharma, “Beautiful Mind Dutiful Life,” The Tribune, 11 March 2006, url: http://www.tribunein (...)

28Description and analysis by an array of nine Indian critics and architects were sandwiched between articles by Le Corbusier, Fry, Drew, and Jeanneret.68 Most of the contributors, such as the architect Aditya Prakash, had worked on the city.69 The writers stressed that, while the traditional verandahs had been replaced with a variety of brick and concrete sun breaks, even the houses for the poorest classes were larger than had hitherto been the case and featured more amenities such as electricity and running water. The minimum dwelling was defined as “two rooms, a kitchen, a water closet, a bath room, and a sleeping court-yard for summer.”70 Brick, plastered or not, was preferred for these dwellings to both concrete structure, which when used was standardized, and wood details. On the other hand, plantings were developed with an eye for the indigenous. M. S. Randhawa, the Indian civil servant charged with landscaping the city and a major figure in the Green Revolution, which would make Punjab India’s richest province, described the associations of the plants he chose:71

  • 72 M. S. Randhawa, “Landscape and Garden,” Marg, vol. 15, no. 1, December 1961, p. 51.

The cathedral like alignment of the shafts of chir pines shooting towards the sky smooth, pure and inflexible, with their round and plump crowns, is a reminder of the Himalayan forests with their peace and silence. Kademba groves with their silences and perfume remind us of the happy forests of Vrindavan where Krishna roamed with the milkmaids, and no doubt they will provide the gladness and freshness of the rainy season to the citizens of Chandigarh.72

  • 73 G. R. Nangea, “Engineering in the Service of the Community,” Marg, vol. 15, December 1961, p. 53.

29G. R. Nangea concluded, “Chandigarh is symbolic of independent and resurgent India, yearning to realize her basic spiritual, philosophic and ethical values in modern civil surroundings.”73

Architecture projects by Marg members

  • 74 Otto Koenigsberger, “The Story of a Town: Jamshedpur,” Marg, vol. 1, no. 1, October 1946, p. 18–29

30Despite the clear focus on Le Corbusier and Chandigarh, Marg also published contemporary building and town planning projects by lesser-known foreign architects, who, unlike Le Corbusier, had spent significant parts of their careers on the sub-continent. The very first issue of the magazine devoted an eleven-page spread to Koenigsberger’s development plan for Jamshedpur. As well as setting out and explaining the application of planning principles such as the neighborhood unit, the article also featured detailed drawings of the prefabricated housing system Koenigsberger developed for the steel city.74 In 1950 Marg published Koenigsberger’s design for a concert hall in Bangalore. The article, which was probably written by Koenigsberger himself, had an unmistakably cautionary and pedagogic tone. He explained how he approached the site and architectural expression of the building:

  • 75 Otto Koenigsberger, “The Victory Hall at Bangalore,” Marg, vol. 4, no. 3, October 1950 (Deepavali) (...)

The Victory Hall was one of the not infrequent cases where success depends on humbleness and where nothing is more harmful than self-assertion on the part of the architect. Restraint of this kind, obviously, need not exclude originality of artistic conception, but as a rule it is unpopular with the taxpayer-client who wants his money’s worth of frills and fireworks.75

  • 76 R. R. Handa and J. L. Vaz, “New Capital at Bhubaneswar,” Marg, vol. 12, no. 4, September 1955, p.  (...)

31Koenigsberger’s plan for the new state capital of Orissa, Bhubaneswar, was discussed by R. R. Handa and the city’s architect J. L. Vaz in a 1955 issue of the journal.76

  • 77 “New Bearings in Indian Architecture,” Marg, vol. 2, no. 2, February 1948, p. 11-16 (here p. 11).
  • 78 Ibid.
  • 79 “The Campbell Medical College—Calcutta,” Marg, vol. 5, no. 1, 1951, p. 6–7.
  • 80 Andrew Boyd, “A People’s Tradition,” Marg, vol. 1, no. 2, January 1947, p. 25–40.

32Several pages of a 1948 issue were dedicated to the architect A. B. Schwarz’s industrial unit built for the Jangda Manufacturing Company near Lahore from 1943. The large complex, which included factory buildings, housing and community centers, and aesthetically owed a debt to Erich Mendelsohn, is introduced as “a well-planned unit,” with “much to teach us.”77 As well as according with the different living conditions of the company workers and officers, the design also tackled the excessive heat, dust, glare and insects of North India with special architectural features used, write the authors, “as far as we know, for the first time in India.”78 This concern with climatically and socially appropriate modern architectural design appeared as well in the article on John Innes’ Campbell Medical College in Calcutta,79 while the inherent potentials of the small building tradition in Sri Lanka were the subject of an article by Andrew Boyd that also presents two of his completed contemporary residential projects.80

  • 81 “The Baur Building,” Marg, vol. 5, no. 3, 1952, p. 44–49.
  • 82 Ibid.
  • 83 Ibid.
  • 84 eth Zurich, gta Archives, Sigfried Giedion Papers, 42_SG_34_14. Letter from Minnette De Silva to S (...)

33While the above examples conform to the architectural concepts laid out by the Marg Group in “Architecture and You,” others do not. The office cum residential block in Colombo built for A. Baur & Co by Swiss architects Egender Mueller with the celebrated Robert Maillart as “cementing engineer” appeared to have been included because of its Corbusian planning, which allowed “through ventilation on the floor where the corridor has been eliminated.” 81 The enormous building costs, extensive use of imported building materials and exploitation of indigenous labor (because of the “extremely cheap labour,” 450 people were employed to, amongst other things, hand bore 3,000 cubic meters of granite, blast it and cart it out by hand), also made it noteworthy.82 Although the Baur building had a “lack of any feeling in the finishes”, it was lauded as an “outstanding pioneering effort.”83 Perhaps this almost sycophantic devotion to Le Corbusier at the expense of a critical perspective led Minnette De Silva to write to Sigfried Giedion, “It is significant that the architectural contribution to Marg’ seems the weakest of the whole magazine.”84

  • 85 Jon Lang, Madhavi Desai and Miki Desai, Architecture and Independence: The Search for Identity. In (...)
  • 86 Mulk Raj Anand, “Reflections on the House, the Stupa, the Temple, the Mosque, the Mausoleum and th (...)
  • 87 “Jehangir Art Gallery,” Marg, vol. 5, no. 4, July 1952, p. 4–12.

34While Western architects featured prominently in the early volumes of Marg, examples of modern architecture by Indian architects were published to a much lesser extent, not least because there were initially very few from which to choose. The Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbai designed by the architects Durga Bajpai, who had worked with Alvar Aalto85 and whom Mulk Raj Anand later described as “one of the most brilliant members of the [marg] group,”86 and G. M. Bhuta, is profiled in a 1952 issue.87 With its striking corrugated concrete entrance canopy and cladding of local stone, the Jehangir Art Gallery, which was named after the Parsi benefactor Cowasji Jehangir who funded its construction, was judged a neat and genuine attempt to create a contemporary indigenous architecture.

  • 88 Minnette De Silva, “A House at Kandy, Ceylon,” Marg, vol. 6, no. 3, June 1953, p. 4-11 (here p. 4)

35Another such attempt featured in Marg was a residential project designed by Minnette De Silva. After completing her education at the Architectural Association, Minnette De Silva returned to Sri Lanka in 1948 to practice as an architect. Her Karaunaratne House in Kandy, Sri Lanka, was described in the magazine, as “an experiment in modern regional architecture in the tropics” shortly after its completion in 1953.88 The split-level house combined modern construction method and materials, such as concrete and glass bricks, with local crafts and regional materials, including terracotta tiles, teak wood and doors paneled with hand-made Dumbara mats. It was designed around the social practices of Sri Lankan society. All the living spaces were north-facing verandahs with sliding glass walls towards the garden that could be closed in inclement weather. Amongst other things, Marg applauded the project’s synthesis of indigenous elements, suitability to climatic and social conditions, merger of the house with the garden, as well as the use of traditional elements and local materials.

36In the early 1950s De Silva wrote enthusiastically to Giedion about the promise of Marg for Indian architects:

  • 89 eth Zurich, gta Archives, Sigfried Giedion Papers, 42_SG_34_14. Letter from Minnette De Silva to S (...)

It is the only magazine of its kind in the East. For the first time the artists and architects of today can have their work reproduced and also give expression to their thoughts.89

  • 90 Mulk Raj Anand, “Living, Working, Care of Body and Spirit,” Marg, vol. 17, no. 1, December 1963, p (...)
  • 91 Ibid., p. 2.
  • 92 Marg, vol. 17, no. 1, December 1963, p. 39–69.
  • 93 The later was modeled on Louis Kahn’s Trenton Bath Houses; its success helped generate the invitat (...)

37However, the number of articles on architecture and planning published in the magazine steadily decreased throughout the 1950s, and the marg acronym slowly lost its relevance. By the time ciam disbanded in 1959, the marg group had failed to establish itself as a force in India and Sri Lanka, or, as Anand bluntly put it, the original Marg group had “disintegrated”.90 In 1963, when Marg devoted an issue to contemporary Indian architecture (fig. 6), Anand felt that much of the promise of an independent India had been squandered. “We failed,” he confessed, “to generate a movement.”91 Of the twenty-five featured buildings, seven were located in the new capital of the Punjab; five of these were designed by Indian architects. Pierre Jeanneret’s house in Chandigarh for Gautam Seghal and Le Corbusier’s Legislative Assembly were joined by the work of foreign architects building elsewhere in India, including Anthony [sic] Raymond, Helmuth Bartsch, and Joseph Stein, and also by Balkrishna Doshi and Charles Correa, to name only the most prominent of their Indian counterparts.92 Although the illustrated work clearly remained exceptional in the postcolonial Indian context, the quality was high, with the Legislative Assembly and Correa’s recently complete Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya in Ahmedabad being among the most significant buildings of their day.93 Nothing by Koenigsberger, who by this point had been in London for a dozen years, was included.

Figure 6: Cover of a Marg issue devoted to contemporary Indian architecture.

Figure 6: Cover of a Marg issue devoted to contemporary Indian architecture.

Marg, vol. 17, no. 1 (December 1963).

Source: Marg.

  • 94 See John Terry, “Demonstration Farm Centre for the Punjab,” Marg, vol. 1, no. 1, April 1947, p. 29 (...)
  • 95 See Kanji Dwarkada, “Workers’ Housing,” Marg, vol. 1, no. 1, October 1946, p. 31–35; Durga Bajpai, (...)
  • 96 Kathleen James, “Louis Kahn’s Indian Institute of Management’s Courtyard: Form versus Function,” o (...)

38While several early issues feature articles on rural settlements94 and low-cost housing,95 the magazine did not touch the ordinary modernism inhabited by urban middle class Indians, who by 1963 often lived in streamlined villas or high-rise apartment blocks, and worked in concrete-framed office buildings. Had it done so, the prominence of modern architecture would have been far greater than their narrow focus on “high” architecture, designed by avant-garde architects. It had been a very long time since most of its readers had lived in architecture unaffected by the industrial revolution. Rather than being an example of neocolonialism, the deployment of modern architecture in India occurred in a climate of deep appreciation of indigenous culture. India’s new political and economic leadership wore Nehru suits, saris, and even dhotis, listened to Indian classical music, and patronized Indian classical dance, all the subject of articles in Marg’s pages.96 Their children hummed along to popular recognizably Indian songs created for locally produced movies, whose plots typically were rooted in indigenous story telling traditions and social mores. And yet, not least because of the ubiquitous use the British had made of them, there was relatively little sympathy for reviving pre-colonial architectural forms.

  • 97 Sibel Bozdoğan, Modernism and Nation Building in Turkish Architectural Culture in the Early Republ (...)

39Nor was the Indian example unique. From Sao Paulo and Brasilia to Cairo, Istanbul, and Tokyo, the postwar urban middle classes in the developing world turned to modern architecture for buildings that represented neither previous local elites nor the quasi-colonial and/or feudal indigenous traditions with which they were associated.97 Whether or not we concur with their aspirations, which—unlike Anand and Nehru’s—were neither reliably democratic nor socialist, we need to acknowledge the role that their taste played both in creating modern architecture’s key monuments and a new cityscape, one whose aggressive modernity would strike many of the next generation as a betrayal of indigenous identity.

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Notas

1 Mulk Raj Anand, “Planning and Dreaming,” Marg, vol. 1, no. 1, October 1946, p. 3–6 (here p. 5).

2 A recent example is Jean-Louis Cohen, The Future of Architecture. Since 1889, London: Phaidon, 2012.

3 Lawrence J. Vale, Architecture, Power and National Identity, New Haven, ct: Yale University Press, 1992, p. 240–243.

4 Mulk Raj Anand, “Planning and Dreaming”, op. cit. (note 1), p. 6.

5 Through his friendship with Eric Gill, Mulk Raj Anand came into contact with MARS during his time in London and became an active member of the group. A. S. Dasan, “Anand as a Connoisseur of the Arts,” in Md Rizwan Khan, The Lasting Legacies of Mulk Raj Anand: A Tribute, New Dehli: Atlantic Publishers, 2008, p. 32–52. See also: Gyan Prakash, Mumbai Fables, Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press, 2010, p. 51–288.

6 “Mulk Raj Anand: Father-figure of the modern Indian Novel,” The Independant, 29 September 2004.

7 Mulk Raj Anand, Conversations in Bloomsbury, London: Wildwood House, 1981.

8 Mulk Raj Anand, Persian Painting, London: Faber and Faber, 1930, and Mulk Raj Anand, The Hindu View of Art, London: George Allen & Unwin, 1933.

9 Mulk Raj Anand, The Untouchable, London: Wishart, 1930.

10 Architectural Forum, June 1946, p. 89.

11 Otto Koenigsberger Private Archive, from lecture notes from the following lectures: “Scientific Research in Architecture” (Bangalore: Lecture to Annual Meeting of Mysore Engineers Association, 6 January 1940); “Modern Architecture” (Bangalore: Lecture at Mysore Engineering College, 29 January 1940) and “The Problem of a National Style in Indian Architecture” (Bangalore: University Extension Lecture, 13 September 1941).

12 Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge, The Papers of Professor Max Born, Born 1/2/2/6. Letter from Otto Koenigsberger to Max Born, 16 July 1945.

13 Minnette De Silva, The Life & Work of an Asian Woman Architect, Colombo: Smart Media Productions, 1998, p. 76.

14 Marg became part of ciam in 1947 when Minnette De Silva attended ciam vi in Bridgwater as the delegate for India-Ceylon. She also represented Marg at ciam ix in 1953 in Aix-en-Provence while Balkrishna Doshi attended ciam xiii, held in 1951 in Hoddesdon. In 1957, ciam was to be split up into Europe, The Americas and the East. Suggested delegates for “The East” and specifically India were Doshi and Prabawalkha, but not Minnette De Silva. See: Eric Mumford, The ciam Discourse on Urbanism, 1928–1960, Cambridge, ma: mit, 2000, p. 228, 324, 337.

15 Minnette De Silva, The Life & Work of an Asian Woman Architect, op. cit. (note 13), p. 79.

16 Ibid. De Silva actually refers to mjp (Minoo) Mistry and jpj (Jehangir) Bilimoria. Minoo Mistry (1912–2006) was a senior partner at the architectural firm Ditchburn, Mistry and Bhedwar in Mumbai. Minnette De Silva worked in his office. He moved to Karachi in the mid 1940s where he designed the National Bank of Pakistan and the Teen Talwar monument. JPJ (Jehangir) Bilimoria appears to be the architect, who, when based in Mumbai, inspired Piloo Mody to become an architect. See: Piloo Mody, Zulfi My Friend, Dehli: Thomson Press, 1973, p. 12.

17 Marlene Fisher, The Wisdom of the Heart: A Study of the Works of Mulk Raj Anand, New Delhi: Sterling, 1985, p. 184.

18 Minnette De Silva, The Life & Work of an Asian Woman Architect, op. cit. (note 13), p. 78.

19 Marlene Fisher, The Wisdom of the Heart: A Study of the Works of Mulk Raj Anand, op. cit. (note 17), p. 184.

20 Ibid.

21 Ibid.

22 Jon Lang, Madhavi Desai and Miki Desai, Architecture and Independence: The Search for Identity. India 1880–1980, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 12.

23 Partha Mitter, The Triumph of Modernism: Indias Artists and the Avant-garde, 1922–1947, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 227.

24 Margit Franz, “Transnationale & transkulturelle Ansätze in der Exilforschung am Beispiel der Erforschung einer kunstpolitischen Biographie von Walter Langhammer,” in Heidrun Zettelbauer (ed.), Mapping Contemporary History: Zeitgeschichten im Diskurs, Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2008, p. 243–272.

25 e.g. Rudolf von Leyden, “The Sculpture of Ambernath,” Marg, vol. 1, no. 1, October 1946, p. 58–67; Rudolf von Leyden, “Some Contemporary Artists,” Marg, vol. 4, no. 3, Deepavali 1950 [Deepavali is an important Hindu festival in October/November, so it is used instead of the month], p. 34–38; Rudolf von Leyden, “The Drawings of Homi Bhabha,” Marg, vol. 6, no. 3, June 1953, p. 32–37.

26 Margit Franz, “Transnationale & transkulturelle Ansätze in der Exilforschung am Beispiel der Erforschung einer kunstpolitischen Biographie von Walter Langhammer,” op. cit. (note 24), p. 262, 265.

27 Preeti Chopra, A Joint Enterprise: Indian Elites and the Making of British Bombay, Minneapolis, mn: University of Minnesota Press, 2011, introduction, p. 12 and p. 87-112.

28 Mulk Raj Anand, “In Memoriam: Homi Bhabha,” Marg, vol. 19, no. 2, March 1966, p. 1-3; Homi Bhabha, “Leonardo da Vinci”, Marg, vol. 5, no. 4, 1952, p. 1-7.

29 Mulk Raj Anand, “In Memoriam: Homi Bhabha,” op. cit. (note 28), p. 1-3; Homi Bhabha, “Leonardo da Vinci,” op. cit. (note 28), p. 1-7.

30 Marlene Fisher, The Wisdom of the Heart: A Study of the Works of Mulk Raj Anand, op. cit. (note 19), p. 184.

31 Frank Harris, Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata: A Chronicle of his Life, Bombay: Blackie, 1958, p. 116.

32 Aman Nath and Jay Vithalani, Horizons: The Tata-India Century, Mumbai: India Book House, 2004, p. 29.

33 Jesse S. Palsetia, The Parsis of India: preservation of identity in Bombay city, Leiden: Brill, 2001, p. 60.

34 The JN Tata Endowment Scheme for higher education was set up in 1892, funding for the Indian Institute of Science was bequeathed by JN Tata in 1904 and it opened in 1911.

35 Marlene Fisher, The Wisdom of the Heart: A Study of the Works of Mulk Raj Anand, op. cit. (note 19), p. 185.

36 W. G. Archer and M. S. Randhawa, “Some Nurpur Paintings—A Symposium,” Marg, vol. 8, no. 3, June 1955, p. 8-25; Ananda Coomaraswamy, “Archaic Indian Terracottas,” Marg, vol. 6, no. 2, June 1953, p. 22-35; Hermann Goetz, “The Neglected Aspects of Ajanta Art,” Marg, vol. 2, no. 4, Deepavali 1948, p. 34-64; Stella Kramrisch, “Kanthas of Bengal,” Marg, vol. 3, no. 2, April 1949, p. 18-29, 37.

37 “Architectural Education in India,” Marg, vol. 2, no. 3, July 1948, p. 4-7 (here p. 4).

38 Ibid., p. 5. At the time of independence there were only about 200 qualified architects in India. Jon Lang, Madhavi Desai and Miki Desai, Architecture and Independence, op. cit. (note 22), p. 190.

39 “Architecture and You,” Marg, vol. 1, no. 1, October 1946, p. 7-16; “Architecture and You,” Marg, vol. 17, no. 1, December 1963, p. 4-7.

40 The content of the article is very similar to that in the lectures given by Koenigsberger in Bangalore in the early 1940s. Otto Koenigsberger Private Archive, op. cit. (note 11).

41 “Architecture and You,” 1946, op. cit. (note 39), p. 15.

42 Ibid.

43 Thomas R. Metcalf, An Imperial Vision: Indian Architecture and Britain’s Raj, Berkeley, ca: University of California Press, 1989.

44 Arindam Dutta, The Bureaucracy of Beauty: Design in the Age of its Global Reproducibility, New York, ny: Routledge, 2007.

45 “Architecture and Planning,” Marg, vol. 1, no. 3, April 1947, p. 23-28 (here p. 28).

46 Jon Lang, Madhavi Desai and Miki Desai, Architecture and Independence: The Search for Identity. India 1880–1980, op. cit. (note 22), p. 190-191.

47 “Architecture and You,” 1946, op. cit. (note 39), p. 15.

48 The Vidhana Soudha, completed in Bangalore in 1956, is an example of this neo-traditional architecture.

49 Wayne Andrews, “The Recent Work of Frank Lloyd Wright,” Marg, vol. 7, no. 1, December 1953, p. 5-10; Richard Neutra “New India and Building,” Marg, vol. 1, no. 4, April 1947, p. 20-21, and Erich Mendelsohn, “The Great Adventure,” Marg, vol. 4, no. 3, October 1950 (Deepavali), p. 28-33.

50 “The Charter of Athens” in Marg is a translation of a German document, Auszüge aus der Charta von Athen (1947), that was itself a translation of a French document written by Le Corbusier, Charte dAthènes (1943), that was based on a German and French document Feststellungen/Constatations, that was authored by several ciam members in 1933. The Marg authors were clearly not aware of Josep Luis Sert’s personal version of the charter “The Town Planning Chart, Fourth ciam Congress Athens, 1933” published in Can our Cities Survive? (1942).

51 ciam (translated from German by A. B. Schwarz), “The Charter of Athens,ˮ Marg, vol. 3, no. 4, Deepavali 1949, p. 10-17.

52 ciam, “Thesen zum Städtebau: Auszüge aus der Charta von Athen,” BAU: Zeitschrift für wohnen, arbeiten und sich erholen I, no. 1, 1947, p. 21-26.

53 ciam 1949, p. 10-17 (here p. 11). An example of such a mistake: according to both the translation and the original German text, the second ciam meeting, “took place at Frankfurt-am-Main in 1932”.

54 Le Corbusier, The Athens Charter, trans. Anthony Earley, New York, ny: Grossman, 1973.

55 Partha Mitter, “Bauhaus in Kalkutta,” in Bauhaus global: Gesammelte Beiträge der Konferenze Bauhaus global vom 21. bis 26. September 2009, Berlin: Bauhaus Archiv, 2010, p. 149-158.

56 Patrick Geddes, “Trees and Open Spaces,” Marg, vol. 2, no. 3, July 1948, p. 9-15; Patrick Geddes, “Patrick Geddes on Planning,” Marg, vol. 3, no. 3, July 1949, p. 9; Lewis Mumford, “The Life and Work of Patrick Geddes,” Marg, vol. 2, no. 3, July 1948; and Mulk Raj Anand “Le Corbusier,” Marg, vol. 2, no. 4, October 1948 (Deepavali), p. 9-11.

57 Ibid. See also Le Corbusier, “Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow,” p. 12-19 of the same issue.

58 Marg, vol. 6, no. 4, October 1953 (Deepavali), p. 8-25; Marg, vol. 10, no. 2, March 1957, p. 45-50; Marg, vol 15, no. 1, December 1961; and Marg, vol. 17, no. 1, December 1963, p. 33-36, 41-42, 48-49, 57-59, 63, 66.

59 “Architecture and You,” 1963, op. cit. (note 39).

60 Le Corbusier, “Urbanism,” Marg, vol. 6, no. 4, October 1953 (Deepavali), p. 10-18.

61 Eric Mumford, The CIAM Discourse on Urbanism, 1928-1960, op. cit. (note 14), p. 204.

62 Jane Drew, “On the Chandigarh Scheme,” Marg, vol. 6, no. 4, October 1953 (Deepavali), p. 19-20, and Otto Koenigsberger, “Chandigarh—The First and the Revised Projects,” Marg, vol. 6, no. 4, October 1953 (Deepavali), p. 25.

63 Pierre Jeanneret, T. J. Manickam and Mansinh M. Rana, “Chandigarh Symposium,” Marg, vol. 10, no. 2, March 1957, p. 45-50.

64 Jon Lang, Madhavi Desai and Miki Desai, Architecture and Independence: The Search for Identity. India 1880–1980, op. cit. (note 22), p. 50.

65 Pierre Jeanneret, in Pierre Jeanneret, T. J. Manickam and Mansinh M. Rana, “Chandigarh Symposium,” op. cit. (note 63), p. 48.

66 T. J. Manickam, in Pierre Jeanneret, T. J. Manickam and Mansinh M. Rana, “Chandigarh Symposium,” op. cit. (note 63), p. 49.

67 Mansinh M. Rana, in Jon Lang, Madhavi Desai and Miki Desai, Architecture and Independence: The Search for Identity. India 1880-1980, op. cit. (note 22), p. 50.

68 The other Indian contributors to the December issue of volume 15 were Mrs. U. E. Chowdhury, B. P. Mathur, M. N. Sharma, Jeet Malhotra, N. S. Lamba, M. S. Randbawa, G. R. Nangea and A. B. Prabhawalkar, although some of these may only have designed buildings rather than also written the printed description of them.

69 Prakash is the father of Vikramaditya Prakash, author of Chandigarh’s Le Corbusier: The Struggle for Modernity in Postcolonial India, Seattle, wa: University of Washington Press, 2002.

70 Jane Drew, “On the Chandigarh Scheme,” op. cit. (note 62), p. 25.

71 Reeta Sharma, “Beautiful Mind Dutiful Life,” The Tribune, 11 March 2006, url: http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20060311/saturday/main1.htm. Accessed 17 May 2012.

72 M. S. Randhawa, “Landscape and Garden,” Marg, vol. 15, no. 1, December 1961, p. 51.

73 G. R. Nangea, “Engineering in the Service of the Community,” Marg, vol. 15, December 1961, p. 53.

74 Otto Koenigsberger, “The Story of a Town: Jamshedpur,” Marg, vol. 1, no. 1, October 1946, p. 18–29.

75 Otto Koenigsberger, “The Victory Hall at Bangalore,” Marg, vol. 4, no. 3, October 1950 (Deepavali), p. 25–27.

76 R. R. Handa and J. L. Vaz, “New Capital at Bhubaneswar,” Marg, vol. 12, no. 4, September 1955, p. 82–88.

77 “New Bearings in Indian Architecture,” Marg, vol. 2, no. 2, February 1948, p. 11-16 (here p. 11).

78 Ibid.

79 “The Campbell Medical College—Calcutta,” Marg, vol. 5, no. 1, 1951, p. 6–7.

80 Andrew Boyd, “A People’s Tradition,” Marg, vol. 1, no. 2, January 1947, p. 25–40.

81 “The Baur Building,” Marg, vol. 5, no. 3, 1952, p. 44–49.

82 Ibid.

83 Ibid.

84 eth Zurich, gta Archives, Sigfried Giedion Papers, 42_SG_34_14. Letter from Minnette De Silva to Sigfried Giedion 31.01.1950, enclosing “Statement of marg-ciam Activities.”

85 Jon Lang, Madhavi Desai and Miki Desai, Architecture and Independence: The Search for Identity. India 1880–1980, op. cit. (note 22), p. 44.

86 Mulk Raj Anand, “Reflections on the House, the Stupa, the Temple, the Mosque, the Mausoleum and the Town Plan from the Earliest Times till Today,” Marg, vol. 17, no. 1, December 1963, p. 8-40 (here p. 37).

87 “Jehangir Art Gallery,” Marg, vol. 5, no. 4, July 1952, p. 4–12.

88 Minnette De Silva, “A House at Kandy, Ceylon,” Marg, vol. 6, no. 3, June 1953, p. 4-11 (here p. 4).

89 eth Zurich, gta Archives, Sigfried Giedion Papers, 42_SG_34_14. Letter from Minnette De Silva to Sigfried Giedion 31.01.1950, enclosing “Statement of marg-ciam Activities.”

90 Mulk Raj Anand, “Living, Working, Care of Body and Spirit,” Marg, vol. 17, no. 1, December 1963, p. 2-3 (here p. 2).

91 Ibid., p. 2.

92 Marg, vol. 17, no. 1, December 1963, p. 39–69.

93 The later was modeled on Louis Kahn’s Trenton Bath Houses; its success helped generate the invitation Kahn received in 1962 to design the Indian Institute of Management in the same city. See Kathleen James, “Louis Kahn’s Indian Institute of Management’s Courtyard: Form versus Function,” Journal of Architectural Education, vol. 49, no. 1, 1995, p. 40–41.

94 See John Terry, “Demonstration Farm Centre for the Punjab,” Marg, vol. 1, no. 1, April 1947, p. 29-36; Richard Kauffman, “Jewish Agricultural Settlements in Palestine,” Marg, vol. 2, no. 4, October 1948 (Deepavali), p. 21–30.

95 See Kanji Dwarkada, “Workers’ Housing,” Marg, vol. 1, no. 1, October 1946, p. 31–35; Durga Bajpai, “Co-operative Housing,” Marg, vol. 4, no. 4, April 1951, p. 2–7; Jacqueline Tyrwhitt, “Special Supplement on Low Cost Housing Exhibition,” Marg, vol. 7, no. 2, March 1954 (Holi), p. 49–61.

96 Kathleen James, “Louis Kahn’s Indian Institute of Management’s Courtyard: Form versus Function,” op. cit. (note 93), p. 40–41.

97 Sibel Bozdoğan, Modernism and Nation Building in Turkish Architectural Culture in the Early Republic, Seattle, wa: University of Washington Press, 2002, and Richard J. Williams, Brazil, London: Reaktion Books, 2009 (Modern Architectures in History).

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Título Figure 1: Title page of Marg, vol. 1, no. 1 (October 1946).
Créditos Source: Marg.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/623/img-1.jpg
Ficheros image/jpeg, 54k
Título Figure 2: Excerpt from the manifesto “Architecture and You”, Marg, vol. 1, no. 1 (October 1946), p. 11.
Créditos Source: Marg.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/623/img-2.jpg
Ficheros image/jpeg, 10k
Título Figure 3: Excerpt from the manifesto “Architecture and You”, Marg, vol. 1, no. 1 (October 1946), p. 12.
Créditos Source: Marg.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/623/img-3.jpg
Ficheros image/jpeg, 17k
Título Figure 4: Excerpt from the manifesto “Architecture and You”, Marg, vol. 1, no. 1 (October 1946), p. 14.
Créditos Source: Marg.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/623/img-4.jpg
Ficheros image/jpeg, 10k
Título Figure 5: Cover of a Marg issue devoted to Chandigarh. Marg, vol. 15, no. 1 (December 1961).
Créditos Source: Marg.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/623/img-5.jpg
Ficheros image/jpeg, 33k
Título Figure 6: Cover of a Marg issue devoted to contemporary Indian architecture.
Leyenda Marg, vol. 17, no. 1 (December 1963).
Créditos Source: Marg.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/abe/docannexe/image/623/img-6.jpg
Ficheros image/jpeg, 43k
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Rachel Lee y Kathleen James-Chakraborty, «Marg Magazine: A Tryst with Architectural Modernity»ABE Journal [En línea], 1 | 2012, Publicado el 02 febrero 2012, consultado el 29 marzo 2024. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/abe/623; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/abe.623

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Autores

Rachel Lee

PhD Candidate, Habitat Unit, tu Berlin, Germany

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Kathleen James-Chakraborty

Professor of art history, ucd School of Art History & Cultural Policy, Dublin, Ireland

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