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Project Portfolio – March 2006

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Library for the Indian Parliament

New Delhi, India
Raj Rewal Associates

Raj Rewal Associates combines traditional and modern forms to create an original scheme for India’s Parliament library in New Delhi

	Photo Courtesy Raj Rewal Assoc.

By Sam Lubell

Raj Rewal’s Parliament Library, located in the heart of Sir Edwin Lutyens’s and Herbert Baker’s colonial New Delhi, is a hugely important project for India. This is especially true at a time when the country is rapidly developing its industrial and information-technology sectors. Not only does the library furnish vital research and meeting capabilities for the government, but its architecture attempts to establish an Indian identity within the once British imperial capital. The circular and rectilinear geometries of its plan, forms, materials, and decorative motifs recall the architectural patrimony of Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist temples more directly than buildings by the early-20th-century British architects.

Since the library was designed by an Indian, who is adapting traditional forms to modern technology and functions for the symbolically important site, Rewal’s conscientious endeavor is very much a statement about the direction architecture should take here. Most new architecture in the country is not based on Indian tradition, Rewal argues, but is rootless, and if anything obsessed with novelty, or, at the other end of the stylistic spectrum, ends up being a “silly historical pastiche.”

One of India’s most established architects, Rewal has completed several important projects in this city, including the World Bank Regional Mission (1993) and a campus for the National Institute of Immunology (1988). But this $45 million, 590,000-square-foot complex appears by far to be the high point of his career. It took more than a dozen years to realize: In 1991 Rewal won the commission for the much-needed addition to India’s Parliament—a Classical-style building designed by Baker in 1927. The program for the sprawling library called for offices, meeting rooms, and study spaces for members of the Indian legislature. As a major state building, it needed to express grandeur and solidity, but as a house of learning it also needed to be calming, quiet, and inspirational.

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the People

Owner
Government of India

Architect
Raj Rewal Associates
S-7, Triveni,
DDA Commercial Complex,
Sheikh Sarai Phase – 1,
New Delhi – 110 017.
Tel: 011 – 601 4101,601 5428;
Fax: 011 – 601 5429
E-mail: rajrewal@del2.vsnl.net.in

Raj Rewal, Arvind Mathur, Anshu Mahajan, H.S. Sandhu, Sanjeet Bose, Arun Rewal, Pratap Talwar

Interior designer:
Ankur Mathur, Vipin Thakur

Engineer(s)
C.P.W.D (Delhi) www.cpwd.nic.in
R.F.R. (Paris) www.rfr.fr

Consultant(s)
Landscape:
Satish Khanna

Lighting:
C.P.W.D www.cpwd.nic.in
Satish Khanna

Acoustical:
C.P.W.D. www.cpwd.nic.in

General contractor
LARSEN & TOUBRO LTD,
Ecc Construction Division,
3rd floor Som Datt Chambers–1,
5 Bhikaiji Cama Place,
Post Box No. 5,
R K Puram,
New Delhi – 110 066.
Tel: 011 – 610 6639, 610 6037;
Fax: 011 – 619 4463;
E-mail: ltcgdro@del2.vsnl.net.in
www.larsentoubro.com

Photographer(s)
Raj Rewal Studio

the Products

Exterior cladding
Masonry:
Sandstone

Concrete:
R.C.C Frame Works

Hardware
Locksets:
Dorma www.dorma.com; D Line

Furnishings
Mr Dhruv Sharma, General Manager,
GODREJ & BOYCE MANUFACTURING CO LTD,
Godrej Bhawan, Okhla,
Sher Shah Suri Marg,
New Delhi – 110 065.
Tel: 011 – 692 1062
www.godrej.com

Office furniture (workstations):
Mr M B Baheti, Managing Director, Decora Tubes Ltd,
(SS Divn.), -Plot No.55/56,
Sector No. 1,
Industrial Area,
Pithampur - 454 775,
Distt. Dhar,
Madhya Pradesh;
Tel: 07292 – 53 736, 53 566;
Fax: 07292 – 53 163, 53 507;
E-mail: decora@sancharnet.in

Office and committee room furniture: Mukherjee Associates
16 India Exchange Place,3rd floor,
Kolkata – 700 001;
Tel: 033 – 220 9969, 2206055;
Fax: 033 – 220 4050
– Manufactured by:
Mr Sachin,
Simple Enterprises,
1-B, Ram Nagar,
Paharganj,
New Delhi – 110 055;
Tel: 011 – 351 8520, 361 7552;
Fax: 011 – 361 5450

Library stacks:
Mr R D S Tiwana,
Exquisite Decor Pvt Ltd,
19 Harcharan Bagh,
Andheria Mode,
Mehrauli,
New Delhi - 110030;
Tel: 011 – 689 9143, 613 8570, 612 4145

Conveyance
Elevators/Escalators:
Otis www.otis.com

Other
Cast stainless steel nodes for the Focal dome:
Mr S R Krishnan, Director,
Kartik Steel Ltd,
2nd floor Rosy Tower,
7 Nungambakkam High Road,
Chennai – 600 034;
Tel: 044 – 827 1086;
Fax: 044 – 822 1194;
E-mail: ksc34@md3.vsnl.net.in

Kitchen & pantry equipment:
Continental Equipment India Pvt Ltd,
B-66, Okhla Phase– 1,
New Delhi – 110 020;
Tel: 011 – 681 6297, 681 6298, 681 5137, 681 5138;
Fax:011–6815297, 681 6764;
E-mail: info@ceipl.com; Web: www.ceipl.com

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