The West Bengal Government's new Secretariat on Hastings Street, Calcutta
The West Bengal Government's new Secretariat on Hastings Street, Calcutta: The building was planned according to the modern trend in designs of office buildings and architecture such as the United Nations Headquarters in New York and the Ministry of Education building in Rio de Janeiro. © Habib Rahman

The construction of the fourteen-story New Secretariat Building at Calcutta marked the beginning of high-raise construction in India. Following Independence, new areas of administrative activity generated an enormous demand for office space. The programme for the New Secretariat called for maximizing floor space on a one-acre corner plot a kilometre away from the old Secretariat. In the absence of height and F.A.R. restrictions, the only constraint was the soil condition and high water-table, which hurled out the possibility of a basement for service-areas.

The steel frame during construc­tion
The steel frame during construc­tion: Two fourteen-storied blocks of 20m x 80m and 20m x 40m respectively paced in L-shaped arrangement, were designed on a grid of 6.6m x 6.6m. the frame structure rests on 25m deep R.C. piles. Engineers on the job had no previous experience of designing elevators and services for such a tall building. The mail chutes, fire-fighting wet risers, and running of plumbing through central service shafts were all novelties introduced through this building. Both Architects and engineers had to learn from scratch, on site. © Habib Rahman

Calcutta’s New Secretariat Building remained the tallest modern building for a decade, a showpiece for the Government of West Bengal.1

  • 1. Chatterjee, Malay. "I. 1947 – 1959: Options after Independence, the Evolution of Contemporary Indian Architecture." In Architecture In India, Paris and Milan: Electa Moniteur, 1985. Pp. 128

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Chatterjee, Malay. "I. 1947 – 1959: Options after Independence, the Evolution of Contemporary Indian Architecture." In Architecture In India, 124-131. Paris and Milan: Electa Moniteur, 1985.