%0 Book Section %B The Classics and Colonial India %D 2013 %T Visions of Antiquity: Architecture and the Classical Style %A Vasunia, Phiroze %K Architectural Style %K Architecture %K Classical %K colonial india %K Ethnography %K gothic %K mughal %K New Delhi %K Race %X

The question of architectural propriety recurs in discussions about British building in India. Which architectural style was appropriate to India? In which style should colonial administrators construct their buildings and monuments? To which models should British architects in India turn for inspiration, the classical, the Gothic, the Mughal, or some other? These questions become prominent in the nineteenth century and continue until the building of New Delhi in the early part of the twentieth century, and beyond. The question of style is frequently and intensely discussed by architectural theorists and practitioners in the period of colonial rule. This chapter examines writings about architectural style and suggests that colonial rule, ethnography, and race are factors that need to be recalled in the study of colonial architecture in India.

%B The Classics and Colonial India %I Oxford University Press %P 156 - 191 %@ 0199203237 %U http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199203239.001.0001/acprof-9780199203239-chapter-5 %R 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199203239.003.0005