There is a striped concrete construction that peeps from above the trees at Siri Institutional area. Locals call it the “Pyjama building”. The National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) building in the capital is known as such because its structure appears similar to that of a pair of pants and this zig-zag property is one of the apt examples of the city’s Brutalist architecture.
According to Rajat Ray, former professor and Dean of Architecture at Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University in New Delhi, the word “Brutalism” comes not from “brutal” or a sense of harshness but from the French word ‘béton brut’, meaning raw concrete. This modern style emerged in ’50s England, roughly after World War II and was characterised by sophisticated, geometrical forms, built out of exposed concrete, unlike traditional decorative ornamentations. Buildings no longer needed to imitate stone palaces or colonial facades. Architects now got their hands on to a different expression, using concrete, steel, and glass.
The term 'New Brutalism,' derived from the Swedish phrase ‘Nybrutalism’, was first used by British architects Alison and Peter Smithson to describe their distinctive design approach. “Until the 1940s, even when technology changed, buildings were still made to look like old ones,” Ray explains. Steel and Concrete replaced stone and brick inside, but outside, people still decorated them like imperial buildings. Brutalism broke that mismatch.
Additionally, the new architectural form was also about politics. It was linked with modernism, socialism, and democracy. The monumental concrete structures were symbolic of the ‘people’s architecture’, public, egalitarian, and free from the excesses of feudal styles.
Brutalism in Delhi
Le Corbusier, a pioneer of modern architecture and also an inspiration to Brutalism, who brought this architectural style to India, died on August 27, 1965. This year marks his 60th death anniversary. His Capital complex of Chandigarh has the most famous examples of this architectural form. His High Court and Assembly buildings in the city, with their non-plastered grey concrete and massive shapes, represented a new vision of democracy. These modern structures inspired a number of architects into making similar designs for India's capital city, many of which were later identified as Brutalist buildings.
However, according to photographer Ram Rahman of Delhi, who is also the son of the well-known architect Habib Rahman, not all buildings in the city can be identified as Brutalist. “When India became independent, the government lacked financial resources,” he remarks. “Hence, the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru promoted young architects who had studied from the USA or England, and were using a new style of modernism which came from Europe.” The material used in such modern architectural establishments was glass, concrete, and steel. Simple, geometric shapes were constructed, without any “classical details”.
Breaking the old mould
The Shri Ram Centre for Performing Arts at Mandi House, designed by architect Shiv Nath Prasad, is both Rahman and Ray’s favourite example of a Brutalist structure. “It is very difficult to describe it in words,” Ray says. “When you stand in front of it, you feel its power. It has a cylindrical middle, a cubical top, bold fins; no decorative moulding or claddings like Mughal arches or Lutyens’ Delhi. But its raw concrete and volume give an impression of a powerful man standing before you.”
Shiv Nath Prasad conceptualised Delhi’s first masterplan in the 1960s. “He was a mercurial personality, independent, and powerful," Ray tells TMS. The architect is known to have worked all by himself with very few people helping him. “His buildings, like himself, were monumental.”
Other Delhi architects also welcomed the architectural reform. Kuldeep Singh designed the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) building (also called the Palika Kendra), on Parliament Street. The structure is reflected in the NDMC’s logo itself–a huge tower of bare concrete, bent, slanting at the bottom.
The architects were then exploring new aesthetics, Ray calls it a correlation with modern art. A building no longer had to look like a house with a pitched roof; it could resemble any small or big shape.
A radical shift
The architects who indulged in this form, fought shy of any ornamentation. Earlier, buildings were decorated with stone carvings, arches, and plaster motifs. However, this concept of traditional architecture and design was soon blurred. The patterns left by timber moulds on poured concrete, random shapes, were now more appealing.
“Modern architecture broke the old idea of a building,” Ray says. “For centuries, buildings were thick and wide at the base and lighter and narrower at the top. Children still draw houses with sloping roofs and windows. But Modernism and Brutalism changed that completely. Forms could now be awkward, large, abstract, and yet functional.”
Some of these buildings became associated with government institutions or cultural centres, boring them a strong public identity. Others, like the National Dairy Development Board building near Safdarjung, designed by Achyut Kanvinde, is a combination of exposed concrete and some colour but still built with the same monumental, cubical form.
Another such example of this architectural style, the Hall of Nations building, designed by Raj Rewal, was demolished in April 2017 by the Indian government, as a part of a redevelopment project at Pragati Maidan complex. “The Hall of Nations was kind of the most prominent,” Rahman adds. “But the entire Pragati Maidan complex was demolished. Now, in that complex were buildings by very well-known architects, including Joseph Stein, Ram Sharma, and my father Habib Rahman.”
Fighting the fragility
However, a major problem these structures face is their maintenance. Rain, heat, and pollution leave stains, cracks, and moss. Unlike stone or brick, concrete does not age gracefully.
“Well-cast concrete buildings have a life of 60 to 70 years. When these buildings are new, they look powerful. But if not maintained well, the concrete looks dirty, it crumbles, and water seeps in. You need constant care, which few institutions provide,” professor Ray notes.
The NDMC building, for instance, now bears the scars of time, moss creeping along its tower, chipped concrete, and cracks snaking across its striped surface. At the ISBT in Kashmere Gate, the surfaces have been painted over to mask deterioration, while the Shri Ram Centre for Performing Arts has been coated in a protective layer of grey.
The question, therefore, is no longer only about maintenance, it is about whether these peculiar giants will rise anew or crumble as a forgotten dream as time passes.