ARCHITECTURE OF BRITISH INDIA

Did the architecture of British India represent an essentially civilizing influence upon India, or just a manifestation of the power and insensitivity of the colonizer?'



Did the architecture of British India represent an essentially civilizing influence upon India, or just a manifestation of the power and insensitivity of the colonizer?'

Introduction

The buildings and empires present in India today give us an overview of the change brought by the British in India and changed the architecture to bring it up to the standard of British Raj. India is invaded many times by Aryans mainly due to attraction of riches and resourceful land and also the natural beauty. Since it has always been a flourished supremacy. Even Europeans could not deny from this fact. The interest of Europeans has also been visible in the old times and for obvious reasons. Europe could have taken many advantages of India in form of textile mills, spices and other oriental products (Spear, P., 1990. pp. 15-258). These are the main areas of interest for invaders like Vasco De Gamma from 1498, ditches in 1590 and east India Company in 1600s. The Europeans expanded their invasion over India after industrial revolution in order to gain maximum profits from emerging market and to launch their products. Other features of India that attracted Europeans include cheap labor and variety of available raw material. The British have successfully formed their colonies in India and are considered to be the ones with utmost authority and power. British followed the same pattern and tactics as of Dutch and their power and rule can be categorized into five categories ranging from 1600, 1740, 1792, 1820 and 1848 (Ludden, D., 2002, pp. n.d.). The east India Company of British was formed on 31 December 1600 (Barbara D. & Thomas R. M., 2001, pp. n.d.).

The magnificent infrastructure of India was not possible without the industrial revolution. The main idea behind bringing industrial revolution in India was the formation of colonies by British. The architecture of Indian Buildings was a pure representation of colonial aims and objectives. It was an indicator of power, authority, ruler ship, and a means of establishing a connection or bond with population of India that was populated in those colonies and presented a became of symbol of rule.

Discussion

The architectural designs with the name of The Jeypore Portfolio of Architectural Details were presented by the Swinton Jacob in 1890s, who was the Engineer entitled by the state of Jaipur within the jurisdiction of King's support. This portfolio was comprised of six large volumes. This set of architectural design was further broken down to another six hundred designs of buildings at a very large scale in form of drawings. These drawings were inspired from the buildings of army of northern India. Inclusive of tombs, mosques, forts and temples from the tomes of twelfth century to eighteenth. These works of architecture were presented in an organized form depending upon functions rather than the ...