Walter Sykes George Explained

Walter Sykes George
Birth Date:1881
Death Date:7 January 1962
Death Place:Delhi

Walter Sykes George CBE, FRIBA, ARCA, FIIA, FIFA (1881–1962) was an English architect active in India during the first half of the 20th century, most known for being part of the team of architects who designed New Delhi, the new capital of India, from 1911-1931.[1]

Early life and education

George's family were Wesleyan Methodists. He was born at Canterbury Street, Ashton-under-Lyne, in 1881,[2] [3] the second of seven children. His father, William Henry George, was a builder's clerk[4] who later became an architect and auctioneer[5] and founded a family architectural practice with his children Walter, Helen and Henry.[6] He joined the School of Art in Ashton-under-Lyne to study architecture in 1894 and the School of Art in Manchester in 1899 where he continued his studies, receiving a Royal Exhibition in Art in 1901.[7] Later, he studied under A. Beresford Pite and W. R. Lethaby at the Royal College of Art, London.[8]

Early career

He practiced in London from 1901 and was awarded the Soane Medallion by the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1906.[9] [8] From 1906 to 1915 he worked with the British School at Athens and joined several excavations in Macedonia and Constantinople researching Byzantine monuments. He undertook extensive drawings of the Hagios Demetrios in Thessaloniki which became invaluable as the only extant drawings of the church when it burned down in the Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917.[8] His documentation of the Hagia Eirene resulted in the 1913 monograph, The Church of St Eirene at Constantinople.[10]

In India

George moved to India in 1915 in order to work with Herbert Baker on the proposed new city of New Delhi. He served as a trooper in the Punjab Light Horse of the Indian Defence Force while working on the Imperial Delhi Secretariat.[11] In 1923 he began to practice privately.[12] George along with William Robert Mustoe, the Director of Horticulture, landscaped and planted the Mughal Gardens of the Viceroy's House.[13] [14] George also designed several bungalows in the Lutyens Bungalow Zone.[15] The Council Chamber in Shimla that now houses the Legislative Assembly of Himachal Pradesh was designed by him and inaugurated by the Viceroy, Lord Reading in 1925.[16] [17] It has been described as "the only decent building in Simla" and one that "did much to redeem the PWD's work" in the summer capital of the British Raj in India.[18] [19] George also undertook projects for several princely states building the Jind, Mandi, Bahawalpur and Kashmir Houses in Delhi. Of these, the Kashmir House was designed along with Edwin Lutyens and was completed in 1929. In both Mandi House, completed in 1933. and Bahawalpur House, completed in 1939, George reproduced the Buddhist dome found on the Viceroy's House and featured Italianate loggias and columns. The Mandi and Jind houses have since been demolished whereas the Scindia House on Connaught Circus which was designed for the Maharaja of Gwalior today houses several tour operators' offices.[20] [21] [22] [23]

In 1932 the Regal Cinema, designed by George and built by Sir Sobha Singh on Connaught Place, opened and was Delhi's first cinema hall.[24] [25] A three-storeyed building modelled in the manner of a Palladian villa, it fuses Georgian and Mughal architectural features and has an overall concrete finish with its name cut out of the cornice.[26] [27] [28] The Lady Irwin College, inaugurated in 1932, was also designed by him. A single storeyed building along a rectangular plan, with vaulted ceilings in the corridors, it is built of exposed brick and has a semi-circular arched gateway entrance and a rectangular tower over its central porch.[29] The St. Thomas Church at Paharganj was built in 1933 for Indian converts to Christianity.[30] A brick structure plinthed on a base of Delhi quartzite stone, the building does not use steel or reinforced concrete but lime mortar.[31] The buttresses to the building were added subsequently in 1943.[32] A 61 feet tall tower accessed through a winding staircase tops the church which has a vaulted arch roof and is entered through a Roman style entrance portal.[32] The building has however required substantial remedial measures in subsequent decades as it used no steel or concrete in its construction and was unwittingly founded atop a graveyard, the collapse of which led to damage to the structure.[32] Work on St. Stephen's College began in 1939 and was completed in 1941. The College and its residential blocks have a composite design in which the main building links to the residential buildings with open courts and lawns between them.[33] The buildings are of unadorned red brick with a stone base of Delhi quartzite.[34] [35] The roofline is interspersed with chhatris whereas the colonnades and broad verandas are adaptations made for Delhi's climate. The central tower of the building resembles that of the Cambridge University Library built by George Gilbert Scott.[36] George also designed the College Chapel built in 1952.[37]

In 1942, George and his associates established the Department of Architecture as part of the Delhi Polytechnic in Kashmere Gate.[38] [39] It was the first school for architects to be established in North India.[40] Sujan Singh Park, the first residential apartment complex in New Delhi, was built during 1939-45.[41] Designed in the neoclassical style it is noted for its "semi-circular arches and high Mughal inspired-archways, Art Deco facades and exposed brick masonry".[42] The complex consists of seven four-storeyed apartment blocks housing eighty-four individual one- and two-bedroom apartments with each block surrounding a park - a design that deeply influenced the later work of Habib Rahman and became the model for several housing projects in Delhi undertaken by the Delhi Development Authority.[43] [44] [45] Dormitories built to accommodate construction workers building the complex were subsequently converted into one room units and form a sprawling servants' quarters spread across 12 blocks and house thrice as many people as the apartment complex itself.[46] The nearby Ambassador Hotel, now a part of the Taj group of hotels, built in 1945 was designed by George and was meant to house British officers serving in India without their families and who could therefore share common living rooms and kitchens.[47] [48] [46] This landmark building has elements of colonial and Art Deco styles of architecture and is one of the earliest hotels to be established in New Delhi.[49] The residential neighbourhood of Lodhi Colony was another major project completed in the 1940s by George.[50] Meant to house government employees, the colony is renowned for its pedestrian friendly design with ample open spaces and broad sidewalks.[51] Each apartment complex is walled off and has large repetitive arches in them leading to the residential quarters.[52] Its unique design with the large walls and arches made it popular with street artists and was inaugurated as the first art district of India.[53] [50]

In Independent India

After India's independence, George was the only architect of the group that had worked with Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker towards establishing New Delhi who chose to stay back in the country.[54] In 1948, Miranda House was founded as a residential women's college of the Delhi University as was the Arts Faculty Building of the Delhi University, both designed by George, and the foundation stones for both of which were laid on the same day by Lord Mountbatten.[55] [56] [57] He was founding member of the Institute of Town Planners, India and twice served as the president of the Indian Institute of Architects.[18] [58] The Tuberculosis Association Building, completed in 1952, marked an evolution in George's architectural practice. Its use of adjustable light-weight horizontal sun-breakers in place of the arched and colonnaded verandas of his earlier buildings represents the adaptation of the International Style of architecture whereas the materials used draw from the Anglo-Indian architecture of the preceding decades.[59] [60] [61]

George was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the Birthday Honours of 1960.[62]

Walter Sykes George died in Delhi on 7 January 1962.[63]

Style and legacy

Walter George's work marked Indian architecture's move towards modernism. George himself maintained that his architectural style represented nothing but "pure form, as dictated by the material".[64] His buildings with their use of exposed red bricks were innovative and a shift away from the pink sandstone used extensively in Lutyens' Delhi and was low-cost in comparison to the buildings of Lutyens and Baker.[65] [66]

External links

Notes and References

  1. News: A 'garden' in the centre of New Delhi. https://web.archive.org/web/20121022220905/http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/newdelhi/A-garden-in-the-centre-of-New-Delhi/Article1-707694.aspx . dead . 22 October 2012 . Hindustan Times. 9 June 2011 . Richard Butler, 'The Anglo-Indian architect Walter Sykes George (1881-1962): a Modernist follower of Lutyens', Architectural History, vol. 55 (2012), pp. 237-68
  2. Manchester, England, Non-Conformist Births and Baptisms, 1758-1912. Ashton-under-Lyne. Wesleyan Methodist, Stamford Street, 17 April 1881. Greater Manchester County Record Office (With Manchester Archives); Manchester, England; Reference Number: GB127.L10/6/1/1/2.
  3. HM Passport Office. General Register Office. England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1837-1915. 1881, Apr-May-Jun, Ashton-under -Lyne, Volume 8d, Page 447. Walter Sykes George. Mother's maiden name: Sykes.
  4. The National Archives of the UK (TNA); Kew, Surrey, England; Census Returns of England and Wales, 1881. Class: RG11; Piece: 4037; Folio: 94; Page: 52; GSU roll: 1341965.
  5. The National Archives of the UK (TNA); Kew, Surrey, England; Census Returns of England and Wales, 1891; Class: RG12; Piece: 3276; Folio: 94; Page: 18; GSU roll: 6098386.
  6. The National Archives of the UK (TNA); Kew, Surrey, England; Census Returns of England and Wales, 1901. Class: RG13; Piece: 3799; Folio: 34; Page: 60.
  7. News: 20 September 1901 . Success of an Ashton artist . The Manchester Evening News . 4.
  8. Kakissis . Amalia G. . The Byzantine Research Fund Archive: encounters of Arts and Crafts architects in Byzantium . British School at Athens Studies . 2009 . 17 . 125–144 . 40960678 . 2159-4996.
  9. Book: The Architectural Review . 1906 . EMAP Publishing Limited . 88 . 8 August 2022 . en.
  10. http://www.artfact.com/artist/george-walter-sykes-qs7snq75d7 Walter Sykes George (1881-1962)
  11. War Service of Students of the School, 1914-1919 . The Annual of the British School at Athens . 1918–1919 . xi . 25 June 2022.
  12. Davies . Philip . George, Walter Sykes . Oxford Art Online . 2003 . 10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.t031411 . 25 June 2022 . Oxford University Press. 978-1-884446-05-4 .
  13. News: Jalil . Rakhshanda . Landmark - Delhi redefined . 25 June 2022 . The Hindu . 10 December 2011.
  14. News: Who was adhi dilli ka malik and was paid Rs 16 for a job well done? . 25 June 2022 . The Indian Express . 30 December 2021.
  15. News: Lutyens' Delhi . 25 June 2022 . Outlook India . 3 February 2022.
  16. News: The Tribune - Windows - Featured story . 25 June 2022 . www.tribuneindia.com.
  17. Web site: Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly - Historical Background . 25 June 2022.
  18. Stamp . Gavin . British Architecture in India 1857-1947 . Journal of the Royal Society of Arts . 1981 . 129 . 5298 . 357–379 . 41373304 . 0035-9114.
  19. Book: Singh . Khushwant . Sahibs Who Loved India . 3 January 2011 . Penguin UK . 978-93-5118-789-9 . 25 June 2022.
  20. Book: Temple . Nicholas . Piotrowski . Andrzej . Heredia . Juan Manuel . The Routledge Handbook on the Reception of Classical Architecture . November 2019 . Taylor & Francis Group . 978-1-315-17110-4 . 263 . 7 August 2022 . en.
  21. Web site: The Architecture of Walter George . The Lutyens Trust . 7 August 2022.
  22. News: Gupta . Narayani . Of Icons and Iconoclasts: Saving Delhi's Modern Heritage . 7 August 2022 . The Wire . 6 May 2016.
  23. Web site: Report On The Administration Of Bahawalpur State For The Year 1942 1943 . 7 August 2022 . 1944.
  24. News: Delhi's Regal Cinema: Screen goes dark after Raj Kapoor's 'Sangam' . 25 June 2022 . National Herald . 30 March 2017.
  25. News: Old theatres make way to grand multiplexes . 25 June 2022 . Rediff.
  26. News: Premier theatre to a run-down establishment – Looking back at Delhi's once-famous Regal Cinema . 25 June 2022 . The Indian Express . 31 March 2022.
  27. ALLANA . RAHAAB . CINEMA CITY: The Photographs of Shahid Datawala . India International Centre Quarterly . 2013 . 40 . 1 . 148–154 . 24393299 . 0376-9771.
  28. News: Salam . Ziya Us . End of an era . 25 June 2022 . The Hindu . 30 March 2017.
  29. Web site: Built Heritage/Site Detail: Lady Irwin College . nmma.nic.in . NMMA . 25 June 2022.
  30. Web site: A Dream Destination - Delhi: Faith . Delhi Tourism . 11 July 2022.
  31. Book: Rahman . Md. Najibur . Colonial Architecture in Metropolitan India: Imperial Power and State Architecture in The Town of Delhi . 2006 . Centre of Advanced Study, Department of History, Aligarh Muslim University . Aligarh . 72–73 . 11 July 2022.
  32. Sharma . Devendra . Foundation Failure of the St. Thomas Church, New Delhi . International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering . 1 June 1988 . 1365–1369 . 11 July 2022.
  33. Web site: RESIDENCE – St. Stephen's College, Delhi . 25 June 2022.
  34. Book: Lang . Jon T. . A Concise History of Modern Architecture in India . 2002 . Orient Blackswan . 978-81-7824-017-6 . 11 . 25 June 2022.
  35. Web site: Prospectus 2018-19 . St Stephen's College . 25 June 2022.
  36. Web site: The Lutyens Trust New Delhi Exhibition and Study Tour - October 2007 . The Lutyens Trust . 27 June 2022.
  37. Web site: College Brochure (2020-2021) . St. Stephen's College . 25 June 2022.
  38. News: 70 years after its creation, an institution remains at the forefront of nation building . 27 June 2022 . The Indian Express . 3 February 2019.
  39. Web site: Sengupta . Tania . 82. Indian Subcontinent, 1750–1947 . 27 June 2022.
  40. Web site: Walter Sykes George Collection . digilib.iicdelhi.in . India International Centre . 27 June 2022.
  41. Book: Glendinning . Miles . Mass Housing: Modern Architecture and State Power – a Global History . 25 March 2021 . Bloomsbury Publishing . 978-1-4742-2929-6 . 457 . 29 June 2022 . en.
  42. News: Brick by Brick . 25 June 2022 . The Indian Express . 16 January 2020.
  43. News: Making history with brick and mortar - Hindustan Times . 25 June 2022 . archive.ph . 5 December 2012 . 5 December 2012 . https://archive.today/20121205200651/http://www.hindustantimes.com/Making-history-with-brick-and-mortar/Article1-745801.aspx . dead .
  44. Web site: Habib Rahman - Articles – bauhaus imaginista . www.bauhaus-imaginista.org . 27 June 2022.
  45. News: Kapur . Manavi . Legacy on rent . 29 June 2022 . Business Standard India . 29 March 2014.
  46. News: Soofi . Mayank Austen . The Sujan Singh Park you don't know . 29 June 2022 . mint . 17 October 2015 . en.
  47. News: Khan Market world's 28th costliest location; slips 2 positions . 25 June 2022 . Deccan Herald . 23 November 2016.
  48. News: 'Lodged' in the heart of New Delhi . 25 June 2022 . Hindustan Times . 30 August 2011.
  49. News: A fine balance of luxury and care . 27 June 2022 . Hindustan Times . 21 July 2011.
  50. Web site: Lodhi Art District . @GI_weltweit . Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan New Delhi . 10 July 2022 . en.
  51. News: Venkataraman . Janane . How Delhi's Lodhi Colony became India's first public art district . 10 July 2022 . The Hindu . 27 April 2019 . en-IN.
  52. Web site: Bhatnagar . Amogh . The Arches in Delhi's Lodhi Colony . Paper Planes . 10 July 2022 . 7 December 2021.
  53. News: Kalra . Vandana . How artwork gave Lodhi Colony fresh lease of life . 10 July 2022 . The Indian Express . 3 July 2022 . en.
  54. Butler . Richard . The Anglo-Indian Architect Walter Sykes George (1881–1962): a Modernist Follower of Lutyens . Architectural History . 25 June 2022 . 237–268 . 10.1017/S0066622X00000113 . 2012. 55 .
  55. Web site: Faculty of Arts . nmma.nic.in . National Mission on Monuments and Antiquities . 7 August 2022.
  56. Book: Down Memory Lane: The Platinum Year, 1922-1997 . 2000 . University of Delhi . 34 . 7 August 2022 . en.
  57. Web site: Best Science colleges of India 2011 . Rediff . 25 June 2022.
  58. Web site: Institute of Town Planners India – Origin . www.itpi.org.in . 25 June 2022.
  59. Web site: Chatterjee . Malay . Cunha . Dilip da . Tiwari . Meenu . I. 1947 – 1959: Options after Independence, the Evolution of Contemporary Indian Architecture . Architecture In India . 30 June 2022 . en . 1985.
  60. Web site: Modern Heritage: Listing . THINKMATTER . 30 June 2022 . en . 18 December 2018.
  61. Web site: Post 1947 Developments-Buildings Part1 . Architecture of Delhi- By Afshan Adeeb . 30 June 2022 . en.
  62. Central Chancery of the Orders of Knighthood . Supplement to the London Gazette . 3993 . 11 June 1960 . 27 June 2022.
  63. Architects . Royal Institute of British . Obituaries . RIBA Journal . 1962 . 69 . 102 . 29 June 2022 . Royal Institute of British Architects . en.
  64. Book: Borngässer . Barbara . Klein . Bruno . Global Gothic: Gothic Church Buildings in the 20th and 21st Centuries . 17 February 2022 . Leuven University Press . 978-94-6270-304-9 . 104 . en.
  65. Book: Sengupta . Ranjana . Delhi Metropolitan . 1 January 2008 . Penguin UK . 978-93-86057-80-8 . 8 August 2022 . en.
  66. Book: Greaves . Sofia . Wallace-Hadrill . Andrew . Rome and the Colonial City: Rethinking the Grid . 2022 . Oxbow Books . 978-1-78925-782-3 . 384 . 8 August 2022 . en.

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