22 JANUARY 1927, Page 2

On Tuesday at Delhi Lord Irwin opened the splendid Council

House, and thus declared Delhi the new capital of India in reality as well as in name. It was a challenge to the architects of our generation to be asked to build a capital fit to carry on the tradition of the Moguls which made Delhi the seat of Government for all India. True, Delhi was the site of many cities which disappeared one after the other, perhaps because they bred disease. Still, Delhi is the Troy of India. Sir Edwin Lutyens, in the whole lay-out of the new city as well as in several buildings, and Sir Herbert Baker, in the Council House and the noble Secretariat, have indubitably shown their genius. The work is characteristically the work of English architects, but it has drunk deep of the Indian spirit. The Council House is to hold the two all-Indian Legislatures and the Chamber of Princes.

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