In times, when Google maps are part of our everyday journey, Pilar Maria Guerrieri has come up with a meticulously crafted book on “Maps of Delhi.” A Ph.D in architecture from Politecnico Di Milano who wants to be a philosopher, Pilar has found new meanings in maps of Delhi from the early 19th Century till the master plan of 2021 in this one of its kind book published by Niyogi. “My research focusses on the relationship between the contemporary and the traditional. For my Ph.D, I decided to go to a new country, see its culture and discover how tradition and contemporary go together,” says Pilar during a leisurely conversation on a hot Delhi day in Chutney restaurant of The Metropolitan Hotel & Spa. With fresh lime soda and vegetarian platter for company, the girl from Milan recounts how she had to pick between Brazil, China, South Africa and India, countries where lots of development, conservation and restoration work is going on. Pilar picked India for the rich resource material and the fact that for a serious Ph.D she needed to go to an English speaking country. That her parents have had a spiritual connection with the country also became a factor. “Italy is like mini-India, very attached to family and tradition,” says Pilar, showing how she can smoothly move from pasta to paneer tikka.
The book is part of a bigger project on how cultural exchanges affected Delhi in pre and post independent India from 1902 to 1962. There was lot of confusion about which colonies were existing before and after independence. This led her to these maps in different archives and libraries. “I was wondering when was Lodi Colony built, when was Jungpura and Karol Bagh came into being. After independence, whether colonies like Sarojini Nagar and Sundar Nagar were built first. Towards the end of the Ph.D when I was looking at these maps, I realised how easy it would have been had I got all these maps together at the beginning. I would have understood the city and development much quicker. So I thought why not publish it so that others could benefit.”
Pilar says that it is a misconception that documents are not available in India. “Of course, in the British Library you find it in one place but it is limited to the period of British rule in India.” That’s why, Pilar says, being an architect, who is working on pre and post Independent India put her in a unique position. “A historian might not need such visual support. So in many ways, it is a work shaped by my necessity. Perhaps, somebody didn’t need them so badly before,” notes Pilar.
Multiple meanings
She belongs to the school of Giancarlo de Carlo who laid emphasis on studying cities through mapping to understand the layers of the city and its identity. Pilar says a map tells different stories and a lot depends on the way they are interpreted. “It tells the technique of the time, the writing used, changes in spelling, sensitivity in terms of drawing....These map can never be done today. So they have a historic value and have many meanings hidden into them.” Like any work of art! “Maps can also help start a dialogue about how people in different parts of the city interact. The interaction people have had in Old Delhi with its narrow lanes is completely different from the interaction they have in New Delhi with gardens and parking spaces. The villages which have been subsumed in Delhi now have three-four storey buildings but the road pattern tells us that once there was a village here.”
Pilar Maria Guerrieri
Pilar holds that these maps have relevance when people are besotted to Google maps. “I am thinking of a way of merging the old maps and the development of the city with the contemporary Google maps. Because Google map is a living map...you know what is happening right now but you can’t go back to figure out what happened ten years ago.”
On Delhi being called a city of cities, Pilar says what sets the Capital apart from other mega cities is that there is no one core but multiple cores with their respective settlements around it. “My home town Milan has a core of human settlement and from there it moved and developed. In Europe, you can recognise that core in each and every city. It is not like one ruler coming and building a settlement and then a new ruler builds another settlement. Here there are so many cores” Some call them seven or eight but it can be counted upto 14. “The British didn’t enlarge Shahjehanabad. They built a railway line and demolished buildings around the Red Fort to ensure that the Mutiny doesn’t happen again and built a completely different city.”
However, the changing architecture also shows how the engagement of the rulers increased with local populace over a period of time. “If you look at St. James Church, it has Palladian architecture but as the British moved from coast to the inside of the country, they engaged with the local culture. Lutyens was asked to make cultural compromises in Rashtrapati Bhawan to suit the local culture,” analyses Pilar.
The hunt
Her journey was always exciting and at times funny. “I spent so much time drinking chai with officials in the archives. I would offer them biscuits in return of chai which always has lots of sugar,” chuckles Pilar. “They would often say, ‘you work so hard, come take a break.’ They are nice people.” One of the things that irks Pilar is that nobody starts working before 10.30-11.00 in the morning. “In British Library in London, I used to start working at 9 a.m. which means that the officials were there at 8.30. and then you work till 8 in the evening. So the time you work here is shortened quite a bit because by 5 it is time to pack up.”
The archives are very dusty as well. “There were days when I would return completely black with dust. As you have free access to libraries there is no particular order to find a book. One has to go virtually on a book hunt. Everybody hides the book.” Really? “Many times when a scholar finds a book, he or she puts it at a place where only he or she could find it next time,” recounts Pilar.
Sometimes when she didn’t a map of a place, she would go to the actual location for measurements. “So you knock the door and ask let me measure your house. It is like weird as people tend to think what does this woman want from their life. But invariably you end up eating with the whole family. It happened with me in Lodi Colony, one of the pre-independence colonies.”
Such experiences introduced her to Delhi food and now Pilar could not only pronounce pakodas and aloo paranthas correctly but also make them. She doesn’t mind having gol gappas at the street side vendor and jalebis of Old Delhi. “When I came here it was quite a contrast from Italian food. Here the food is much more complex and spicy. It is different but beautifully different. As I stay with Mr. (A.G. K.) Menon’s family, my first introduction was to South Indian food and, apart from Goan food, it remains my favourite.” As the staff requests for more, Pilar says, “Thoda khana hai. In summers, my appetite goes and Indian food is heavy.” Having said that, she picks the til wale aloo (potato stuffed with nuts and pomegranate in yoghurt) with red garnishing for it looks aesthetically pleasing. It leads us to the links between food and architecture. “Both need a strong foundation,” quips Pilar sipping her macchiato. “Like food is a combination of taste and presentation, architecture is all about functionality and aesthetics.”
Need of the hour
Pilar, who teaches History of Architecture at Goenka University, a partner of Politecnico di Milano, says she finds it odd when young Indian architects adopt a foreign model as inspiration. “I find it problematic. When you are copying a foreign model you should analyse whether it is fitting into the context of local climate and tradition. It is true for Dubai and Shanghai. It is not always students’ fault. Sometimes, the syllabus is also like that. Instead of focusing on history and heritage, they try to suggest that looking ahead means making a glass facade or copying the skyscrapers of New York.” She suggests jaali work as a very effective way of keeping cool. “Architects like Charles Correa, Raj Rewal and Ashish Ganju have been able to do blend this tradition with contemporary demands. So the aspirational value has to change. You have to find it within and have to work bottom up.”
