Rashtrapati Bhavan

• The present day Rashtrapati Bhavan was the erstwhile residence of the British Viceroy. Its architect was Edwin Landseer Lutyens. The decision to build a residence in New Delhi for the British Viceroy was taken after it was decided in the Delhi Durbar of 1911 that the capital of India would be shifted from Calcutta to Delhi in the same year. It was constructed to affirm the permanence of British rule in India.

• When constructed, it was called the Viceroy’s House. The name changed to Government House on August 15, 1947 when India became independent. On 26th January 1950 when Dr. Rajendra Prasad became the first President of India and occupied this building to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of India. It was from that day that this building was renamed as Rashtrapati Bhavan - the President's House.

• This mansion has a total of 340 rooms spread over four floors, 2.5 kilometres of corridors and 190 acres of garden area. It is built by using 700 million bricks and three million cubic feet of stone. Hardly any steel has gone into the construction of the building. Former President of India, Shri R. Venkataraman has rightly said, “Nature and man, rock and architecture, have rarely collaborated to so fine a purpose as in the fashioning of the magnificent Rashtrapati Bhavan.”

• The most prominent and distinguishing aspect of Rashtrapati Bhavan is its dome which is superimposed on its structure. It is visible from a distance and the most eye-catching round roof with a circular base in the heart of Delhi. The pre-dominance of Indian architecture in the dome is evident from the fact that it is encircled by railings of Sanchi origin. In fact, the whole of Rashtrapati Bhavan embodies in it Indian architectural patterns such as Buddhist railings, chhajjas, chhatris and jaalis.

• Another redeeming feature of the architecture of the Rashtrapati Bhavan is the use of Indian temple bells in its pillars. Blending these bells with the Hellenic style architecture is a fine example of the fusion of Indian and European designs. It is interesting to note that the ideas to adopt such bells in the pillars of Rashtrapati Bhavan came from a Jain temple at Moodabidri in Karnataka.

• Mahatma Gandhi, much before the political heads of independent India, was an early visitor to the newly constructed Viceroy’s House. The Viceroy had invited him for a meeting which was met with dissent by Winston Churchill. Nevertheless, Mahatma Gandhi carried with him salt to add to his tea as a mark of protest against the British Salt tax. The series of meetings between Mahatma Gandhi and Lord Irwin finally culminated in the famous Gandhi Irwin pact that was signed on March 5, 1931.

• The gates of Lutyens’ masterpiece Delhi which he described as “one complete organism, perfect and inseparable” have now been opened for the public on the initiative of Former President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee since August, 2012.