Place · presidential palace · India
Rashtrapati Bhavan
The former Viceroy's House in New Delhi, designed by Edwin Lutyens and completed 1929 as the official residence of the British Viceroy of India — repurposed as the Rashtrapati Bhavan (official residence of the President of India) after Independence in 1947. The 320-room sandstone palace on Raisina Hill is the world's largest residence for a head of state. The architecture synthesises Indo-Saracenic motifs (chhajjas, chhatris, jalis) over a Palladian classical base — Lutyens' deliberate hybrid for the imperial-to-colonial transition. The Mughal Gardens (12 hectares, renamed Amrit Udyan in 2023 by the Modi government) draw public visitors each February-March. The 20-metre Jaipur Column in front holds a bronze Star of India at its tip.
- Function
- Religious institution & practice
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 28.614, 77.200
Connections (2)
- Contemporary capital withParliament House / Sansad Bhavan
Baker's Council House and Lutyens's Viceroy's House were built simultaneously for two incompatible ideas of what British India was becoming: a consultative legislature with elected Indian members, and a viceregal court with three hundred and forty rooms. The first became the Parliament of a republic and the second its President's residence, both without structural alteration.
- Site withinDelhi
Rashtrapati Bhavan lies within Delhi — the two sites sit about 1 km apart, well inside the city's historical boundary and part of the same urban or peri-urban landscape. Rashtrapati Bhavan is one of the specific sites that give Delhi its layered character, and reads differently when seen as a stop within the larger city rather than as an isolated monument on an open map. The surrounding neighbourhoods, roads and other heritage ensembles belong to the same single urban fabric.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Rashtrapati Bhavan”. Archaeological Survey of India and State Archaeology monument records, and the standard regional literature.
Open Rashtrapati Bhavan in the repository →