Documenting the building of one city

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Madan Mahatta’s works are part of an exhibition curated by Ram Rahman

Before the rebellion of 1857, the East India Company began promoting the use of photography to document the areas under its control. This documentation had been previously done — and painstakingly so — by draughtsmen.

But the older method took too long, so the British began training the officers in their army in the new technology.
When the British recaptured Delhi after the mutiny, much of the city was destroyed. The earliest known photos of the city were taken by Felice Beato, whose famous panorama shot from the north minar of the Jama Masjid, shows the area between the mosque and the Red Fort, before it was razed. The photos made their way into historian Jim Masselos’ album, published in 1997.
A different set of photographs, depicting the Delhi of an entirely different time, are part of an exhibition curated by noted photographer Ram Rahman, currently on display in Mumbai. The works in question are the architectural photographs of Madan Mahatta (of the iconic Mahatta Studio at Connaught Place fame), depicting New Delhi from the 1950s-80s — when it was at the height of “Nehruvian modernism”.
“It was important to show this work because no one had ever done a show of contemporary architectural photography and also because it was such fine work,” says Ram Rahman.
The son of a renowned architect (Habib Rahman), Ram says he came into contact with Mahatta’s work at an early age: “I knew all his work from my childhood on. When I started photographing architecture myself in the 1980s, I began to realise how great Madan’s architectural work was. The period in which he was shooting were the glory years of Delhi’s modern architecture.”
Perhaps the start of these glory years was when several prominent architects relocated to Delhi in the early 1950s (as Ram noted in an essay on the context of Madan Mahatta’s architectural photography, and which he shared with us). Habib Rahman, Joseph Allen Stein, Achyut Kanvide were among them. Stein commented (Ram notes in his essay) that the spirit of Gandhiji was still prevalent at that time, and this spirit perfectly complemented the “less is more” philosophy of modernism (as a style).
“Madan Mahatta’s clean and clear Modernist vision matched with the architecture that was evolving in Delhi,” Ram elaborates in his essay. The architects Mahatta worked on site most closely with, were Joseph Stein and Raj Rewal, Ram tells us, explaining, “From them, he understood the nature of light, space and structure. But he obviously had an innate eye for the perfect position for his camera.”
The exhibition showcases Mahatta’s stunning perspective on buildings like IIT Delhi, the Gandhi Memorial Hall and many others. “He captured the essence of each building in a perfect manner,” Ram says, adding that like all good art, these photographs are “cultural documents” as well.
As to why these works continue to be relevant, Ram explains, “The idealism and public nature of most of these buildings showed the ambition to build a new India. Much of what we are now was formed by that period and that thinking, so it is very important to understand and assimilate for students, critics and cultural theorists.”