Akbar Bhawan, formerly the Akbar Hotel, is a building in the

Chanakyapuri Chanakyapuri (Sanskrit: चाणक्यपुरी; IAST: Cāṅakyapurī ) is a neighbourhood and diplomatic enclave established in the 1950s in New Delhi. It is also a sub-division of the New Delhi district and plays host to the majority ...

locality of

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament Hous ...

, India which houses the

South Asian University South Asian University (SAU) is an international university sponsored by the eight Member States of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). The eight countries are: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Ne ...

and offices of the Government of India's Ministry of External Affairs. Designed by

Shiv Nath Prasad Shiv Nath Prasad (born 1922) was an Indian architect and urban planner known for his Brutalist architecture designs. He was also called the "Le Corbusier of India". Biography Shiv Nath was born in Varanasi, British India in 1922. His work is ...

in collaboration with

Mahendra Raj Mahendra Raj (19248 May 2022) was an Indian structural engineer and designer who contributed to structural design of many buildings in India including the Hall of Nations at the Pragati Maidan in Delhi and the Salar Jung Museum in Hyderabad. R ...

, it is one of Delhi's best known examples of

brutalist architecture Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by minimalist constructions that showcase the ...

and bears semblance to the Unité d'habitation in

Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Fra ...

, France. Inaugurated in 1972, it was a hotel of the

India Tourism Development Corporation The India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) is a hospitality, retail and education company owned by Government of India, under Ministry of Tourism. Established in 1966, it owns over 17 properties under the Ashok Group of Hotels brand, acro ...

before its conversion into an office complex in 1986. The Akbar Hotel was noted for its use of innovative

decor Interior design is the art and science of enhancing the interior of a building to achieve a healthier and more aesthetically pleasing environment for the people using the space. An interior designer is someone who plans, researches, coordin ...

that blended contemporary designs with traditional

Indian art Indian art consists of a variety of art forms, including Indian painting, painting, sculpture in the Indian subcontinent, sculpture, Indian pottery, pottery, and textile arts such as Silk in the Indian subcontinent#Origin, woven silk. Geographica ...

and handicrafts.

Location

The building is located on Satya Marg in the diplomatic enclave of

, New Delhi.

Design

Akbar Bhawan was designed by architect Shiv Nath Prasad and built by Mahendra Raj. It mirrors the

architectural style An architectural style is a set of characteristics and features that make a building or other structure notable or historically identifiable. It is a sub-class of style in the visual arts generally, and most styles in architecture relate closely ...

Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , , ), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was ...

and is one of India's best known examples of brutalist architecture. Built with

prestressed concrete Prestressed concrete is a form of concrete used in construction. It is substantially "prestressed" ( compressed) during production, in a manner that strengthens it against tensile forces which will exist when in service. Post-tensioned concreted ...

, the building has few decorative motifs keeping in line with the brutalist aesthetic. It has a raw concrete finish, uses

brise soleil ''Brise soleil'', sometimes ''brise-soleil'' (; ), is an architectural feature of a building that reduces heat gain within that building by deflecting sunlight. More recently, vertical Brise soleil have become popular. Both systems allow low- ...

s and features an exposed staircase at its far end. The use of a transfer girder in the transitional floors of the building allowed for the creation of a column free

lobby Lobby may refer to: * Lobby (room), an entranceway or foyer in a building * Lobbying, the action or the group used to influence a viewpoint to politicians :* Lobbying in the United States, specific to the United States * Lobby (food), a thick st ...

, a feature that came to be adopted widely in

hotel design Hotel design involves the planning, drafting, design and development of hotels. The concept of hotel design is rooted in traditions of hospitality to travellers dating back to ancient times, and the development of many diverse types of hotels ha ...

. The use of pure geometric forms in the building has been attributed to the influence of

rationalist architecture In architecture, Rationalism is an architectural current which mostly developed from Italy in the 1920s and 1930s. Vitruvius had claimed in his work '' De architectura'' that architecture is a science that can be comprehended rationally. The for ...

whereas the exposed nature of the

building material Building material is material used for construction. Many naturally occurring substances, such as clay, rocks, sand, wood, and even twigs and leaves, have been used to construct buildings. Apart from naturally occurring materials, many man- ...

is thought to have been due to financial austerity rather than the brutalist aesthetics. Comprising 13

storey A storey (British English) or story (American English) is any level part of a building with a floor that could be used by people (for living, work, storage, recreation, etc.). Plurals for the word are ''storeys'' (UK) and ''stories'' (US). T ...

s, a service floor separates the common rooms from the accommodation and amenities such as its restaurant, a garden and a theatre were on the roof and the building's

floor plan In architecture and building engineering, a floor plan is a technical drawing to scale, showing a view from above, of the relationships between rooms, spaces, traffic patterns, and other physical features at one level of a structure. Dimensio ...

closely resembles the Unité d'habitation in Marseille. The interior design for the building was done by

Laila Tyabji Laila Tyabji (born 2 May 1947) is an Indian social worker, designer, writer, and craft activist. She is one of the founders of Dastkar, a Delhi-based non governmental organization, working for the revival of traditional crafts in India. She was ...

and Dale Keller. The Akbar's interior design and decor were noted for their blend of western and Indian elements. The hotel's

logo A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name it represents as in a wo ...

was taken from the design in a lattice screen at Sikandra, Agra. The windows in the lobby were decorated with wooden beads from Channapatna,

Karnataka Karnataka (; ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a state in the southwestern region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Originally known as Mysore State , it was renamed ''Karnat ...

and the its walls featured swords and

scimitar A scimitar ( or ) is a single-edged sword with a convex curved blade associated with Middle Eastern, South Asian, or North African cultures. A European term, ''scimitar'' does not refer to one specific sword type, but an assortment of different ...

s from

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern s ...

. The interior decoration also featured kalamkari prints in its conference room,

Birbal Birbal (; born Mahesh Das; 1528 16 February 1586), or Raja Birbal, was a Saraswat Hindu Bhatt Brahmin advisor and main commander (''Mukhya Senapati'') of army in the court of the Mughal emperor, Akbar. He is mostly known in the Indian subcon ...

, and used

Rajput Rajput (from Sanskrit ''raja-putra'' 'son of a king') is a large multi-component cluster of castes, kin bodies, and local groups, sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating from the Indian subcontinent. The term Ra ...

, Mughal and Kangra miniature paintings and Tibetan

thangka A ''thangka'', variously spelled as ''thangka'', ''tangka'', ''thanka'', or ''tanka'' (; Tibetan: ཐང་ཀ་; Nepal Bhasa: पौभा), is a Tibetan Buddhist painting on cotton, silk appliqué, usually depicting a Buddhist deity, scene, ...

s in the suites. The trends set in interior decor at the Akbar became widespread in India's hotel and

hospitality industry The hospitality industry is a broad category of fields within the service industry that includes lodging, food and drink service, event planning, theme parks, travel and tourism. It includes hotels, tourism agencies, restaurants and bars. Sect ...

in later years. Its coffee shop, Madhuban, was noted for the

Mithila Mithila may refer to: Places * Mithilā, a synonym for the ancient Videha state ** Mithilā (ancient city), the ancient capital city of Videha * Mithila (region), a cultural region (historical and contemporary), now divided between India and Nepal ...

murals decorating its walls which was a pioneering attempt to commercialize and give the artform a modern identity. The structure has however been criticized as being squalid and visually unappealing whereas the use of concrete and glass causes high indoor temperatures during

power outage A power outage (also called a powercut, a power out, a power failure, a power blackout, a power loss, or a blackout) is the loss of the electrical power network supply to an end user. There are many causes of power failures in an electricity ...

History

The Akbar Hotel was built as part of the Fourth Five Year Plan. The building is owned by the

New Delhi Municipal Council New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) is the municipal council of the city of New Delhi, Delhi, India. It covers an area of 42.7 km2 under its administration, which is commonly referred as Lutyens' Delhi. The only owner is Government of In ...

. Construction of the building began in 1966 and was completed by 1969–70. It was inaugurated by Dr. Karan Singh, the then

Union Minister The Union Council of Ministers Article 58 of the ''Constitution of India'' is the principal executive organ of the Government of India, which is responsible for being the senior decision making body of the executive branch. It is chaired by t ...

Tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism mor ...

and

Civil Aviation Civil aviation is one of two major categories of flying, representing all non-military and non-state aviation, both private and commercial. Most of the countries in the world are members of the International Civil Aviation Organization and work ...

on 27 January 1972. Leased and operated by the India Tourism Development Corporation, the hotel remained profitable throughout the 1970s. However, by the early 1980s it began to incur losses and ITDC suffered low occupancy in its hotels following the construction boom in the run up to the

1982 Asian Games The 9th Asian Games ( hi, 1982 एशियाई खेल) were held from 19 November to 4 December 1982, in Delhi, India. 74 Asian and Asian Games records were broken at the event. This was also the first Asiad to be held under the aegis of t ...

. In the changed business environment and the government's decision to exit the business of running luxury hotels, the ITDC decided to hand over the building to the Ministry of External Affairs to house its offices.

Akbar Bhawan

The hotel was shut down in April 1986, and the building was turned into a government office building and renamed Akbar Bhawan. The Foreign Service Institute under the Ministry of External Affairs used to function from the building. The

Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, ...

planned to redevelop the building into a five-star hotel with private partnership in the run up to the

2010 Commonwealth Games The 2010 Commonwealth Games (Hindi: 2010 राष्ट्रमण्डल खेल), officially known as the XIX Commonwealth Games and commonly known as Delhi 2010, was an international multi-sport event that was held in Delhi, India, ...

, but it was never implemented. The South Asian University has been housed in the building since 2010 pending relocation to its permanent campus at Maidan Garhi,

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders ...

. The Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs was located in the building before its merger with the Ministry of External Affairs. Following the death of the former External Affairs Minister

Sushma Swaraj Sushma Swaraj () (''née'' Sharma; 14 February 1952 – 6 August 2019) was an Indian lawyer, politician, and diplomat who served as the Minister of External Affairs of India in the first Narendra Modi government from 2014 to 2019. She is only ...

, demands were made to rename the Akbar Bhawan after her.

References

{{reflist Hotels established in 1972 Defunct hotels Government buildings in Delhi Brutalist architecture