Lodi Garden

Lodi Garden in New Delhi, is the Necropolis of the Lodi and Sayyid dynasties which ruled pre-Mughal India.

The Californian architect Jospeh Allen Stein, along with Garret Eckbo- a leading landscape architect of the Modernist era, together re-designed the ensemble for tombs and enclosures, using a English Picturesque style, as against the Victorian style that existed in this place when it was called Lady Willingdon Park and formed an edge of Lutyens' New Delhi Layout.

It is a landscape of silhouette and filigree and shares a contigious edge with the uber-exclusive Modernist buildings fringing it...most of which have been designed by Prof. Stein.
The immensely invigorating place attracts people like myself apart from yoga and laughter club members, nature lovers and personalities like Kushwant Singh- the Indian author.
Sadly, the Eckbo-Stein plan was never fully realised.Images from 1979 of the allee leading to the Bada Gumbad show the simplicity of the original design. Sadly this same view is so cluttered today in the name of beautification, it would be shameful to put it up alongside.

What it is....

What it was in Eckbo's mind...

Heightened awareness about re-design of such places today emphasizes on unearthing historic clues about the place, the manner of design of gardens in those times, preference for plant material etc.

So, would Lodi Garden lend itself to a re-think? Should it? I think not.


It stands to run the risk of a sham towards a pseudo-Islamic garden, diluting the philosophy and beauty of the Islamic garden as well as the Picturesque park. The only re-think that could occur would be to freeze "beautification", keep the park in its near original Picturesque condition circa 1970's and re-name it Lodi PARK.

It is a English Picturesque park done by a Modernist American Landscape architect for a masterplan of a Modernist Indian Cultural and residential Enclave (Lodi Estate). For students of landscape architecture, it serves as an important lesson that every site cannot and should not be designed in the picturesque manner. On the other hand, in the absence of any clues, historic remnents, a heritage landscape design brief and the self- control to merely speculate...the Picturesque style may be an option.

...after all...even native landscapes are picturesque.

The SPA LA batch 2004 remembers it for the farewell meeting it had, with one of its better faculty members- a good teacher yet a victim of a political agenda that characterises most academic institutions today.