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Government policies have become an assault on Delhi’s architectural heritage
Our society has an ambivalent attitude towards the protection of architectural heritage
Written by A G Krishna Menon
Our society has an ambivalent attitude towards the protection of architectural heritage. On the one hand we are justifiably proud of the diverse and abundant evidence of our ancient civilisation, on the other we often prevaricate unjustifiably when it comes to protecting it. The most common rationalisation against conservation pits the imperatives of development against those of conservation, but there are other, more insidious, prejudices rooted in majoritarian political or cultural ideologies that determine which buildings should be protected. Of course, one could argue that in an economically developing and culturally transforming society such contestations are to be expected, but in the last year in particular, the anti-conservation attitudes have hardened and government policies have become a veritable assault on architectural heritage. Given our past commitment to conserving our historic monuments and the plural nature of what was conserved, this was hardly expected.
In May 2015, the Central government summarily withdrew, without consulting the project proponents, the government of Delhi, the application it had submitted to nominate Delhi to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Cities. The state government had viewed the nomination as a strategy to boost tourism and strengthen the economic base of Delhi while simultaneously enhancing its image as the iconic capital of India. The newly elected Central government, however, viewed it, naively, as anti-development. Perhaps the withdrawal also addressed other unstated political agendas like demonstrating the primacy of its political powers to the provocative posturing of the state government while appeasing its electoral constituency by overtly opposing the historic significance of the two particular sites that were identified for nomination, the Mughal city of Shahjahanabad and the colonial imperial city of New Delhi.
Since the withdrawal of the nomination, the Central government has reinforced its opposition to the significance of architectural heritage of the city by introducing three policy initiatives in the guise of promoting “development†.
First, it instructed the Delhi Urban Art Commission (DUAC) to review the protection mechanism of the erstwhile imperial city, the so-called Lutyens Bungalow Zone (LBZ) and propose fresh guidelines for its re-development. This initiative catered to the sentiments of both the anti-colonial and the pro-development lobbies to justify what would otherwise be considered an act of vandalism anywhere else in the world. The new DUAC guidelines have been cleverly formulated with a nod to legal procedure but following the ubiquitous bureaucratic traditions of opacity in decision-making. These guidelines would effectively transform the architectural heritage of the LBZ that professional bodies of architects, urban designers, landscape architects and conservation architects had strongly petitioned the DUAC to protect.
Second, the Central government has become adamant in wanting to demolish the Hall of Nations in Pragati Maidan to build a “world-class†convention centre. The Hall of Nations is internationally recognised as an extraordinary example of modern Indian architecture. It is among the buildings that the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) has proposed to the DUAC and the Heritage Conservation Committee (HCC) for recognition as the modern architectural heritage of Delhi. All over the world there is a realisation that if significant examples of modern architecture are not protected then the modern segment of the historical narrative of architectural development would be lost to future generations. In India, INTACH proposed that the important examples of modern Indian architecture of Delhi should be protected, particularly because Delhi has been a fertile site of post-Independence architectural development, critically appreciated not only in India but internationally. Sixty-two buildings, including Akbar Bhavan, Sri Ram Centre for Performing Arts, Crafts Museum, Bahai Temple, Hall of Nations and Nehru Pavilion, were on the proposed list. Both the DUAC and the HCC, who are answerable to the Central government, are however dragging their feet, perhaps as a disingenuous strategy to enable the development of the new convention centre at Pragati Maidan to become a fait accompli.
Third, the Central government now proposes to bypass all existing processes and civil society actors who are involved in conserving the architectural heritage of Delhi by empowering the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), an institution unambiguously controlled by the Central government, to take charge. The DDA issued a public notice on March 30, 2016, in which it announced that it has set up the Delhi Urban Heritage Foundation to “recommend for alteration, modification or relax provision of existing regulations…†on matters related to Delhi’s architectural heritage thus making it the final arbiter on the subject.
Independently, each policy initiative does not appear threatening, but seen together a pattern emerges that is an assault on the architectural heritage of Delhi. Perhaps in the context of the many other important issues confronting the city and civil society, this assault does not grab the attention of the media or the stakeholders, but the point I would like to highlight is it is symptomatic of the larger absence of public discourse in the formulation of public policy that has become worrisome. And as far as architectural heritage is concerned it makes official our society’s incipient ambivalence towards its protection.
The writer is convenor, INTACH Delhi Chapter
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Outrage: ‘To destroy India’s Hall of Nations is an attack on society’
13 May, 2016 By Sadiq Zafar
The preservation of buildings of historic importance needs awareness in India, where many still struggle with basic needs
Cultural cleansing of historically rich regions is one of the most devastating actions taken in any contemporary civilised society where culture and history are intrinsic to the social fabric of society. Radicalism can lead to the eradication of history, that history whose traces reveal the cultural identity of the place and the symbols of power. Contrary to the theory of radicalism, today India – among many other developing nations – is struggling with a vague idea of development, smartness and modernisation and in many cases historical facts are erased by the demolition and destruction of culturally rich monuments and iconic structures in the name of utopia. Iconic structures and monuments represent not just cultural identity but also a statement in power, a symbol of dominance and supremacy.
The Indian subcontinent is full of such examples where structures came to represent the portrayal of strength. From Qutub Minar of the slave dynasty in Delhi to Asafi Imambara of the Nawabs in Lucknow and the structures and gateways of British colonial architecture, whatever emerged on the ground gave a strong message of the arrival of a superpower and cast a shadow of strength over resistance. These are the structural examples from a pre-Independence India. But post-Independence, Nehru, the first Indian Prime Minister, set the precedent of a Modernist theory and hence India, a newly born independent state, saw its first modern structure in Chandigarh designed by Le Corbusier. Since then, architecture has been a tool to demonstrate the supremacy of this growing independent nation. Out of many such examples, the Hall of Nations – an agglomeration of exhibition spaces designed to celebrate the 25th year of Indian Independence – became a prominent symbol of Delhi’s skyline in 1972.
‘A space-framed built form poured in concrete, with column-free exhibition halls of spans of around 82m, was constructed probably for the first time in India and the world’
An AA-trained architect Raj Rewal, associate of the RIBA, along with a Minnesota and Columbia-trained civil engineer Mahendra Raj, strove to define architectural liberation in India. The duo worked on a masterpiece to portray India’s strength and growing power with limited resources. The end result became an architectural marvel, a landmark in the country and is seen as a symbol of Modernism reflecting Nehruvian modern theory. A space-framed built form poured in concrete, with column-free exhibition halls of spans of around 82m, was constructed probably for the first time in India and the world. The criss-cross ribbed structure portrays a strong bond shared between the diverse communities of the nation and its pyramidal form is the definition of Nehru’s idea of economic prosperity of a developing nation.
hall of nations interior
The then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi wanted to host an International Trade Fair under the roof of a structure that would epitomise the power of a young independent state: the Hall of Nations. Incorporating the Hall of Industries and a memorial to Nehru, the Hall of Nations, conceived by the architectural and structural genius of its time, is a remarkable architectural achievement with minimal resources. The design of the complex displays passive cooling devices with the use of perforated patterns known as traditional jaalis, and ribs work as sun-breakers providing shade from Delhi’s harsh sun, allowing the circulation of air and natural ventilation. With huge exhibition halls, since its construction the Hall of Nations has played host to enormous exhibitions, performances and related activities, including a World Trade Fair, Auto Expo and World Book Fair. The memorial is a display of Nehru’s personality showcasing his Modernist theories and strong leadership abilities.
Click here!
‘The structure, seen as the symbol of Modernism and architectural liberation in India, today faces a threat of destruction in the name of facelift and world-class facilities’
In contemporary India, the Hall of Nations’ architectural form and structural beauty is studied by architecture and structural engineering students. But at the same time, the structure, seen as the symbol of Modernism and architectural liberation in India, today faces a threat of destruction in the name of facelift and world-class facilities. The India Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO), which looks after the Hall of Nations’ affairs, has suggested a makeover for the Hall of Nations, Halls of Industries and the Nehru memorial, making way for a world-class convention centre, exhibition halls and underground parking facilities. The proposal is with the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) and the final call for the demolition of these iconic structures lies with the heritage conservation committee of the ministry.
So several campaigns to save the Hall of Nations are being carried out online and on the ground by architects, thinkers and activists who see the destruction of a landmark in the name of facelift as a theft of ideas and thoughts. Last year on 31 March 2015, a similar event was organised by the faculty of architecture, Jamia Millia Islamia, in Delhi. In the seminar, Ram Rahman, a renowned architectural photographer, suggested movements to make the society aware of the cultural thefts happening in the name of facelifts. Recently, SAHMAT, an NGO working for the cause of arts, literature and culture, organised a talk at the India International Center, Delhi in which the architecture–structure duo sat together and discussed the hardships and challenges they faced while coming up with such a design. It concluded with an emotional statement from engineer Mahendra Raj: ‘Destruction of a building designed by me in front of my eyes will be like seeing my child getting hacked in front of me.’
India is a nation where the masses still struggle for their physiological needs. With that as a backdrop, the idea of the preservation of iconic structures and buildings of historic importance needs awareness at the grassroots and campaigns need to be organised to let people know that history is the part of a civilisation which reveals the struggle, strength and supremacy. Eradication of history should be seen as an attack on society. Destruction can raze a structure, but a landmark can never be erased from the social fabric of a progressive nation.
Sign a petition to the Indian Prime Minister to save the Hall of Nations
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Of Icons and Iconoclasts: Saving Delhi’s Modern Heritage
by Narayani Gupta
A truly world-class city is not one that destroys to build, but one where icons from different pasts live together happily.
Hall of Nations, Pragati Maidan. Credit: Kprateek88/CC BY-SA 3.0
Dhruva Chaudhuri has described how, one day in 1951, he heard the noise of an explosion and when he looked out of the window of his Kashmiri Gate home, he found the skyline looking different. It took him some minutes to realise that the nearly-century old clock tower in Chandni Chowk had collapsed.
Dilliwalas have just been given advance warning that one day before this year is over, the skyline near Purana Qila will suddenly look different. The Hall of Nations, the Hall of Industries and the Nehru Pavilion, to which we Dilliwalas have gravitated every winter for over 40 years, as surely as we gravitated to India Gate to eat ice-cream on clear summer nights, will have become things of the past.
Wake up, people! Do we want a convention centre (sorry, a ‘world-class convention centre’) to be built on the rubble of our world-class architecture? The older generation will recall the 1970s, when the Trade Fair complex took shape, and the Hall of Nations soared into the sky. It has worn well. As we wander through it, it has a quality of elegance and majesty that is unmatched. Are we going to let this go, or are we going to form a human chain around it to save it?
The idea of the human chain was suggested in 1989, when the government announced that they proposed to demolish (they said ‘dismantle’ but it is all the same in the end) the exquisite canopy at India Gate so that a large statue of a seated Gandhiji could sit there comfortably. Architecture students actually camped there with flasks of coffee to ensure that the CPWD did not quietly take it apart at night. The canopy is still there. The same spirit is manifest now. The Cassandras who have been saying that no-one is bothered are wrong. Look at the more than 3,000 signatures on the petition sent to the prime minister. Or the letters sent from various national and international architectural bodies, including the Indian Institute of Architects. There is hope. But more is needed.
Letter sent by the Indian Institute of Architects
A city does not grow by demolition but by accommodation. The art of building a livable and beautiful city is not imbibed simply by learning by rote the dauntingly unreadable Building Bye-laws and Building Development Control Regulations as per Master Plan for Delhi 2021 but by working out how to adjust (oh that favourite Hinglish word!) the new within the old. The architect is – or should be – also an artist. And his artistic sensibility should not be limited to the building he designs, but to the area around. Truly lovely urbanscapes are ones which have the patina of age as well as the clear gleam of the new. Take a lesson from God’s architecture – every tree is different, and the sum total is beautiful.
There is something mesmerising about the term ‘world-class’. Politicians in India, over the last 15 years or so, have loved using it. When they do, there is invariably an obsession with ‘infrastructure’, particularly ‘parking’. In fact, the proposed demolition of the Pragati Maidan monuments are to accommodate a driveway and underground parking. So is that all there is to it? Does New York qualify as a world-class city? Maybe not, because it is so exuberantly pedestrian. Does Paris? Maybe not, because it is not cars as much as the superb metro that takes people to its museums, and its beauty is best seen if you walk down its boulevards. London? Where people leave their cars behind if they want to spend time in the city. Actually, discussions on world-class cities have for some time now been much more thoughtful, concentrating on ways to make cities more inclusive, with affordable housing, connectivity, safety, and basic services for all inhabitants. The proposed convention centre, to be built at mind-boggling cost, and at the cost of the city’s heritage, is not going to make Delhi a more inclusive city in any way.
Another favourite phrase is ‘state of the art’. This translates as “the highest level of general development, achieved at a particular time†. But given the rate that technology races forward, today’s state-of-the-art will be old-fashioned in a few years. Good architecture and design is timeless, and in this case, my vote will go to whoever can design a workable convention centre in the space available – over 100 acres – and showcase the 7 acres adjacent (which hold the Halls and the Nehru Pavilion), along with the Crafts Museum and the Nehru Science Centre, as a democratic people’s precinct, overlooked by the Purana Qila complex of five centuries earlier.
Nehru Pavilion
The Purana Qila is protected by the Archaeological Survey, and therefore not threatened by demolition. A thousand other structures are also, nominally, safe by virtue of Section 23 of the Building Byelaws referred to above. This needs explanation. In 2000, INTACH published 2 volumes listing structures in Delhi built before independence, which deserved the label ‘heritage’. Some 170 were owned and therefore ‘protected’ by the Archaeological Survey, the rest in the list were ‘notified’ by the local municipal bodies in 2010, other than a few which had been demolished by their owners in the intervening decade.
But architecture did not stop in 1947. Far from it. After independence, India acquired its first home-grown, if foreign-trained, architects. Edwin Lutyens, Herbert Baker, Walter George, Otto Koenigsberger, Le Corbusier, gave place to Habib Rahman, Achyut Kanvinde, Mansingh Rana, Cyrus Jhabwala, Charles Correa; they were succeeded by the next generation among whom was architect Raj Rewal and engineer Mahendra Raj (who designed the Hall of Nations). Delhi has been fortunate in that it is home to many landmark buildings designed by the country’s finest architects.
For the sake of convenience and because time was short, the INTACH list stopped short of independence. What should have been done was to continue listing buildings that came up subsequently. Both official agencies and INTACH did not get around to doing this. This should have been adopted as a continuous process, keeping a distance of, say, 20 years from the present. If this had been done, we would now have a published list of heritage buildings constructed in India before 1996.
Official controls and responsibilities are as tangled as they can possibly be. The Archaeological Survey is a small section of the Ministry of Culture, the Delhi Urban Art Commission is an autonomous body established in 1974 by an act of parliament, and the Heritage Conservation Committee (set up in 2004) is under the Ministry of Urban Development. To put heritage conservation under urban development either suggests a very enlightened frame of mind, or a cynical sense that heritage will never have dedicated champions anyway.
One person who repeatedly drew attention to the need to recognise deserving buildings of the last 70 years as ‘heritage’ is the architect A.G.K. Menon. In 2013 he submitted to the DUAC and to the HCC a list of 62 ‘iconic’ buildings and precincts. Neither body followed up the matter. At present, therefore, the iconic buildings can be partly or wholly demolished without violating any law (specifically bye-law 23). There is a possibility of many more Mandi Houses (Mandi House, a perfectly good monumental building, was demolished in the 1970s to build the offices of Doordarshan. Only the name survives).
The one way to avert this, in the case of Delhi, is for the DUAC and the HCC working together to quickly compile a list of heritage buildings with a cut-off date of 20 to 30 years before the present. Until such time as the list is finalised and the buildings notified by the municipalities, no proposal to demolish them should be considered.
Commissions, committees, bye-laws, sanctions make sense only if they are backed by an educated and enthusiastic public opinion. The people of Delhi have a very important role to play in the welfare of the city they have inherited. A truly world-class city is not one that destroys to build, but one where icons from different pasts live together happily.
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Architect wants buildings saved
TNN | Jan 30, 2016, 12.14 AM IST
New Delhi: Leading architect Raj Rewal, who designed Pragati Maidan, is highly miffed at the proposal to raze most of the existing structures.
"This is outrageous. We had heard of these plans and had written to the Indian Trade Promotion Organisation chairman and minister but since we did not hear back, I presumed the matter was under consideration. However, if the plans have been finalized, it comes as a surprise to me," said Rewal.
Credited with the landmark ’Hall of Nations’ inside Pragati Maidan, which is also set to be razed, Rewal said that several eminent architects and historians have demanded that certain structures within Pragati Maidan be preserved as Delhi’s heritage.
"Delhi Urban Arts Commission (DUAC) and Intach have written to say that iconic structures like the Hall of Nations and Hall of Industry should be preserved. The Pragati Maidan complex has been built over an area of 115 acres. Buildings like the Hall of Nations, Nehru Pavilion, Handicrafts pavilion, etc. barely occupy 5-10% of the total area. Why can’t they preserve these and build around them. There is no need to tear everything down," Rewal added. tnn
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When blueprints were manifestos
Amulya Gopalakrishnan | TNN | Apr 26, 2016
If the Centre and the Indian Trade Promotion Organisation stick to their plans, history will be overwritten in Delhi’s Pragati Maidan.
The landmark Hall of Nations and the Nehru Pavilion, built 25 years after Independence to show off the dynamism of a young nation, will be razed and replaced with an up-to-date venue for events and exhibitions.
"We have no problem with a new convention centre, but not by wantonly destroying something valuable", says Raj Rewal, the architect of these buildings. The Hall of Nations, which cemented his global reputation, has also featured in India’s postal stamps.
Architects, global museums and urban activists have urged the government to keep the buildings intact, as a marvel of structural engineering and a reminder of India’s pioneering spirit. They occupy barely 2 per cent of Pragati Maidan, these petitions point out.
The Hall of Nations is the largest-span concrete structure in the world, fashioned out of uniquely Indian capacities and constraints. "Anywhere in the industrialised world, the space-frame is made with steel joints. In India at the time, we didn’t have enough steel. So we improvised, made it in concrete, hand-poured and cast on site," says Mahendra Raj, the structural engineer of the project.
"The architect Buckminster Fuller called it a space-age building made with bullock cart technology," says conservation architect Intach convenor AGK Menon. "That sounds disparaging, but it was also an acknowledgment of the achievement’, he says. The Centre Pompidou in Paris featured it in an exhibition on parallel modernisms, New York’s Museum of Modern Art has called it a seminal structure, an architectural masterpiece. "We forget just how heroic that modern period was. It was about achieving great things in a scarcity economy," says Ranjit Hoskote, one of the curators of the recent State of Architecture exhibition in Mumbai.
In those nation-building decades, architecture had a sense of utopian mission, blueprints were virtually manifestos. Modernist buildings were a clean, conscious break with the past — ""It hits you on the head and makes you think", as Nehru famously said about Chandigarh. Architects trained under Walter Gropius, under Le Corbusier, were making vivid arguments about how to live together, about technology, about egalitarianism.
"Delhi is actually a laboratory of architectural experiments. You see it all as bland sarkari architecture, but if you disaggregate it, there are actually very different styles and experiments going on," says Hoskote. Not all are significant, some have been disfigured by thoughtless "renovations" and bad paint jobs, but it is important to know what one is reckoning with, before destroying a building.
By 1972, when the Hall of Nations was built, that impulse of universal modern ambition had subtly changed, to an accommodation of India’s own social and economic realities, explains Amit Srivastava, an architectual historian at the University of Adelaide - what he calls the modern socialist aesthetic. The use of exposed concrete, for instance, was part of a "truth to materials" philosophy, meant to convey an honesty of purpose.
The quiet radicalism of that period is hard to explain to people used to the blahness of glass-and-steel, to "globalised consumerist architecture", says photographer Ram Rahman, whose father Habib Rahman was a modernist pioneer. "There are very few distinguished buildings in Gurgaon", he points out.
So what are the classics of the postcolonial period? Intach has drawn up a list of 62 buildings that qualify as modern heritage, according to clearly defined criteria, but the proposal is still pending with the government’s Heritage Conservation Committee."There is no restriction on development around these buildings, it is to make sure that they are not destroyed, says Intach convenor AGK Menon. But we also need a more comprehensive approach to modern heritage, says Srivastava —"Can they be adapted or reused? Can they be changed structurally?"
The core problem for modern architecture in India is simply the lack of familiarity and public conversation around it, says Nalini Thakur, professor of architectural conservation at the School of Planning and Architecture. "People don’t care, because they don’t know what to care about." We need lessons in noticing, and need a vocabulary to express our thoughts about buildings.
"Signposting these buildings is essential, and pointing out their distinctive features, their intentions and histories", says Shruti Narayan, an architect who leads walks around post-Independence landmarks, through a project called Delhi Narratives.
It doesn’t help that many of these modern classics are institutional buildings, not welcoming of the general public. "Think of events like Open House London, where important architectural venues are thrown open for anyone to walk in and explore - can you imagine that happening in our official buildings?" asks Menon.
"We need a discourse around modern architecture, not at moments of crisis like this, when we fear something is being written out of history, but a genuine and sustained one", says Srivastava.
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[From Hindustan Times]
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Call to save Pragati Maidan hall
Richi Verma | TNN | Apr 14, 2015, 03.19 AM IST
NEW DELHI: When Hall of Nations, one of Delhi’s iconic structures, was inaugurated in 1972, it became a symbol of India’s rapid progress and modernity. For decades, exhibition halls at Pragati Maidan, including Hall of Nations, Handloom Pavilion and Nehru Pavilion have hosted millions of visitors. A number of films have been shot with these iconic structures in their backdrop and postage stamps with image of these buildings released.
However, the proposal by India Trade Promotion Organization to raze all the structures to make space for a new, world-class convention centre has drawn sharp reactions from architects and urban planners. According to the architect behind the project, Raj Rewal, the buildings represent a sign of what India achieved in an era when "we were not so industrialized". "It’s become a part of Delhi’s history... people look at a picture of the Hall of Nations and automatically associate Delhi with it. Lakhs of people have seen exhibitions here and have fond memories. Hall of Nations is equivalent to London’s Crystal Palace or the great palace in Paris,’’ he said.
Hall of Nation, India’s first pillar-less building, was constructed to commemorate 25 years of the country’s independence. Rewal and structural engineer Mahendra Raj who designed these buildings said they were prepared to fight till the end to save the structures.
"Even today, the building is one-of-its-kind. When we worked on this project in the early 1970s, we completed it in record time. Hall of Nations has been featured in international architecture magazines, but in our own country, we want to get rid of it,’’ said Mahendra Raj.
According to ITPO officials, the exhibition halls have outlived their lifespan. "The proposal is to redevelop Pragati Maidan in phases. The old buildings have to be dismantled to make space for a new convention centre. But till the project is approved by the ministry of commerce and industry, we cannot proceed. The complete proposal, which outlines demolition of all old buildings has been sent to the ministry. We need funding support from the ministry. Once the approval comes, we will invite tenders,’’ said a senior ITPO official.
Officials said the buildings were old, lacked modern facilities like air-conditioning.
However, architects are not convinced. Senior architect Kuldip Singh said: "The buildings represent modern architecture in Delhi and they were considered icons at the time of construction. Effort should be made to uses such buildings as museums rather than tearing them down. It would be a huge loss for Delhi," he said.
Intach Delhi chapter convener A G K Menon called any move to demolish the Pragati Maidan exhibition halls as a disastrous: "Society should value heritage. Symbolically, it showcased India’s potential as a modern, thriving nation when it was made and we are ready to just wipe that history out. If any nation has aspirations for the future, you must preserve the past.
You can have the convention centre anywhere in Delhi. Pragati Maidan exhibitions function only certain weeks in a year, a convention centre would function 365 days. It would lead to huge traffic snarls,’’ he said.
Intach has also sent a list of these contemporary buildings to DUAC, saying these structures need to be protected. Hall of Nations figures on the list. The commission has indicated that iconic buildings, which were constructed in the post-independence period, need to be conserved and that the Intach/HCC need to take up the exercise for identifying such buildings.
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Shanghaiing Indraprastha?
With Pragati Maidan’s iconic buildings all set to give way to new structures, India will lose a slice of its architectural heritage
by Priyadarshini Sen (14 March 2016)
http://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/shanghaiing-indraprastha/296751
Fall of the hall: losing a part of India’s history
by Namrata Kohli (April 18, 2016)
SAVE HALL OF NATIONS, HALLS OF INDUSTRIES AND NEHRU PAVILION at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi India from demolition and allow these buildings to be put to active public use
Sign the Electronic Petition to The Prime Minister of India https://tinyurl.com/hfv446g
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- The Hall of Industries by Raj Rewal 1972 (Photo by Ram Rahman, Nov 2015)
- Photo 2 The Hall of Industries by Raj Rewal 1972 (Photo by Ram Rahman, Nov 2015)
- Photo by Tribhuvan Tiwari in Outlook Magazine - 14 March 2016
- Photo by the late Madan Mahatta (added on Facebook by Ram Rahman) [https://tinyurl.com/jzevovk]
- Reject the Demolition of Hall of Nations - A Letter to the Government by Indian Institute of Architects
- Stamps issued by India on Hall of Nations in 1986 and in 1992
