Before I move on to my obsevations of India Gate for my project, I would want to share some more information of the same with you guys.
As mentioned in my previous post, this gate was designed by Sir Edwyn Lutyens, a leading war memorial designer at that time. A member of the IWGC (Imperial War Graves Commission), he designed sixty-six war memorials in Europe.
Triumphal arches are one of the most influential and distinctive types of architecture associated with ancient Rome. Thought to have been invented by the Romans, the triumphal arch was used to commemorate victorious generals or significant public events such as the founding of new colonies, the construction of a road or bridge, the death of a member of the imperial family or the accession of a new emperor.
The design of India Gate is very much similar to Arch de Triomphe in Paris, France. Situated at the centre of a hexagonal complex with a diameter of 625m and a total area of 360,000 m2, the India Gate is 42m in height and 9.1m in width. The building material is primarily Red and yellow sandstones sourced from Bharatpur. The structure stands on a low base and rises in asymmetrical steps crowned with a shallow dome at the top. There is also a vacant canopy in front of the monument under which once stood the statue of George V in his coronation robes, Imperial State Crown, British globus cruciger and scepter. The statue was later shifted to Coronation Park in 1960 and the empty canopy symbolizes the British retreat from India.
Since the gate was designed as a Memorial to the dead in world war 1, the following is inscribed on top of India Gate-
“To the dead of the Indian armies who fell honoured in France and Flanders Mesopotamia and Persia East Africa Gallipoli and elsewhere in the near and the far-east and in sacred memory also of those whose names are recorded and who fell in India or the north-west frontier and during the Third Afgan War”
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References-
[1]Culturalindia.net. (2017). All About India Gate, The War Memorial!. [online] Available at: http://www.culturalindia.net/monuments/india-gate.html [Accessed 10 Mar. 2017].
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