»Painted a sarkari dullish pink«: The Aesthetics of Bureaucracy in ›World-Class‹ Delhi

I argue that contemporary urban aesthetics in India reflect ideological and economic imperatives to revamp Indian cities in order to: a) redevelop the older parts of the city to match ›world-class‹ urban aspirations and b) glorify the Indian state’s policies, while undermining the developmental decades of post-Independence India. I focus especially on the Lodhi Art District, which becomes representative of the state’s conflicted relationship to architectural modernism in India, as well as the aesthetic face of inequitable urban redevelopment.