Study On Colonial Architecture In India

From the beginning of the15th century, as new sea routes opened, Portugal, Netherlands,France and Britain and other Western powers have entered the Indian subcontinent. To the18th century, depend on its strong economic and military strength, the British supplanted theother European powers by long-term colonial hegemony war successfully to establish itsdominance in India. From the explosion of the Battle of Plassey in1757to India declared itsindependence in1947, the British ruled India for nearly200years. During this period, affectedby European settlers, especially the British, a large number of outstanding colonial buildingswere born in India. These buildings represented the strength of the sovereign states, hadbecome a symbol of the power and glory.Based on the pectination of historical data and fieldwork combined with the prevailingsocio-economic background, this paper explores the formation and development course ofIndia’s colonial cities from the perspective of the historical development, and analyzes thevarious style of colonial buildings by a large number of examples.This paper is divided into seven chapters: Chapter I is the introduction, it puts forward theoverall vision, including the origin of this topic, the background and content subject, thepurpose and the significance of the study, the current research status and the methods andstructures of the subject; Chapter II introduces the development of the European powers inIndia, especially the British forces, with the principal line of the colonial history of India;Chapter III describes the construction work and evolution of India’s colonial cities, whichincludes the development of the Portuguese religious cities in the early times, the progress ofthe coastal port cities in the mid-term and the construction of New Delhi, the capital of the lateempire; Chapter IV is an overview of the railway construction and development in India,meanwhile show how the British expanded its forces from the coast to the hinterland of theIndian peninsula; Chapter V is the analysis about the various types of colonial architecture inIndian such as the religious buildings, administrative offices, transportation constructions,culture&education buildings, commercial buildings, monuments and so on; Chapter VI isabout the artistic characteristics of the colonial architecture in India, which tells about architecture style, detail of the facade characteristics and the using of new technologies andnew materials; Chapter VII displays the significance and the impact of the colonialarchitecture in India...