The Rajpath, the central axis of New Delhi used to be one of the most beautiful urban spaces in the world. The view from India Gate at one end, to Sir Edwin Lutyens’s Rashtrapati Bhavan (formerly the Viceroy’s House under the British Raj built 1912-1931) at the other end, over two miles away, supplies a breath-taking spectacle. The axis culminates in the extraordinary dome of the Rashtrapati Bhavan, a synthesis of a western classical cupola and a Buddhist stupa which rises from Raisana Hill. Flanked on either side by the two Secretariats and the circular Parliament Building (designed by Sir Herbert Baker, 1912 to 1928), the ensemble is a masterpiece of Baroque processional planning. The buildings themselves fuse Indian and western motifs in red or amber colored sandstone, materials typical of past monuments in the region of Delhi over the centuries. This concentration of state buildings and institutions was intended to anchor British Imperial power for the long term.