Find X,Y,Z.
X and Y, together planned most of the architecture in and around Z.
The location of two side buildings along Z were designed by Y,
whose gradient, X later realised, partially obscured the grand building designed by X.
This led to a bitter enmity with Y.
Even after pleading to the highest authority in his country, X
could not get the gradient modified. However, the critics till today are
unsure if the design of Z was indeed an grave architectural error or
a careless mistake that just adds to its aesthetics.
Hint: Think seats of power.
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4 comments:
My initial guesses were Brandenburg gate and Rashtrapathi Bhavan, New Delhi. Wiki proved the second one to be right :) I had no idea about its history prior to this question.
Awesome question!
Since your question states "pleading to the highest authority in his country", I was thinking along the lines of White House (Penn Ave), 10 Downing Street and Rashtrapati Bhavan
before your hint.
So based on your hint, my guess is
Z = Rashtrapati Bhavan.
No clue who X and Y are.
I don't have much of a rationale here, but still here I go :)
"along Z", "grand building" and seats of power suggest a famous road in a world capital. My guess for Z would be National mall/Pennsylvania ave. area in DC.
No clue about X and Y.
Hello all,
The answer is indeed Rashtrapati bhavan or the Viceroy's house as it was originally intended to be. And that makes X = Edwin Lutyens and Y = Herbert Baker. Lutyens campaigned all his life to get the area restructured, even after the final decision from the George V himself.
Cheers to Hari, Ankur and Dev for getting it right.
An interesting aside for NY Times review of the book - Indian Summer: Lutyens, Baker and Imperial Delhi.
"
Before their falling-out, Lutyens wrote Baker his formula of how to create Mogul Indian architecture: "Build a vasty mass of rough concrete, elephant-wise on a very simple rectangular-cum-octagon plan, dome in space anyhow. Cut off square. Overlay with a veneer of stone patterns.... Inlay jewels & cornelians if you can afford it, & rob someone if you can't. And then on top of the mass, put on 3 turnips in concrete & overlay with stone or marble as before. Be very careful not to bond anything in, & don't care a damn if it all comes to pieces."
"
Despite his racists slurs, in my opinion, he built a New Delhi which nicely complements the older one.
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