Ever since it was inaugurated in 1983, the Embassy of Belgium in Delhi’s diplomatic enclave (Chanakyapuri) has never fallen off conversations in the art history circuit. Built over three years, it is considered one of the most celebrated creations of Satish Gujral. Not only was the edifice built by an Indian — going against the practice — it was designed by an artist.
It is, then, a befitting tribute that in the birth centenary year of the acclaimed artist, art house DAG (formerly Delhi Art Gallery) chose to launch the first Delhi edition of its ‘The City as a Museum’ festival at the Belgian Embassy “surrounded by Satish Gujral’s masterful play of form, volume, and light”, earlier this month. It gave old-timers yet another chance to walk down memory lane while, for a younger audience, it opened “up new perspectives on why Gujral’s design was so revolutionary in terms of form and material, and how his form was always driven by feeling,” says DAG CEO and managing director Ashish Anand. “Alongside fellow centenarians Krishen Khanna and Tyeb Mehta, Gujral represents not only the genius of modern India but also the resilience and vision of artists who lived through, and responded to, the many transformations of this capital city — from the trials of Partition to the aspirations for a global, secular and syncretic city that would embody the ideals of a new nation,” he adds.
A view of the Embassy of Belgium in New Delhi.
| Photo Credit:
SHASHI SHEKHAR KASHYAP
This artist-architecture intersection ties up with the other architectural intervention under way at DAG — the restoration of the 20th century painter Jamini Roy’s house in Ballygunge, Kolkata. The gallery acquired the house in 2023 and is restoring it, with its features typical of 1950s domestic design, to turn it into a public museum dedicated to the artist.
Forms, feelings, flexibility
The vibrant dialogue between Giles Tillotson, art writer and senior vice-president at DAG, and Ambassador Didier Vanderhasselt at the festival organically underlined Gujral’s prowess as an artist with an ability to transcend boundaries between art forms and why his works live on.
The Belgian Embassy was one of Gujral’s extraordinary design projects. He had said in interviews that he was unsure of his approach and designed the building driven by instinct and intuition. The turnkey project gave him the opportunity to re-assess and re-design during construction. The creative flexibility gave birth to a unique grandeur.
The Belgian Embassy is like an enormous multilayered sculpture, punctuated with three astonishing arches, vault, domes, coffered ceiling, axial entry, jaalis, sunshades, skylights, rain chains dropping into a well-like protrusion, sunken courtyards, arched semicircular motifs running throughout the building and gardens spread out around. These are not just mere backdrops. “Gujral dislodged modern styles to process a new architectural ideal that resonated emotionally,” according to Tillotson.
A general view of Embassy of Belgium in New Delhi.
| Photo Credit:
SHASHI SHEKHAR KASHYAP
Another brick in the wall
The five-acre plot allotted to the Belgian government in the 1950s laid vacant for 30 years and — in an unusual gesture — Gujral was commissioned to design and build the campus of the Embassy. Tillotson explains Gujral’s bold inclusion of cultural preferences by adhering to the ancient tradition of brick construction that paid tribute to India. By elegantly blending primitive strength and traditions with a modernist feel, the red brick architecture held on to meaningful aesthetics and lent a character to the building defined by its igloo-shaped domes and fortress-like form.
No surprise that the building open to artistic interpretations was chosen by the International Union of Architects as one of the 1,000 best buildings built around the world in the 20th century. Gujral also became the first non-Belgian architect to receive the Order of the Crown from the government of Belgium in 1984.
“It is a privilege to live in this incredible building that looks like a sculpture from the outside and bridges diverse cultural influences on the inside. I experience Satish Gujral’s work on a day-to-day basis here; it holds life in myriad moods,” says Ambassador Vanderhasselt, who’s been living here for the past three years.
A general view of Embassy of Belgium in New Delhi.
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Special arrangement
The art of diplomacy
Gujral being offered the project, however, had raised many eyebrows back in the day. “Leading local architects tried to abuse me for not being an architect…many wrote a letter to the (Belgian) government protesting why a non-professional is being commissioned,” said the late Gujral in a 2015 interview to Hunar TV. “I think separating of art and architecture shows a total misunderstanding of what art is. Art and architecture were never thought of separately. Only in recent times, the separation came and, as a result, both suffered. Even in modern times, great architecture was brought in by those who began as artists. Take the example of the designer of Chandigarh, Le Corbusier,” he added.
The Belgian Embassy residence is an iconic design that marks an important moment in the development of modern architecture in India, notes DAG’s Anand. “It came at a time when architects across the country were beginning to question the values of the International Modern movement, which claimed for itself universal validity but did not always seem best suited to regional conditions. Architects of Gujral’s generation were seeking ways of blending the technological benefits of modernism with a more local idiom. The big question was where to find this sense of Indian identity. It was not to be found in Modernism itself — which offered the same solutions across the world, from Brasilia to Beijing. It was certainly not to be found in the hybrid architecture of the British period. And it could not be found by going back into the pre-industrial hoary past. Architects and other designers were fearful of being accused of pastiche if their reference to a regional past was too literal. Gujral’s achievement was to evoke a distinctively Indian past (temple towers, fort ramparts) in the curved forms of the exposed brick arches and domes of his design,” he says.
Like in India, brick — albeit not an elite material — is a defining element of architectural culture in Belgium, especially in the Flanders region. Gujral found an assertion of this identity to be convincing. Tillotson says, “He did not want to create everything Indian or Western; Gujral’s designs are always about form that follows the rule of symmetry. The magic of geometry comes alive in the space where he builds the narrative.”
His spaces behave like a character shaping moods and decisions, reflecting sensibilities and always responsive to the climate. The use of bricks creates a tactile, earthy feel, emphasising the harmony between the structure and the surroundings. Simplicity, bare ceilings, open courtyards, walls and arches meticulously exposed in bricks, skylights of different sizes for ventilation and natural light are the imprints Gujral left behind.
The artist’s ability to seamlessly blend art with functionality is also evident in his other architectural marvels, at home and in the world. Perhaps, that’s why past residents have called the embassy building “the best business card for Belgium in India”.
His other marvels
The Portugal Ambassador’s residence, New Delhi
Indira Gandhi Centre for Indian Culture, Mauritius
Mahatma Gandhi Institute, Mauritius
Goa University
CMC office, Hyderabad
Al Moughtara Palace, Riyadh
With inputs from Tanushree Ghosh.
Published – September 26, 2025 04:44 pm IST