Revisiting the past, reimagining a future 

Are we so bankrupt in imagination and inspiration that we are unable to create our own art forms giving expression to our modern way of life with that freedom which is still before us – the freedom which a wise use of the machine as a new and wondrous tool can bestow on us?

– 'Architecture and You', Marg, October, 1946

The inaugural edition of Marg magazine, published in October 1946 opened with 'Architecture and You'– a ten-page-long charter boasting of a sui generis format comprising illustrations, floor plans and line drawings interspersed with quotations from Vitruvius and Plato to Frank Lloyd Wright and Francis Yorke. Unbridled in its tone, the manifesto probed into the vacuous sentiment of nationalism in India as a form of "retrogression", an "escape in the absence of our ability to create a national character expressive of ourselves today, in the 20th century." Apportioning an almost cautionary warning against the adoption of an "Indian style of architecture" or "Indian traditional architecture", it described the regular Indian street's medley of hybrid building styles as "spurious antiquity" and "vulgar modernity". Case in point – an illustration of a Taj Mahal-like structure accompanied by a caption scoffingly states, "railway station or Mogul palace"? Invoking rationalism, social justice, and social engineering, the manifesto espoused the notion of architecture as a synthesis of "a structural science and an exact analysis of social needs", vouching for an international modernism as the way forward. Its no-holds-barred approach suggested that our modern way of living has absolutely no relation to the amalgam of architectural styles.

Early beginnings

The inception of Marg was inextricably linked to the foundation of a nation on the brink of Independence. Mulk Raj Anand, litterateur, novelist, institution-builder, and social activist – and a leftist – returned to India in 1945 after spending two decades in London and founded Marg in 1946 with 14other founding members.