Discuss why the buildings constructed by the Public Works Department of the Government of India in the second half of the nineteenth century have no architecture.

The building constructed by the PWD of GOI in the second half of the 19th century maintained a monopoly in building activities and applied to the building their own dry as dust, formularies culled from Macaulay’s book-shelf and the products of this system used so largely in the life of British India that the very existence of the Indian master-builder is forgotten.
The architecture in these official buildings is merely a mechanical process, originally invented by the dilettante of Renaissance in Europe for tricking out the business arrangements of the Anglo-Indian administration in tinsel adornments called styles.
Under British rule the government engineers did not give any opportunity to Indian craftsmen to develop their art. Artists, in the real sense of the term, ceased to appear.

Topics: GS-I: Indian Architecture