Rashtrapati Bhavan

Lutyens wanted a British classical building; his Indian setting kept insisting otherwise, and the compromise is the most interesting thing about the house. The great dome is modelled on the Sanchi stupa, complete with a stone railing; the roofline carries chhatris; deep chhajja cornices throw the shadow line that makes the facade legible in Delhi's flat glare. Underneath all of it is a Palladian plan of impeccable severity.

The numbers are famous — 340 rooms, 227 columns, 700 million bricks — but the building's real subject is approach. The whole ceremonial axis exists to deliver you up Raisina Hill, and Lutyens's row with Herbert Baker over the gradient of that slope, which sinks the facade out of view as you climb, was the great architectural quarrel of the Raj. Since 1950 the house has belonged to the Republic's President, and the gardens behind it, now Amrit Udyan, open to the public each spring.