Street art to be guided by Art Master Plan in Delhi

NEW DELHI: Planning to paint a social awareness message on a wall? You would soon have to refer to an Art Master Plan to see if it goes with the planned aesthetics of the city.

Taking a leaf out of historic cities like Washington DC, Delhi would have an Art Master Plan to govern street art, installation of statues in public places, design of railings, plantation of ornamental trees, sidewalks, type of sidebars and public art. Delhi Urban Art Commission, which advises the Union government in preserving and maintaining the aesthetic quality of urban and environmental design of Delhi, is working on the Art Master Plan. So far, there is no ready document that guides the government or municipal bodies on urban design.

"Delhi is a historic city. We need to have a broad policy on where can one have a statue, what kind of paintings should be there. There has to be some document guiding us, otherwise the whole city would become a bizarre place," DUAC chairman PSN Rao told ET.

DUAC expects to formulate the Art Master Plan of Delhi by 2016. The document will address urban design elements like height of statues, type of material that can be used and placement of statues vis-à-vis buildings in the vicinity.

With street art becoming a new way of propagating social awareness messages, the Art Master Plan would also lay down guidelines of where street art can be done without distracting motorists.

Rao said cities like Washington DC have historic districts which have laid down even the design and colour of railings that can be installed in public places. Delhi would be the first city in India to have an Art Master Plan. This would help municipal bodies in bringing uniformity in designs. "This would be a broad policy framework which would enhance the aesthetics of the city," Rao said. He gave an example of a proposal from New Delhi Municipal Council, where the council wanted to put up a big "I Love Delhi" signage in the middle of the Central Park in Connaught Place.

"The proposal was on the lines of ‘I Love New York". It proposed putting up the sign in bright red "I Love Delhi" and to create a place where tourists or Delhiites would come and pose for photographs or selfies. But we had to turn it down because it just did not go with the design. The bright red huge signage just did not appeal to aesthetics of Connaught Place," Rao said.