Secretariat Building (North & South Block)
Stand on Rajpath and only the tip of Rashtrapati Bhavan's dome clears the hill — Herbert Baker won an architects' war and the sight line never recovered.
Coming soon on iOS — be first to walk Delhi offline.
Baker and Lutyens clashed bitterly over height and gradient here. Baker's insistence on matching Viceroy's House and shaping the hill in front of it blocked the grand vista Lutyens had designed. The twin blocks — North Block and South Block — were the only buildings besides Rashtrapati Bhavan on Raisina Hill, housing India's Cabinet Secretariat for over a century. They are now being converted into the Yuge Yugeen Bharat National Museum as government offices move out through 2025–2026.
What to look for
- North Block and South Block sitting in strict mirror symmetry across the central axis toward Rashtrapati Bhavan
- From Rajpath: only the very top of Rashtrapati Bhavan's dome visible over Baker's deliberately graded hill
- Early signage and works for the Yuge Yugeen Bharat National Museum conversion
Approach along Rajpath (Kartavya Path) for the full axial view up Raisina Hill; security perimeters limit close access to the blocks themselves.
Secretariat Building (North & South Block) is one of 35 sights worth the detour in Delhi, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Delhi pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Delhi
- Red FortThe ramparts where Jawaharlal Nehru raised India's flag on 15 August 1947 still host that ceremony every Independence Day.
- Qutb MinarSuccessive dynasties handed this tower off across 170 years — Aibak started it in 1199, Firuz Shah Tughlaq capped it with a cupola in 1368.
- Humayun's TombThe red-sandstone ancestor of the Taj Mahal — commissioned by an empress, designed by Persian architects, and finished a century before Agra.
- Jama MasjidShah Jahan built his imperial mosque at the highest point of Shahjahanabad — the Mughal capital — and it was regarded as a symbolic gesture of Mughal power across India.
- Lotus TempleTwenty-seven marble petals, grouped in threes, fold into a single hall where any person of any faith walks in without condition.
- India GateAround 13,300 names carved in stone — soldiers lost across Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, and the Afghan frontier.