New Delhi was constructed as a 10-square-mile city on Raisina Hill, south of the existing city. Two architects namely Edward Lutyens and Herbert Baker, were called on to design New Delhi and its buildings. The government complex in New Delhi consisted of two-mile avenue, Kingsway, now known as Rajpath, led to the Viceroy’s Palace, now known as Rashtrapati Bhavan, with the Secretariat buildings on either sides of the avenue.

The features of these government buildings were borrowed from different periods of India’s imperial history, but the overall look was classical Greece of Fifth century BCE. For instance, the central dome of the Viceroy’s Palace was copied from the Buddhist stupa at Sanchi, and the red sandstone and carved screens or Jalis were borrowed from Mughal architecture.
These new buildings, had to assert British importance. Therefore, the Viceroy’s Palace was kept higher than Shah Jahan’s Jama Masjid.