How Delhi’s Sunder Nursery came to life

Editor’s note: In 2018, New Delhi was gifted with a gorgeous new space that, today, is the city’s go-to spot for Sunday picnics and sightseeing. The Sunder Nursery, a stunning 16th century site of 21 monuments and sprawling gardens—with Humayun’s Tomb as its showstopper—was the result of a dedicated effort of restoration and revival. We feature an excerpt from the book Gardens Within A Garden, which traces the story of this 90-acre park with several recognised World Heritage Site structures, and how the decade-long efforts to restore it came about.

The following excerpt is from Gardens Within A Garden: SUNDER NURSERY NEW DELHI (2025), Concept by Ratish Nanda, Editors Geeta Wahi Dua and Archana Saad Akhtar, Published by Mapin Publishing, Ahmedabad (www.mapinpub.com), in association with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, New Delhi.

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In 1997, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of India’s Independence, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture undertook the restoration of Humayun’s Tomb gardens on the request and invitation of ASI and as a gift from His Highness the Aga Khan. This effort led to a 1,000 per cent increase in visitor numbers to the World Heritage Site which has only continued to grow.

On the completion of the restoration, the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India requested His Highness the Aga Khan for further support for heritage conservation as a non-profit public–private partnership. The Ministry of Culture, Government of India, followed up the request by providing, in 2004, a list of 50 potential sites from countrywide locations. In shortlisting potential projects, the Aga Khan Historic Cities Programme identified three criteria: a major heritage site—preferably in an urban area—whose conservation could serve as a model for India; the opportunity to create a significant urban park; and the potential to link conservation efforts with a socio-economic development programme to significantly improve the quality of life for the local population. Based on these criteria, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) chose to return to Humayun’s Tomb to build upon the earlier garden restoration project.

To undertake such a project that preceded the UNESCO resolution on the ‘Historic Urban Landscape’ approach, a single agreement was signed with three public agencies—ASI as the nodal agency, CPWD, and MCD. Signing a single agreement with these agencies—with diverse mandates—was essential to implement a project that has since spread over 500 acres of land and included the conservation of 60 monuments. This 100+ hectare project area has stretched from Azimganj Serai on the north to Rahim’s mausoleum in the south; from the Nizamuddin Basti/Golf club monuments to the west to the Nila Gumbad in the east.

Sunder Nursery

For nursery customers to access plant beds, by 2007, Sunder Nursery had an internal road network of 22,000 square metres; national monuments stood in traffic islands and roads criss-crossed across the land. In the early 2000s, the nursery had become a dumping ground for construction rubble from CPWD construction projects near the capitol complex.

On approval of the Sunder Nursery Master Plan in January 2009, one of the first activities undertaken by the AKTC was the building of an 8,000-square-metre vehicular road along the peripheral edge—to permit access to the 20 acres of nursery beds created along the northern and western edges of the Nursery. Thereafter, the focus turned to dismantling of the 22,000-square-metre existing road network across the park and restoring the garden setting of significant national monuments.

Today, we know that Sunder Nursery is dotted with 21 monuments. However, only a handful of monuments were both visible and accessible before 2007. The Sunderwala Mahal and Mirza Muzaffar Hussain’s Mausoleum were in a ruinous condition with large portions having collapsed. Sunder Burj, Mughal Mausoleum, and Lakkarwala Burj had suffered from well-meaning but poor repair attempts in the 20th century with cement plaster obliterating Mughal ornamentation, architectural elements such as sandstone lattice screens stolen and their original garden setting destroyed by inappropriate alterations. The four Mughal wells, the 16th-century Lotus Pond and several garden enclosure walls discovered were all buried in earth. The lofty arch that serves as a funerary mosque—covered with glazed tiles till only a decade ago—had become a heap of rubble. A lot more—such as the garden enclosure walls of Sunder Burj and Sunderwala Mahal mausoleums—were destroyed in their entirety in the 20th century. Furthermore, 19 acres of land to the south-east corner of Sunder Nursery was encroached and remained inaccessible to the public. Since 1989, the Bharat Scouts had built over a hundred structures to serve various functions—including a commercial club with its swimming pool and other similar facilities.

Though overshadowed by Emperor Humayun’s Tomb, the significance of the ruins of monuments standing within Sunder Nursery could easily be discerned. The conservation effort on these, over years, required a consistent approach similar to that at the World Heritage Site of Humayun’s Tomb itself.

World Heritage Site Designation

Humayun’s Tomb Garden, built on a monumental scale, with its grandeur of design and the garden setting, had no precedent in the Islamic world for a mausoleum. On account of its uniqueness, innovation and its standing within an ensemble of 16th-century garden tombs, Humayun’s Tomb was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1993. The Retrospective Statement of Outstanding Universal Value submitted to UNESCO in 2015 recognized the unique urban setting in which the tomb-garden was built and thus allowed the opportunity to seek inclusion of at least 12 contemporary tomb-gardens within the boundaries of the World Heritage Site, thus expanding the World Heritage Property Manifold.

The criteria now recognized by UNESCO for the World Heritage designation of Humayun’s Tomb are:

• Humayun’s garden-tomb is built on a monumental scale, grandeur of design and garden setting with no precedence in the Islamic world for a mausoleum. Here for the first time, important architectural innovations were made including creating a chahaar bagh—a garden setting inspired by the description of paradise in the Holy Quran. The monumental scale achieved here was to become the characteristic of Mughal imperial projects, culminating in the construction of the Taj Mahal.

• Humayun’s Tomb and the other contemporary 16th-century garden tombs within the property form a unique ensemble of Mughal-era garden tombs. The monumental scale, architectural treatment and garden setting are outstanding in Islamic garden tombs. Humayun’s Tomb is the first important example in India, and above all else, the symbol of the powerful Mughal dynasty that unified most of the subcontinent.

In order to ensure that the integrity of the World Heritage Site is retained, in 2015, the property boundaries for the World Heritage Site were revised to include the contemporary garden-tombs of Isa Khan, Bu Halima, Nila Gumbad, Afsarwala as well as the Arab Serai Bazaar—all of which stand within the ticketed Humayun’s Tomb complex. While confirming the revised, extended boundaries for the World Heritage Site, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee ratified that:

The tombs in the complex have been respected throughout their history and so have retained the original form and purpose intact. Recent conservation works that have followed the urban landscape approach have been aimed at preserving this character and ensured the preservation of the physical fabric, enhancing the significance while reviving living building-craft traditions used by the Mughal builders.

With the 2015 recognition that Humayun’s Tomb and the other contemporary 16th-century garden tombs within the property form a unique ensemble of Mughal-era garden-tombs, AKTC in 2016 proposed, through the ASI, to UNESCO, for 16th-century garden tombs standing in Sunder Nursery, such as Lakkarwala Burj, Sunder Burj, Mirza Muzaffar Hussain’s Mausoleum, Sundarwala Mahal, ‘Unknown Mughal Mausoleum’, Chhota Batashewala Mausoleum and Nila Gumbad’s garden setting, to be included in a further extension of theWorld Heritage Site boundaries. Sabz Burj and Rahim Khan-i-Khanan’s Mausoleum be included within the Buffer Zone.

This 2016 proposal for ‘minor boundary modification’ was accepted at the General Assembly meeting on 24 October 2016 on the basis of ICOMOS report that,

The programme of conservation for Humayun’s Tomb has ensured the use of traditional, materials and building techniques, removal of 20th-century additions and modern materials, and the reestablishment of missing portions of the structures and enclosure walls that had been demolished in 1989. The painstaking removal of cement, and replacement with traditional materials such as lime mortar/plaster has been particularly important. These works, and the systematic and scientific research and documentation processes that have been adopted, have allowed a model conservation process to be developed for the property. Urgent repairs have been made to a number of structures to be included in the property boundary. The garden settings have been conserved. ICOMOS considers that the proposed modifications to the property boundary and buffer zone for Humayun’s Tomb will contribute to protection of Outstanding Universal Value of the property and will strengthen the management of the World Heritage property and its presentation to visitors.

In July 2007, within days of the signing of the agreement to commence the project, conservation works commenced on a group of four ruinous monuments—the so-called Garden Pavilion, the funerary mosque known as the Arched Platform, and two Mughal-era grave platforms.

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This excerpt is from Gardens Within A Garden: SUNDER NURSERY NEW DELHI (2025), Concept by Ratish Nanda, Editors Geeta Wahi Dua and Archana Saad Akhtar, Published by Mapin Publishing, Ahmedabad (www.mapinpub.com), in association with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, New Delhi.