colonial architecture in all metropolitians

COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE IN ALL

METROPOLITIANS

DELHICALCUTTA/KOLKATABOMBAY/MUMBAIMADRAS/CHENNAI

TOWN HALL, MUMBAI

TOWN HALL, MUMBAI

It was designed by LIEUTENANT-COLONEL THOMAS COWPER in (1781-1825)This pleasantly neo-classical building now houses the library of the Asiatic Society, as well as a small museum.The neo-classical design is due to Colonel Thomas Cowper of the Bombay Engineers.Town Hall is conceivably the most imperial structure amongst the heritage buildings of Mumbai.

TOWN HALL, MUMBAI

It is now classified as a heritage structure, heavily influenced by Greek and Roman architecture.Housing the Asiatic Society of Bombay, Town Hall is located in the Fort area of South Mumbai. The building is 200 feet long and 100 feet deep.The facade has three porticoes faced by Ionic columns

TOWN HALL, MUMBAI

A flight of 30 steps lead up to the town hall and a wrought iron divided Regency staircase leads to the vestibuleIt has a portico with eight Doric columns.The pillared monument is even more significant for its exquisite edifice that has old wooden floor, spiral staircases, wrought iron loggias and superb marble statues of late benefactors of the Island City of India.

TOWN HALL, MUMBAI

The latter contains statues of some 19th century governors of Bombay, some British scholars and administrators and two Indian philanthropists and an Indian scholar.

The plans called for a double row of columns, built out of material brought from England.

The building was completed in 1833, after the death of Cowper.

ELPHINSTONE CIRCLE GARDEN, MUMBAI


The Horniman Circle Gardens is a large park in South Mumbai, India which encompasses an area of 12,081 square yards (10,101 m²).It is situated in the Fort district of Mumbai, and is surrounded by office complexes housing the country's premier banks.Designed to be a large open space with grand buildings in the middle of the walled city, the area had been known as Bombay Greens in the 18th century.In 1842, the area had been just a dump of coconut shells and debris.


The Police Commissioner, Charles Forjett, thought of converting the Green into a circle surrounded by buildings.He was supported by governors Lord Elphinstone and Sir Bartle Frère. The garden was laid out in 1869 and completed in 1872 with well laid out walkways and trees planted all around.It was laid down with the purpose of providing an open space to the locals living in the walled city area.The whole complex was then renamed Elphinstone Circle after the Governor, Lord John Elphinstone.


An ornamental fountain was placed in the centre, but it was replaced by a modern art deco iron pipes design.The park was a favourite social venue of the Parsi community. In the pre-independence era, a band used to perform there every evening.The gardens overlook the Asiatic Society of Bombay, a key landmark of the city.Since the garden has been planted with trees of every season; it blossoms with lush greenery throughout the year.

Victoria Railway Terminus, Bombay


Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus formerly Victoria Terminus, and better known by its abbreviation CST or Bombay VT) is a historic railway station in Mumbai which serves as the headquarters of the Central Railways.It is one of the busiest railway stations in India, and serves Central Railway trains terminating in Mumbai as well as the Mumbai suburban railway.The station was designed by Frederick William Stevens, a consulting architect in 1887-1888


It took ten years to complete and was named "Victoria Terminus" in honour of the Queen and Empress Victoria; it was opened on the date of her Golden Jubilee in 1887.This famous architectural landmark in Gothic style was built as the headquarters of the great Indian Peninsular Railway.Since then the station came to be known as Bombay VT.Victoria Terminus boasts of spectacular stone dome, turrets, pointed arches and unusual ground plan, unlike the traditional Indian architecture.


Its fine interiors, like wood carving, tiles, ornamental iron, brass railings, etc, reflect the efforts of students at the Bombay School of Art.Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus represents an excellent fusion of two cultures.During its construction, British architects worked with the Indian craftsmen, exchanging notes to give a new look and style to Bombay.

Government House, Calcutta

Raj Bhavan is the Governor's house in Kolkata, West Bengal.The structure was built in pre-Independence times (1803).The structure was built in 1799–1803 to the designs of Captain Charles Wyatt of the Bengal Engineer.It serves as the residence of the Governor of the Indian state of West Bengal, and is referred to by its Hindi name ("Raj Bhavan").The present Governor of West Bengal, HE Gopalkrishna Gandhi resides in this building.


North East View Front View


The three-storied structure of Raj Bhavan was inspired by the Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire.Interestingly, the Kedleston Hall is the ancestral house of Marquess Curzon , who became the Viceroy of India (from 1899 to 1904) and lived in Government House exactly a century after Wellesly.While the basic features of Kedleston such as the Palladian Front, the Dome etc. have been faithfully copied , the Government House is a much larger, three storeyed structure.Today, a "complete," brick built Kedleston, on a much grander scale, is located in its acres of gardens at the heart of the Kolkata business district.


Raj Bhavan consists of a total area of 27 acres. The building has 84,000 sq ft (7,800 m2) of floor space.Government House resembles Kedleston Hall in the broad external Features of shape, design and orientation, in the extreme dimensions from East to West, in the concentration of the main State rooms in the middle pile, in the placing there of a great marble hall supported by columns and in the superimposition of a dome above the Southern façade, but the two houses differradically both in material and arrangement Kedleston is built mainly of a grey or yellowish sandstone and only partly of brick while Government House is built entirely of brick covered over with white plaster which is color-washed every year.


They differ also in completeness of construction, only two of the projecting wings having been finished at Kedleston, whereas Government House has all four Government House also has a semi-circular projecting portico and colonnade on the South front which Kedleston lacks.

Another point of dissimilarity is that the curved corridors at Government House are two story’s high and so their roof line is level with that of the wings and of the main building,whereas at Kedleston the corridors are only one storey high so that the wings stand up higher than the curving corridors which join them to the central pile.


Government House in addition has spacious verandahs on the Southern face which are absent and unnecessary at Kedleston.

Government House, Calcutta Interior

Government House, Calcutta InteriorThe residential portion is divided into 4 suites. The

Prince of Wales suite in the north-west wing of the first floor is the suite where the President, Vice-President and the Prime Minister of India reside when visiting the state of West Bengal.The Wellesley suite is located on the second floor in the north-eastern wing.The Dufferin suite is on the second floor of north-west wing.The fourth suite is the Anderson suite.Occasional public meetings by the Governor are held in the magnificent marble hall in the ground floor.

Government House, Calcutta InteriorThe Council Chamber used to be the meeting

place of Executive Council of the Governor General. The Brown Dining Room was used as the breakfast room, while the adjoining Blue Drawing Room is the room where the Governor meets guests. The Throne Room is like a Durbar where princes were welcomed and durbars held. Besides, there are the Banquet Hall and the Ball Room. There is a gun mounted on a dragon towards the north gate.

Government House, Calcutta InteriorAround the main gun there are ten guns that were

taken from the Chinese, in commemoration of the peace initiated by Treaty of Nanking by the Naval and Military forces of England and India under the command of Vice-Admiral Sir William Parker and of Lieutenant-General Sir Hugh G

Calcutta Town Hall

Calcutta Town Hall Calcutta Town Hall was the largest building in Calcutta where public meetings of all descriptions took place, and people of all shades of opinion in Calcutta had an access to it.Built in Doric architectural style, the origin of the building can be traced back to a meeting held in Le Gallais Tavern in 1791.Plan for the proposed hall was sanctioned in 1807 and Col J Garstin was put in charge of construction.Being completed in 1813 it was handed over to a management committee known as The Town Hall Committee.The Town Hall was spacious enough to accommodate the social needs of the European community of the settlement.

Calcutta Town Hall Structure

A two storied structure above a brick-vaulted foundation, its ground floor was about 23 feet high and contained a marble hall and a few smaller rooms to use for various purposes. The upper floor with a teak-planked floor, was about 30 feet high and divided by double rows of pillars into a central hall and two aisles. At the northern end, there was a music gallery and at the eastern side, a raised platform. Some smaller rooms were used for cards and supper rooms.A series of steps from the road led to the colonnaded front portico of the solid rectangular building.


The carriage entrance was on the north under another lofty covered portico.The Town Hall was built with brick and wood. The Ground Floor measures 23 feet high containing a marble hall and smaller rooms. The upper floor is 30 feet in height.The building on the whole was a solid rectangular block with two protruding porticos on the South and North.A series of grand steps from Esplanade Road lead to the colonnaded front portico while a second entry from the rear side used to serve the way for carriage ways.


The building demonstrates a load bearing structure with brick masonry of 975 mm thick and circular columns 775 mm thick. The mortar was lime, sand and brick dust. The average thickness of plaster was 20 mm. The Central Hall has two rows of 22 columns each in the East-West direction. The Basement has been constructed with barrel vaults spanning between the walls and the columns with a cross vault running along the central axis in the North- South direction. The wooden beams of the first floor had sagged and could no longer take the load of the first floor.


As a result a series of cast iron pillars were placed along the brick columns to support the first floor.The Main Hall on the ground floor had become a jungle of columns and beams at the floor level making it unworthy of holding any large gatherings. The brick vaults in the foundation were in poor conditions as moisture content in them was high and huge cracks had developed in several places due to the load of the large marble statues on the ground floor and some cast iron supports.


The fourteen skylights were made of wooden frames with wired glass louvers; the main source of leakage was from here as the lower frames had rotted and given away. The broken glass louvers allowed free ingress of rain water thereby making the wooden floor below and many of the skylights soft and spongy from continuous water absorption. The roof slab had several levels -the waterproofing and large parts of the roof were leaking and the seepage got absorbed in the wall and columns.


Also it was severely damaged exposing the rusted reinforcement bars where portions of the roof slab were exposed.The original waterproofing used lime terracing that became undulated over time. Pockets of rainwater accumulated over the roof started and the slow disintegration of the lime terracing that does not have the binding strength for retention over a large area. The rain water pipes placed arbitrarily along the parapet wall started damaging the cornices and the terracotta motifs on the exterior wall.

Calcutta High Court

Calcutta High Court

The Calcutta High Court is the oldest High Court in India. It was established on July 2, 1862 under the High Courts Act, 1861.Situated at Old Post Office Street near Eden Garden, Calcutta High Court is the highest seat of judiciary in West Bengal. It is one of the oldest buildings in India constructed by Walter Granville in 1872. Built in the Gothic style of architecture, it has a tower which is 54 m high. On the eastern side is the original sandstone courthouse. The chief justice court, session court, bar library, and attorney library are situated inside the high court.

Calcutta High Court

The Court Rooms: Portraits and busts of legal luminaries adorn the courtrooms and the corridors and the Bar Library is a treasury for the legal tomes. Browsing is permitted with the librarian's permission. The Judges Library contains interesting legal documents. Visitors are allowed inside the court premises.

Post Office, Dalhousie Square, Calcutta


The General Post Office, Kolkata is the central post office of the city of Kalkaska, India and the chief post office of West Bengal.The post-office handles most of the city's inbound and outbound mail and parcels. Situated in the B.B.D. Bagh area, the imposing structure of the GPO is one of the landmarks in the cityThe site where GPO is located was actually the site of the first Fort William. It is also alleged to be the site of the infamous Black Hole of Calcutta (1756).


The site where GPO is located was actually the site of the first Fort William. It is also alleged to be the site of the infamous Black Hole of Calcutta (1756). Designed by, Walter B. Grenville the general post office was built in 1864.The GPO is notable for its imposing high domed roof (rising over 220 feet) and tall Ionic-Corinthian pillars .

St. John's ChurchKolkata


Built by:

Job Charnock, the founder of Kolkata

Location:

Located south to the B.B.D. Bag, St. John's Church is one of the oldest churches of Kolkata.


St. John's Church was built by the grave of Job Charnock, the founder of Kolkata (Calcutta). It was constructed between 1884-1887, popularly known as the 'stone church'. The floor of the church was made with stones obtained from Ganda. Stones were also obtained from Chunar. The stone tower is 174 ft. high. Job Charnock was buried here. His sculpture was made by his son-in-law Sir Charles Ayar around 1695. The sculpture is a unique specimen of art.


There is a dome with a pitcher appended to it. There are also the tombs of the daughters of Charnock.There are the sculptures of British Admiral Watson who subjugated Calcutta in 1757, Lord Brabourne, Lady Canning and several distinguished persons. The obelisk commemorating the black hole was moved from near the GPO to a corner of this graveyard. It is the earliest example of British masonry in India. Near the west wall is a replica of the Holwell Monument - originally erected at the site of the Black Hole of Calcutta.


Inside the church there are the famous paintings of The Last Supper by John Zoffany, a marvellous stained glass window and memorial tablets of prominent citizens through the ages. The Sunday service is held regularly at the church.

THANK YOU

Submitted To: Submitted By:

Arch. Harveen Bhandari Nandita Singh

AR/07/315.

colonial architecture in all metropolitians

Documents

mumbaitown hall

asiatic society of bombay

walled city area

bombay engineers

bombay vt

bombay greens

governors lord elphinstone

ionic columnstown hall