Discover Kolkata THE GRAND old residences of Kolkata may have seen better days but they still retain hints of extravagance that recall India’s colonial past View slideshow Status symbols For outsiders, Kolkata might appear to be an impossible city. The roads are impossibly crowded. The drivers of the vehicles are impossibly unruly. And yet in the lanes of North Kolkata, the palaces of the great Bengali families have survived, a seeming impossibility in the face of declines in fortune and the impulses of modernity. These palaces took their inspiration from the splendid neo-classical and Palladian structures of Imperial Britain centred around Dalhousie Square. Queen Victoria still sits secure on her throne in the imposing Victoria Memorial. Soaring Corinthian columns and triangular pediments co-exist with tropical adaptions, such as rattan screens, wooden louvres and jalousies and brick and plaster that took the place of European marble. Add to that the Arabian Nights influences in the magnificent temples that dot the city and draw hundreds of thousands of visitors during religious festivals. -- Soumitra Das See Raj Bhavan Loosely based on Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire, this domed general post office (1868) evokes Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London and the former Government House. The three-storey building consists of large halls with arched corridors that are surrounded by acres of gardens. Imposing lion figures stand atop tall elaborately designed wrought iron gates upon entrance. LocationGovernment Place, Kolkata Phone+91 33 2200 1641 Visit website See Tagore House A branch of the highly influential Tagore family, which included the poet Rabindranath Tagore, winner of the 1913 Nobel Prize for Literature, built this guest house modelled after Windsor Castle. Sadly, the castle never made it to the heritage-buildings list, due to unsympathetic renovations. However, it has become a shrine-like museum commemorating the great modern poet of India. Location1686 Lashkrhat, Tagore Park (Block -1), Naskar Hat, Kasba, Kolkata Phone+91 33 2345 2433 See Marble Palace The Marble Palace in Chorbagan district was built in 1835 by Raja Rajendra Mullick Bahadur, who spared no expense in what has been described as “audaciously vulgar” magnificence. The family still lives in its great halls paved with varicoloured Italian marble and chock-a-block with collections of oversized porcelain vases, chandeliers loaded with Venetian crystals, ormolu on nearly every surface, giant mirrors now foxed from the climate, a collection of statues of Queen Victoria and hundreds of paintings, some purporting to be the work of Titian and Rubens. In the surrounding gardens, a visitor could trip over statues of sweetly napping lions, roaring lions and other mythological figures. The Marble Palace, inside and out, is strictly off limits to photographers. Location46 Muktaram Babu Street,Kolkata Phone+91 33 2269 3310 Visit website See Girish Bhavan The former home of poet and playwright Girish Chandra Ghosh has been locked up for decades by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, which once a year gives it an exterior paint job, renewing the original red and yellow. Historians want to get into the mansion as no one knows what’s beyond the padlocked door. Some newspapers have speculated that there may be important relics still stored there, but that is only speculation until access is granted. LocationGirish Avenue, Bagbazar, Kolkata
Posted on: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 10:29:37 +0000
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