Archive for the ‘European Architecture’ Category

St Marks (C.S.I) Church, George Town, Chennai

Sunday, July 17th, 2011


This C.S.I church in Georgetown, Chennai was fairly hard to locate. Read about it in a book about old Madras. It is located on a side street off Popham’s Broadway (now called Prakasam Road) not very far from Bishop Corrie Secondary school. Built in 1800, I’m guessing this may be one of the earliest anglican churches to be built outside the walls of Fort St George.

EUROPEAN ARCHITECTURE IN INDIA

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St Mary’s Church, Fort St George, Madras (now known as Chennai)

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011

St Mary’s Church is the oldest Anglican Church and oldest surviving British building in India. It was built between 1678-1680. It was designed by William Dixon with a number of additions made later. A detached tower was built at the west end of the church in 1701 and a steeple added to this in 1710. The church was constructed as a rectangular hall with thick masonary walls and a vaulted ceiling . The windows of the church are deeply recessed and have semi-circular stained glass panels.
TRIVIA: Elihu Yale, who was governor of Fort St George was married in this church. He later founded Yale University in the United States.

EUROPEAN ARCHITECTURE IN INDIA

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Bolghatty Palace, a Dutch style palace in Cochin

Sunday, February 27th, 2011

Bolghatty Palace – Photographed around 1900 by Zacharias D’Cruz.

This Dutch style palace was built in the 18th century by Dutch traders who replaced the Portuguese in Cochin. The palace dates back to 1744 and is believed to be the oldest Dutch style palace outside the Netherlands.

EUROPEAN ARCHITECTURE IN INDIA

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National Library, Calcutta (Kolkata)

Saturday, February 5th, 2011
The National Library of India at Calcutta is housed in Belvedere House, the former residence of the governor general of India. This historic house may have been built as early as the 18th century and was gifted to Warren Hastings by the Nawab of Bengal.
More information on the National Library of India is available at their website:

http://www.nlindia.org/index2.html

EUROPEAN ARCHITECTURE IN INDIA

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Central Railway Station, Poonamalle High Road, Park Town, Madras

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

Constructed between 1868 and 1872, this railway station in Madras was designed by British architects George Harding and Robert Chisholm. The structure reflects the gothic revival style and consists of 2 storeys which are extremely slender and fine in proportion. A central tower rises out 41 metres from the iron roof and houses one of the oldest clocks in the city. The clock tower was a later addition to the building . There are also four smaller towers at each corner of the building and each tower is capped with decorative cast-iron finials which are relatively plain and are often referred to as ‘Travancore caps’.

Central Station (as it is known today), was opened to the public in 1873 with just four platforms. Since 1998, the station has been enlarged and now has 12 platforms. Interstate trains operate on a daily basis from this railway station.

EUROPEAN ARCHITECTURE IN INDIA

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Centenary Hall, Chennai

Tuesday, January 18th, 2011

I photographed this simple yet elegant building in early 2009 but dont have any information about it except what was printed on a plaque at the top of the building. ‘Centenary Hall 1901′
Located on Popham’s Broadway (now called Prakasm Rd) in George Town, I hope it stands for another 100 years at least. So much of Chennai’s European past is being bulldozed to built high rise apartments or shopping malls. The destruction of the Madras Club in the Indian Express Estate to built a hotel and shopping mall is a classic example.

EUROPEAN ARCHITECTURE IN INDIA

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Victoria Public Hall, Poonamallee High Road, Madras

Sunday, January 16th, 2011
Victoria Public Hall (also known as the Town Hall) was completed in 1887 and named in honour of Queen Victoria on her Golden Jubilee. Designed by Robert Chisholm in the Romanesque style, the hall is rectangular in plan and measures 46 metres by 26 metres. The ground floor and the first floor contain 2 large halls capable of seating 600 people each. The upper floor is surrounded by a arcaded verandahs along the northern and southern sides with corinthian stone pillars and a tall tower that rises out of one side of the building. The roof of the building is covered with Mangalore tiles with dormers at the each end and along the length of the roof. The walls of the top floor are highly embellished with decorated and painted plasterwork on the interior and the gallery in the upper floor is made entirely of wood.

The building has been in a bad state of repair for many years now and believed to be occupied by the South Indian Athelitics Association.

EUROPEAN ARCHITECTURE IN INDIA

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A European style house in Jones Street, George Town, Madras

Thursday, January 13th, 2011


Many of George Town’s old houses are being allowed to decay and collapse and are then replaced with apartment blocks. The same loss of heritage is also destroying Vepery’s old garden houses (a suburb not far from George Town).

EUROPEAN ARCHITECTURE IN INDIA

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Berlin, Berlin……

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

Berlin, Berlin, Berlin…a true representative of European standard, of European countries.

It’s been a real pleasure to begin with Berlin as a starter on our long and exciting journey. Discovering Europe in this city has offered a mosaic of phantastic museums and art of all kind. One just can’t help getting lost on “The Island of Museums”.

So, at the very beginning of the trip into the unknown the first destination was unforgettable and thus the goal of the organization “Evropski pokret Srbije”, led by Vojislav Milosevic, successfully achieved.

After only a couple of hours of traveling we were all into making plans and phantasising about the new upcoming adventures. All led by the same desire – to explore and to get to know as many new nations and cultures as possible. It was like as we knew each other for a long time  and not just one day.

Thrilled and amazed by modern technology and Berlin’s trains the gay troupe was eager to get to know the ‘dangerous’ machine we were suppose to travel in, as well the first class. On our luck, the engine driver invited us into his cabine and a whole new world opened its door to us. We were able to make incredible photos.

On the other hand, the main goal to put together students of different social backgrounds and coming from neighbor contries was also a success. Good interaction and joint effort of ‘Balkan Rangers’ made the City rallye’s dream come true.

Berlin has broadened our horizons. That’s why I postponed my departure and decided to join the group in Amsterdam afterwords. In that way I got the chance to see more of Berlin’s beauties and stand by Leonardo’s Madonna, Van Eyck’s famous portrait and Botticelli’s Venus.

To conclude, it’s impossible to see all of Berlin just in several days, but it’s sure worth it just to experience the atmosphere. Somewhere between the old buildings, which portray the spirit of the past and suffering in The Second World War, and the frenetic and modern life of today you get overwhelmed by the desire to come back one day.

I’ve decided that my next stop will be Düsseldorf where I’ll pay a visit to my friend from Serbia. That’s where I’ll take some rest and time to analyse my impressions.

Robert Bosch Stiftung Weblog – Travel to Europe

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Big hello from Europe

Sunday, December 13th, 2009

Hello everyone,

First of all we want to say thanks to Robert Bosch Stiftung for this great oportunity to travel around Europe. Until now montenegrin group was been in Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels, Lille and currently we are in Paris. Paris is beautiful city, better than any other which we visitied. Each city is very nice on it own way but for us Paris is something special. Lot of museums, historic monuments and at the end beautiful girls. :)

Also I can tell that best chocolate on the world is in Brussels. We tried a few different tastes and all of them are delicious. We will come back to Belgium whenever we can only to buy chocolate.

That’s it for now. We will write again soon.

Caos (Pozdrav) :)

Robert Bosch Stiftung Weblog – Travel to Europe

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