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The full story of the world’s grandest art deco palace of the 1940s
The magnificence and scale of Jodhpur’s Umaid Bhawan, with its 347 rooms and elaborate gardens, its
seemingly endless corridors and, for the 1940s, very modern comforts, make it one of the most enviable
of royal residences anywhere in the world.
Strikingly Art Deco in style, Umaid Bhawan also abides by the architectural guidelines formulated by
the temple-mountain palaces of ancient South-East Asian god-kings. The authors, while meticulously
tracing the origins of Henry Vaughan Lanchester’s design, reveal its quintessential cultural sincerity. The
architect’s assured familiarity with Hindu ritual and symbolism was incorporated into his plan; in stark
contrast, the more famous Edwin Lutyens, who disdained all things Indian, had to be coerced into
including indigenous elements in the design for New Delhi’s Viceroy’s House.
Aman Nath has made of this most sumptuous of palaces a most sumptuous book. Not even
Buckingham Palace, which could well have been the model Umaid Bhawan set out to surpass, has
inspired so rich a canvas. Its 172 pages encompass rare archival material, over three hundred colour
photographs as well as nine stunning panoramic gatefolds.
ISBN - 8175085118
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Pages : 172
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