The Laxmi Vilas Palace in Baroda, India was built between 1890-1898 for Gaekwar Siyaji Rao III. It was designed by British architect Major Charles Mant in the Indo-Saracenic style, combining elements of traditional Indian architecture with modern requirements. While attempting to incorporate aspects of regional Indian styles like Mughal, Rajput, and Gujarati, Mant arranged the palace's layout and rooms according to Western conventions. The massive palace featured an eclectic mix of architectural influences and building materials from across India and Europe.

1. CASE STUDY – LAXMI VILAS PALACE
Aditya Saharia

2. The Laxmi Vilas Palace, Baroda was built as the town residence of Gaekwar Siyaji Rao – III
in 1890. It was designed by Charks Mant. It was conceptualized as a combination of native
details with ordinary requirement of a modern palace and arrangement of the room. It is a
perfect example of British eclecticism of Indo-Saracenic style. The Indian character of the
building is very much superficial. Though a variety of façade treatment is Indian but they
have been composed in an alien manner without knowing its symbolism and significance.
Vilas Palace was completed in 1890. It had taken twelve years to build and had cost around
£180,000. It was designed by Major Mant, who also designed palaces at Kolhapur and
Darbhanga, but completed by Robert Fellowes Chisholm. As Chisholm told the Royal Institute
of British Architects in 1896:'It must be kept in view that the native Rajas and chiefs of India
are passing through a transitional period; that an old palace like that at Ambur would be about
as useless to the present Gaekwar of Baroda as to an ordinary English gentleman.

3. The planning of the building is totally on western patterns. The various palaces
like Amber and Bikaner have only one entry with the public use areas being
provided at the entry and the semi public and private areas coming after that. In
Laxmi Vilas palace, Baroda separate entries have been provided to the Durbar
kings residence and Zenana. It also contains a new breed of rooms like state
dining billiards rooms etc. The building which covers an area of 100,000 sq. feet
is laid out in a garden like a British country house.
PLAN LAYOUT

4. Mant's design aimed to 'combine native detail with the ordinary requirements of a modern
palace and arrangement of rooms'. Reputed to have been the largest private dwelling built till
date and four times the size of Buckingham Palace, this beauteous structure features an Indo
Saracenic style of architecture.
Thus Mant stuck more or
less to the traditional
arrangement of an Indian
palace - with three
distinct and separate
parts for the public
rooms, Maharaja's
private apartments, and
the ladies' quarters
respectively but
incorporated many new
rooms to suit the Baroda
family's increasingly
western life-style stately
dining rooms, billiard
rooms, and great
apartments for
distinguished European
visitors.
Similarly, he attempted to incorporate the best elements of many
periods of Indian architecture with some of the functional
touches and decorative flourishes of different European schools.
The sheer size of the palace (the frontage was over five hundred
feet long) made it possible to include all these elements without
creating stylistic havoc.

5. The façade of the building has a great variety of treatment, the Durbar hall on the
left having Mughalized domes and chatris, the Maharaja’s residence having the
Bharatpur influence and the Zenana having local Gujrat influence with more florid
art. The parapet details are Rajput form chittor. The sikharas that have been used
are a Hindu influence. The tower is a British influence and was originally
conceived as a clock tower. The circular ventilators have their roots in the church
architecture. Mughal cusped arches have been used. There is a full of various
arches. Mughal chajjas have also been used.
ELEVATION - FACADE

6. The arch as such gives the
feeling of a venelian arch. It is
just a modified form of a
ventiar arch.
The sikharas that have been used in the
façade without knowing its significance in
Zenana are totally irrelevant as a Sikhara
is never used in secular buildings.
ARCHITECTURAL FEATURES

7. Mant rejected from the start any idea of a dry symmetrical pattern, and allowed the
styles to melt into one another. The exterior of the Maharaja's apartments were dressed
up in the garb of Hindu martial architecture, with most of the detail borrowed from the
fortress of Bharatpur. The public apartments, however, moved more into a Moghul style,
while the ladies' quarters ended in a forest of domes and canopies copied from the Jain
temples of Gujarat. Likewise the materials used were a blend of east and west. The
basic construction was brick faced with red sandstone from the quarries of Agra, with
some blue trap stone from Poona and marble from the quarries of Rajasthan. Workmen
from Madras came to apply the ‘chunam’ plaster to many of the interior walls. Then
twelve workmen from the Murano Company of Venice spent eighteen months in Baroda
laying the floor of Venetian mosaic in the Durbar hall.
Carara marble was imported for the doorways of the hall, the pillars and the
ornamental staircase. Mr. Tree from London made the molding and gilding on the walls
and ceilings. Period furniture, Old Masters and Venetian chandeliers completed the
effect.