indo-saracenic architecture

History of Architecture (AP313) | Essay | 2014

INDO- SARACENIC ARCHITECTURE

Term Paper for History of Architecture (AP131)

GAGANDEEP KAURRoll Number: 14Sushant School of Art and Architecture

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PAPER

Indo-saracenic architecture developed in India during the late 19th century under the British Raj. It combined the features of Hindu and Islamic architecture with the western elements. Buildings belonging to the Indo-saracenic architecture referenced to India’s architectural past and reflected the Gothic and Neo-classical style that was prevailing in England at that time. It can be considered as a hybrid of the diverse architectural elements of Hindu and Mughal architecture with Gothic elements like arches, domes, spires, tracery, minarets and stained glass.

INTRODUCTION

This style of architecture which developed under the British rule in India had major prominence in the late 19th and early 20th century. Before the revolt of 1857 the building that were being constructed were functional and served their purpose of trade. Till then the style of architecture, in no way, exhibited a sense of power or authority. But post 1857, the liberal and utilitarian view of Indian society changed and so did the British style of colonial architecture. The Indian empire became formalized and the British Raj distinguished themselves from the people. The architecture then supposed to have a dominating impact on the native people. A feeling of authority and power was implicated through the buildings. Whereas, the style of buildings post 1857 changed and started to make connections with the colonized land. It adopted ideas and elements from the native place and developed a style that was intermediary to the Indians and the English.

“In their time as administrators, the British built up a vast, transcontinental brick-and-mortar system of infrastructure – schools, railways (1) (2), railway stations, ports, banks, post-offices, libraries, universities, administrative and bureaucratic offices, even palatial residences. The collective architecture of these myriad English structures built over centuries came to represent the British rule in India.”(1)

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Thus, we can state that the colonial architecture in India oscillated between foreign design idioms (such as the Gothic Revival style of Bombay and the Classical Revival style of Calcutta) or the overtly stylized amalgamation of English and Indian architectural motifs and is termed the “Indo-Saracenic.”

Indo-saracenic architecture is also a fascinating example of negotiation of ethics and power politics in the medium of architecture via exchange of aesthetic features. The Britishers, thus, tried to encapsulate India’s past as well as their Gothic and Neo-classsical styles into one building. This way the Indians remained content and the legitimacy of the British rule was also implicated.

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“Part of the Indo-Saracenic ideal was lodged in the colonial stereotype of the putative “decline” of Indian civilization. The English claimed that they had succeeded in conquering India because Indian civilization had begun to decay. One of the chief proponents of this idea was James Fergusson, the first historian of Indian architecture. Without any understanding of the functional or conceptual basis of Indian architecture, Fergusson classified and evaluated Indian buildings based on their formal properties and proposed that Indian architecture periodically went into decline and that it had thus to be revived by contact with foreigners.”(2)

“The high priest of Arts and Crafts Movement, John Ruskin believed that there was a need to reeducate native craftsmen in European aesthetics while preserving and reviving their craft traditions. European art with Indian craft in the service of modern colonial buildings was, therefore, the 19th-century recipe for a “modern” Indian architecture.”(2)

In 1890, Swinton Jacob, the Jaipur State's English engineer, brought out, under the patronage of the Maharaja, six large volumes entitled ‘The Jeypore Portfolio of Architectural Details’ . These volumes brought together over six hundred large-scale drawings of architectural elements taken from an array of northern Indian buildings - mosques and tombs, forts and temples - dating from the twelfth to the eighteenth century. The work was organised not by period or by region, but rather by function. The volumes were meant, Jacob wrote in the preface, not just for the student of Indian architecture, but as 'a set of working drawings' for the architect so that he might more readily make use of those various features, so full of vigour so graceful and so true in outline', in modern building.

“With the publication of these volumes a distinctive style of Indian architecture that came to be known as the 'Indo-Saracenic' - came of age. It has long been fashionable to disparage, perhaps with an amused condescension, British attempts to imitate in their buildings the traditional architectural styles of India. Yet these British buildings still tell us much about how the British shaped India's conception of its past, and how they turned India's architectural heritage to the service of the Raj.”

The Indo-Saracenic style gained further impetus from its close association with the Gothic. Though the two had of course a wholly different origin, they shared

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an exuberant surface decoration, arched gateways and other features; and these provided sufficient superficial similarity so that the taste for the one style reinforced the acceptability of the other. Indeed it was not uncommon to refer to the Indo-Saracenic as 'Eastern pointed or Gothic'. Nor were buildings which joined Gothic and 'Oriental' features at all rare. In Bombay and Madras especially, the predominant style for government and commercial offices was, as one critic described the Bombay Victoria Terminus, 'a free treatment of Venetian Gothic with an Oriental'.

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Indo-saracenic architecture found its way into public buildings of all sorts such as railway stations, banks and insurance buildings, educational institutions, clubs and museums. Chepauk Palace in Chennai designed by Paul Benfield is said to be the first indo-saracenic building in india, referred to as licentious "eclectic" incorporating elements and motifs of Hindu and Islamic precedents. Outstanding examples are spread across the country with major influence in cities like Calcutta, Delhi, Madras and Bombay- Muir college at Allahabad, Napier Museum at Thiruvananthapuram, the Post Office, Prince of Wales Museum, University Hall and Library, Gateway of India in Mumbai, M.S. University, Lakshmi Vilas Palace at Baroda, the Central Railway Station, Law courts, Victoria Public Hall, Museum and University Senate House in Chennai, the Palaces at Mysore and Bangalore.

Robert Fellowes Chisholm and Henry Irwin were among the leading practitioners of the time. Chisholm, one of the most gifted English architects working in India, was a vehement supporter of Indian craftsmen. He believed that architecture in India has to be inspired by the native styles of art that exist in India. He belonged to the generation of professional architects who believed more in exploring their professional freedom than in following designs from ideological strictures. It was this search that led him inevitably to eclecticism. Chisholm’s finest works survive in two cities in India – Madras (Chennai) and Baroda (Vadodara).

SENATE HOUSE in Chennai by

R. F. CHISHOLM

The design of this building was chosen through an open competition announced by the madras government in 1864. Completed by 1879 at a cost of Rs

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Figure 1: Chepauk Palace

http://chennaiheritage.in/gallery

Figure 2: SENATE HOUSE in Chennai

http://www.archinomy.com/case-studies/2019/indo-sarsinic-architecture-in-madras


289,000, the senate house was to serve as the examination hall and offices of the madras university.

This design of this building is inspired by the Byzantine and built in the Indo-saracenic style, the Senate House is the ultimate manifestation of this style. It comprises of large two floor high central hall, 16m high, measuring approx. 50m

by 15m, and has a capacity to seat 1600 people.

Though laid out as a simple rectangle, a strong variation in form is achieved on the sensitive lacing of the four towers on simple square projections that fall behind each of the side entrance porches. These towers are covered by pendentive bulbose domes that are highly articulated with intricate surface decoration.

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Tower

Porch

Double height

verandah

Figure 2: SENATE HOUSE in Chennai



Figure 4: South Elevation

Figure 5: Longitudinal Section


Arches and domes are covered with flowing geometric patterns. Tinier cupolas on octogonal drums pin the corners with a series of turrets lining the east and west sides. Impressive double floor high verandas on the east and west faces are lined by stone columns with sculptured capitals bearing human figures and Hindu icons and support large horseshoe arches trimmed in stone.

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MAYO COLLEGE in Ajmer

Mayo College was a kind of English boarding school for the Indian Rajput princes. The school was to provide training in self-reliance, moral duty and team spirit to make a young ruling elite fit for service to the Empire.

Mayo College displays many of the key characteristics of the blended Indo-Saracenic

style. It features Mughal style cusped arches, the Bengali chattris, which were understood as typically Hindu, an overhanging chajja from the pre- Mughal era, various cupolas and two octagonal minarets topped by Hindu shikara. It is the architectural fusion of both the Muslim and the Hindu styles of India, but also

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Figure 6: ENTRANCE TO THE SENATE HOUSE


Figure 7: ONE OF THE FOUR TOWERS

Figure 7: MAYO COLLEGE in Ajmer



shows an order and a technical as well as scientific perfection which were understood as the key values to Europe.

GENERAL POST OFFICE by R.F. Chisholm

The general post office on the north beach road is today known as the Rajaji Salai. It has been described as one of the major historic structures on the beach road which lend a character to it. It was designed and completed in 1884 by Robert Fellowes Chisholm.

It has been laid out as a rectangle measuring about 100m x 50m, with a floor area of over 5000 sq.m. A courtyard in the east-west direction bifurcates the building. The main postal hall is located on the southern face of the building. It has a height of about 13 m and measures 30m x 15m. The building is mostly brick which has been painted on the exterior in red and the interior has been plastered white.

The building has Hindu designs in most of its embellishments. The roofs in the buildings are varied. There is the flat roof and the gable roof with dormer windows. There are also towers of varying heights intercepting the gables. The projecting eaves are supported by stone brackets and this seems to be a Hindu influence. The arches in the veranda and the

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Figure 8: GENERAL POST OFFICE by R.F. Chisholm



exterior are pure saracenic. However, the arches in the interior of the building show gothic influence.

Its pillars are of corinthian order and has square flat topped towers. The gabled ventilators on the roof besides a chimney and some of the fenestrations reflect a Victorian "country-colonial”. The arches, columns, and all other details are cut in stone. The arches which occupy the longer faces of the building have on them intricate jali work carved in stone. The roofs may have been inspired by the timber roofs in Kerala, also seen in another design by R.F. Chisholm in Travancore - the Napier museum.

Conclusion

It was an idea which brought a balance between being an imperial power, and building with context to only the place it was built in. The Indian entablatures were based on a system of geometry and proportions. They were based on the proportions of internal planning of the buildings. Indo-saracenic, however, employed the same Indian details onto a design based on different proportions. The details which were to be slender are now robust.

So, the style is indeed a mixture of Indian and Islamic architecture but it remained basically British in sitting, spatial organization and composition. It did evolve over time and the degree of complexity in the homogeneity of the design increased in the manner of their borrowing from the Indian prototypes. The eccentricity in the buildings makes them interesting as well as hard to interpret as a style. It was a conscious attempt by the British to show a sense of belonging to the country.

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Figure 9: Façade of the Post Office



Bibliography1. Metcalf, Thomas R. An Imperial Vision: Indian Architecture and Britain's Raj. s.l. : Oxford India paperbacks.

2. Architecture in British India. A Tradition Created: Indo-Saracenic Architecture under the Raj. [Online] http://www.britishempire.co.uk/maproom/india/indosaracenic.htm.

3. Marshall, P. J. The Cambridge Illustrated History of the British Empire. s.l. : Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN: 0521002540, 9780521002547.

4. Francis D. K. Ching, Mark Jarzombek, Vikramaditya Prakash. A Global History of Architecture. s.l. : John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

5. British Architecture in India. [Online] http://indiansaga.com/architecture/british6.html.

6. Robert Chisholm – the Indo Saracenic Man. [Online] http://sriramv.wordpress.com/2012/03/09/robert-chisholm-the-indo-saracenic-man/.

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