The Taj of the Raj

The Victoria Memorial is a large marble building in Central Kolkata, which was built between 1906 and 1921. It is dedicated to the memory of Queen Victoria, Empress of India from 1876 to 1901. It is now a museum under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture, and is the largest monument in the world which is dedicated to a royal. The memorial is one of the finest examples of the European style of architecture found in India, which also paved the way for modern architectural styles to develop in post-independent India.The inscription “VRI” near the gate stands for Victoria Regina Imperatrix which means Queen Victoria Emperor in Latin.

King George V laid the foundation stone in 1906.

The Victoria memorial wasn’t finished until 20 years after her death in 1921! Although Queen Victoria died in 1901 and the foundation stone was laid down in 1906, the memorial wasn’t officially opened to the public until twenty years after her death in 1921.

Curzon declared the monument would be a museum depicting the story of the Raj. The monument was to be raised from the funding received from princely states, mercantile elite, Industrialists and Chamber of Commerce etc.

Lord Curzon selected England’s renowned architect Sir William Emerson for designing the proposed memorial for Queen Victoria. He modeled the monument on the traditions of Italian Renaissance Architecture, but the monument had a strong resemblance to the Taj Mahal. Emerson was appointed around 1903 and 72 years of age and it was not possible for him to look to the day to day supervision of the building works. So Mr. Vincent Esch originally an Assistant Engineer at Bengal-Nagpur Railway was selected as the Superintendent Architect to directly supervise the works. Vincent Esch was responsible for actual project execution and sending photographs of the construction work of the project month wise The work was awarded to Martin and company of Calcutta under the proprietorship of Sir R. N. Mookerjee.

The Victoria Memorial belongs to the Indo-Saracenic or Hindu-Saracenic revivalist style of architecture. This architectural style was promoted first in India but two Architects Mr. R. F. Chisholm and Mr. H. Irwin in building structures constructed in Madras presidency. Emerson also adopted the style in execution of Victoria Memorial Hall at Calcutta. Percy Brown in his book “Indian Architecture” by D. B. Taraporvala Sons & Co., 1942, Bombay, gives an elegant description of evolution of Indo-Saracenic School of Architecture.

The Indo-Saracenic Revivalist style is an Architectural style movement started by British Architects in Late 19th Century British India. The style incorporates the aesthetic sensibilities of gothic revival of continental Europe with Indian and Indo-Islamic architectural elements infused in an astute style, while incorporating elaborate construction and innovative Engineering techniques. In the colonial days generally the Public and Government buildings were often rendered on a grand scale reflecting and promoting a notion of unassailable and invincible British Empire.

Components

It was made completely out of carved Makrana marble which is what the Taj Mahal is made of in Agra. It’s a huge building that’s over 56 metres in height, It has a large central dome and four smaller domes. There are also domed octagonal chaatris, high portals, and domed towers at the corners. Finally, there is a large terrace.

Atop the central dome of the Victoria Memorial is the 16 ft (4.9 m) figure of the Angel of Victory. Surrounding the dome are allegorical sculptures including Art, Architecture, Justice, and Charity and above the North Porch are Motherhood, Prudence and Learning.

There are 57 acres of land to enjoy around the memorial too

The 57 acres of planned gardens that you can visit around the memorial were designed by Lord Redesdale and David Prain. The best part for me was the reflection lagoon, where you can sit and enjoy a crystal clear mirrored view.Inside the gardens, the highlights are the statue of Queen Victoria wearing the robes of the Star of India, The King Edward Memorial Arch with a statue of Edward VII and Lord Curzon, the reflection lagoon, and the Esch’s bridge.

The rotating ‘Angel of Victory’ spins with the wind!

If you look on top of the tallest dome, you’ll see a 16-feet tall angel. It’s called ‘The Angel of Victory’ or the Victoria Memorial Angel. This is based on Nike, the ancient Greek Goddess of Victory. It was designed by Lindsay Clarke in England and cast into bronze by George Mancini. It was then shipped all the way from Cheltenham in England across the sea to India in 1920. The Angel now sits on the top of the memorial and weighs over 3 and a half tonnes. The 3.5-tonne bronze statue stands on a 3-tonne base with ball bearings and a pod containing mercury.The Angel is the most glamourous lightning arrester in not only Kolkata but also whole of India.

Collections

• Western Paintings

• Indian Paintings

• Rare Photigraph

• Manuscripts

• Coins

• Lithographs

• Arms and Armory

• Textiles

• Miniatures

Galleries

• Royal

• Durbar

• Calcutta

• Entrance

• Portrait

• Queens Hall

The Victoria Memorial has a historic collection of early photographs by Calcutta-based studios Bourne and Shepherd and Johnston and Hoffmann. This silver albumen print is remarkably clear for its time, and also unusual is its subject matter. Photographs were expensive, both to take and to print, and so most pictures depicted grand monuments or monumental events.

It’s a dagger fit for a warrior king, and it belonged to one. The then ruler of Mysore, Tipu Sultan (1750-1799), owned this ornamental weapon, with a handle studded with precious stones — mainly rubies and pearls.

A simple wooden writing desk preserved at the museum is perhaps where the famous writer Bankim Chandra Chatterjee wrote his novel Anandamath in 1882. It is in that work that the poem Vande Mataram first appeared. It would later be picked up by the Congress party and sung across the country as part of the freedom movement. It continues to be sung today and is the national song.

Several pieces of furniture from Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle were moved into the Victoria Memorial collection when it was built. The grand piano that stands here today was originally ordered for the 10-year-old Victoria by her uncle, King William IV, in 1829. “The piano hasn’t been tuned for a long time, but its keys are still intact and it can be played,” Incidentally, William IV died with no living legitimate heirs, leaving Victoria to be crowned queen upon his death, in 1837. She was 18

Statues of notable Britons were generally designed to impress, nay intimidate, in the colonies. Queen Victoria loomed over a crossroads in Mumbai. Here, an 8-ft statue of Cornwallis, the second Governor General of Bengal, stands on a pedestal, dwarfing the landscape around it. Brought to Calcutta in 1803, it was the first colonial statue in Calcutta.

Created in the neoclassical style, it shows the portly Cornwallis in a Roman toga, his left hand grasping a sheathed sword, his right extending an olive branch. The female figures seated below him on the stepped pedestal represent fortitude and prudence. The symbolism is interesting, says Sengupta, because “the British thought of themselves as the power that inherited the mantle of global empire from the Romans.”

Nal Daman is the Persian translation of the Indian myth Nala Damayanti — the tale of a flawed king, a smitten princess and a magical swan, told within the Mahabharata. This manuscript is a representation of how interested Muslim rulers in medieval and early modern India were in Hindu epics and legends. “Everyone is interested in a good story, regardless of religion,” Sengupta says. Commissioned by the Mughal emperor Akbar, who had a whole department of translation and translated many Hindu epics into Persian, this work was translated by the poet and scholar Faizi.

Preserved at the Victoria Memorial are quite a few of the poet and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s handwritten verses, as well as some letters. These include Geetāshtak, (Eight Songs), written by Tagore during a trip to Germany. Among these is a little gem — the original version of the poem Amar Mukti Ganer Sure Ei Akashe (My Liberation Is in the Tunes of Songs, Within this Sky) which Tagore later changed to his immortal Amar Mukti Aloy Aloy Ei Akashe (My Liberation is Among the Light, Within this Sky).

This piece of weaponry was found during excavation of the Murshidabad branch of the Eastern Bengal State Railway, circa 1880. The battle of Plassey was a turning point for the British in India. It’s the battle in which East India Company forces defeated the wealthy and until-then-powerful Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-Daulah, laying the first stone in the foundation of British rule. “The conquest of Bengal, a rich territory, paved way for British to acquire the rest of India,”

The building is a museum that has 26 galleries that you can visit and inside is 30,000 artifacts. The Royal Gallery has many portraits of Queen Victoria and Albert. Also, chapters of her life include her coronation. There are also paintings of members of her family like Edward VII marrying Princess Alexandra and their son George V. There are weapons, and armoury, stamp collections, coins, textiles, and Queen Victoria’s personal writing desk and chair. Rare editions of William Shakespeare and the Rubaiyat by Omar Khayyam.

In the Calcutta gallery, there is a visual history of the city which was introduced in the 1970s.

Fun Facts

Queen Victoria, has the record of being the second longest-reigning monarch in the history of Britain. She was surpassed by her Great-Great-Grand daughter Queen Elizabeth II in 2015.

Before the memorial, it was the location of the Presidency Jail!

The most shocking thing I read in all of the amazing facts is that before the Victoria Memorial was built here, this land was where the Presidency Jail stood! This prison was where political prisoners of the British Raj were held on. Some of the most famous prisoners held in the Presidency Jail were Sri Aurobindo, a philosopher, and Subhas Chandra Bose. After plans were made for the construction, the jail moved over to Alipore and is now known as the Old Alipore Jail. One of the most famous inmates was James Hickey who launched Indias first newspaper The Bengal Gazette. He was imprisoned on trumped up charges for exposing the corruption of Warren Hastings. This area referred to as Harinbari or Deer House as there may have been a hunting lodge. Some say it was like a zoo as inmates were treated like animals.

The funding came from voluntary contributions from Indian royalty

It may surprise you to know that the British Raj didn’t shell out much for this building! Lord Curzon put out a public appeal for voluntary donations and the country gave generously. Indian royal families and wealthy politicians from all across the country dug deep in their pockets to provide rupees for its construction. The British government did shell out a small amount to oversee the construction of the memorial, however. In the end, the Victoria Memorial cost one crore, five lakhs rupees to build. Or, £162,377.25 in pound sterling. But, back in the 1900s, £1 would equal £122 today. So, due to natural inflation, the construction actually cost over £19 million pounds in today’s money!

The Victoria Memorial was painted entirely black in World War II

Something I couldn’t quite believe was that once upon a time the whole of the Victoria memorial was painted black during World War II in 1943.

Bonus Fun Fact: There are rumours that there was a Black Taj Mahal mausoleum built in Agra mentioned in poems by Sajo Ojas Hizra II from 1655!

Building Specs Points

Colonisation and the subsequent British rule in India had its impact on Indian architecture. The main manifestations of this style of architecture were churches, barracks, forts, residential quarters, administrative quarters etc. The British also introduced new techniques in the construction of buildings, which were different from the ones used by the indigenous people of India at that time.

The inspiration for the Indo-Saracenic Rivalist or Indo-Gothic design was taken from Mughal architecture and blended with British elements. It also has inspiration from Egyptian, Islamic, Venetian, and Deccani structures too.

Lord Curzon proposed that the Victoria Memorial shall be built from European white marble. It was also decided to construct the grand moment in the memory of Queen Victoria at the centre of a garden in Kolkata.

It is learnt that Sir Thomas Henry Holland, the then Director of Geological Survey of India (“superiority of Makrana (Rajasthan) Marble” by R.K Dube, published in Indian Journal of History of science, Volume-43, 2008) suggested to Lord Curzon that the Indian Marble from Makrana area could be as beautiful as the European one, as is evident from the Taj Mahal or other such important buildings. However, it was decided to conduct experiment at the Geological Survey of India office to ascertain the quality of Indian Marble vis-à-vis the European Marble.

It was found that the Indian Marbles which were coarse grained, lost less weight then the European Marbles, which were generally fine grained. Thus, it was established that Indian variety of Marble had very little porosity. Hence, for using the Marble for exterior use such Indian variety of relatively non-porous marble shall yield excellent result.

As their variety of marble prevents entry of water, thus dis-colouration of the marble is prevented for long time. The marble test pieces were also placed on the flat roof of the then GSI office to weather through the almost three month period of Indian Monsoon season in cages and were protected. Mr. Fermor found that the Indian & Burmese variety of marble test pieces lost less weight than the European & Italian counterparts. This experimental study which was conducted under the guidance of Sir Thomas Holland suggested that Indian Marbles for Makrana (Rajasthan) was the best ones and was selected for the building of Victoria Memorial Kolkata. In fact, the marbles for Victoria Memorial was obtained from the same quarriesof Makrana from where Mughal Emperor Shah-Jahan obtained marble for construction of Taj Mahal.

Here it is pertinent to mention that Marble is a metamorphic rock, which is compact crystalline carbonate of lime. It is learnt (“Materials of construction used in India” by Nagendra Nath Mitra, Thacker Spink & Co., 1924) that an estimated 2,00,000 cubic feet of Makrana marble was brought by goods train for construction of the Victoria Memorial Hall. Due to heavy rains in 1917 there was a flood in Makrana region, so new queries in adjoining areas were opened for obtaining un-interrupted supply of marble for construction of the edifice.

The total weight of the Victoria Memorial with Marble cladding comes roughly around 80,300 tonnes. The structure was quiet a heavy one for low bearing capacity of Kolkata soil. The site for the monument was selected at Kolkata Maidan. William Emerson after carefully study of the site called tenders for the foundation work according to a difficult specification. One of the competing firm in the tender was Martin & Co. whose senior Proprietor was Sir Rajendra Nath Mookerjee. He worked out his firm’s tender in accordance with Emerson’s specification, and also offered two other alternative schemes, which were improvement on the official design (As learnt from K. C. Mahindra’s Book, “Sir Rajendra Nath Mookerjee- A personal Study”, published by Martin & Burn Co. 1933).

A prolonged discussion took place on the technical bid. The critical judgment put up by Rajendranath so impressed was Emerson that it was recommended to Lord Curzon that Martin & Co. should be entrusted with the work, even though the tender was higher than other firms. Thus Rajendranath’s firm was entrusted with carrying out the foundation work. The next contract was secured by the same firm for building up to the plinth level which was also successfully done.

Sir Rajendra made a novel solution for strengthening the foundation by inserting steel joists in the building walls for uniform load distribution on the foundation to assure uniform settlement. The Joint shall perform as a tie beam at the plinth level. He also submitted a full sketch of how the work should be executed.

The buildings were constructed in conformance to advanced British Structural Engineering Standards of 1800s. This included infrastructure of iron, steel and poured concrete. Chief proponents of this style of architecture were European Master Architects such as R.F. Chisholm, Henry Irwin, William Emerson, George Wittet and Fredrick Stevens. Structures built in the Indo-Saracenic style in India were predominantly grand public edifices. The cost involved for construction of such buildings was high. It included costly raw material, minute decoration, ornamentation, ingenious skill of artisan’s etc.

Hindustan Times

Live History

Banglapedia