REMEMBERING CHARLES MANT
(c) Copyright of Prabuddha Biswas
1. FOR INTRODUCING INDO-SARACENIC ARCHITECTURE IN BIHAR DURING COLONIAL PERIOD
2. INDO-SARACENIC ARCHITECTURAL STYLE DIFFUSED FROM 1870s TO THE EARLY 20th CENTURY FOR COLONIAL BUILDINGS IN INDIA, ADDING THE ELEMENTS OF MUGHAL ARCHITECTURE, TO THE BASE OF VICTORIAN-GOTHIC STYLE.
3. HE WAS ONE OF THE FOREMOST INDO-SARACENIC ARCHITECT DURING SECOND HALF OF 19th CENTURY
4. MANT DESIGNED (I) ANANDBAGH PALACE (LAKSHMI VILAS PALACE), DARBHANGA AND (II) DARBHANGA HOUSE, PATNA; IN INDO-SARACENIC STYLE ALONG WITH SOME MORE BUILDINGS IN BIHAR
5. BOTH BUILDINGS OF CHARLES MANT (ANANDBAGH PALACE, DARBHANGA AND DARBHANGA HOUSE, PATNA) WAS IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE TRADITIONAL DIVISION OF AN INDIAN PALACE, DIVEDED INTO THREE FUNCTIONALLY SPECIALIZED SECTIONS, (I) THE PUBLIC RECEPTION ROOMS, (II) THE MAHARAJA QUARTERS, AND (III) THE ZANANA, OR FEMALE QUARTERS.
6. MANT BLENDED INDIAN SENSE OF PRIVACY OF ROYAL PALACES AND WESTERN SETTING OF BUILDINGS VISIBLE FROM ALL DIRECTIONS, GIVING IT AN APPEARANCE OF AN ‘ENGLISH COUNTRY HOUSE’ IN MIDST OF LARGE EXQUISITELY DECORATED AND BLOOMING GARDEN.
7. BOTH PALACES WERE POSITIONED IN THE BACKDROP OF LARGE WATER BODIES; (I) RIVER GANGES FOR THE DARBHANGA HOUSE, PATNA AND (II) LARGE ARTIFICIAL LAKES FOR THE ANANDBAGH PALACE, DARBHANGA.
8. ........FOR THE ONLOOKERS, BOTH BUILDINGS RESEMBLED, SIMPLY “PARADISE ON EARTH”, DURING THEIR HEYDAYS.
CHARLES MANT: AN INTRODUCTION
1. Major Charles Mant (1840-1881) was associated the Bombay Engineers.
2. He was one of the fascinating and indigenous of all the British Architects to work in India, yet he remains rather an enigma.
3. He was educated in Cheltenham College (1853-1855) and Addiscombe during 1856-1857.
4. He arrived in 1859, fresh from Addiscombe, and worked in the prevailing Venetian Gothic style on the High School at Surat, but soon he acquired a scholarly interest in local architecture and began ‘to unite the usefulness of the scientific European designs together with the beauty, taste, grandeur and sublimity of the native’.
5. His greatest opportunities came in 1875, a year after his promotion to Major, when he produced design of palaces of Cooch Behar, Darbhanga, Baroda and Kolhapur.
6. The designs were for Cooch Behar was still-born owing to cost, but the others were all implemented.
7. He intelligently incorporated local styles in his designs and many new riotously eclectic buildings came up such as at Junagadh etc.
8. At Kolhapur, he designed a conventional Venetian Gothic Town Hall and later an Indo-Saracenic memorial for Florence to commemorate the Maharaja’s son who died there in 1870.
9. However Mant became convinced that his palaces would collapse due to his own structural inaccuracies, and he died in 1881 from insanity induced by overwork.
BIHAR CONNECTION OF CHARLES MANT
1. The name of Charles Mant became widespread due to his architectural design of Gothic styles and Indo-Saracenic Styles by 1870s.
2. Though, Charles Mant spent most of his time in Western India but he had been to Eastern India by 1875 and designed several buildings in Bihar which came up in later period.
3. in 1876, the Churches of Chapra (Bihar) and Balasore (Orissa) was constructed,
4. Mant’s design of Patna Government building came up in 1877: -
(i) Before 1870s; there stood the Bankipur Dispensary, where now stands the triple storeyed hostel complex of the Bihar National College.
(ii) In 1874; it was expanded with a medical school and was named as ‘Temple Medical School’.
(iii) In 1875, the whole establishment was shifted to the present Patna Medical College Campus.
(iv) In 1877, the new buildings of the Government Hospital i.e. Temple Medical School was constructed as per Charles Mant’s design.
5. Charles Mant also became personal friend of Maharaja Lakshmeshwar Singh of the Darbhanga Raj along with several princely Kings, bureaucrats and army officers of the period.
6. In the same period (1870s), Mant designed the Anandbagh Palace (or Lakshmi Vilas Palace), Darbhanga (Now Maharaja Kameshwar Singh Sankrit University). It was Mant’s most lucrative assignment in Bihar and was built in Indo-Saracenic Style in 1880s. Though, his style was slowly drifting towards ‘more indigenous style’ as he started commingling of locally based styles with details drawn by native draughts-men.
7. Charles Mant’s design of the Darbhanga House, Patna was also an Indo-Saracenic style but the design was on smaller scale.
INDO-SARACENIC STYLE OF CHARLES MANT
1. Saracenic was a term used by the ancient Romans to refer to a people who lived in desert areas in and around the Roman province of Arabia, and who were distinguished from Arab.
2. Some use this term to refer to Indo-Islamic Architecture.
3. However, it basically refers to the style that diffused from the 1870’s to the early 20th century for colonial buildings in India, adding the elements of Mughal architecture, to the base of Victorian-Gothic-style.
4. Initially the British constructed governmental and public buildings in European classical styles regardless of Indian local climate and traditions.
5. Only after the 1858, the local architectural traditions, especially the Mughal tradition were introduced to the colonial erections.
6. This was also the time of Gothic Revival in Europe and England inparticular
7. So Gothic features were used as the base and the domes and Chhatris were used to produce the external appearances to the buildings. This is the reason that Indo-Saracenic Style is also known as Indo-British style.
8. Chief proponents of this style of architecture were these: (i) Robert Fellowes Chisholm, (ii) Charles Mant, (iii) Henry Irwin, (iv) William Emerson, (v) George Wittet and (vi) Frederick Stevens, along with numerous other skilled professionals and artisans throughout Europe and the Americas.
9. BOTH BUILDINGS OF CHARLES MANT (ANANDBAGH PALACE, DARBHANGA AND DARBHANGA HOUSE, PATNA) WAS IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE TRADITIONAL DIVISION OF AN INDIAN PALACE, DIVEDED INTO THREE FUNCTIONALLY SPECIALIZED SECTIONS, (I) THE PUBLIC RECEPTION ROOMS, (II) THE MAHARAJA QUARTERS, AND (III) THE ZANANA, OR FEMALE QUARTERS.
10. MANT BLENDED INDIAN SENSE OF PRIVACY OF ROYAL PALACES AND WESTERN SETTING OF BUILDINGS VISIBLE FROM ALL DIRECTIONS, GIVING IT AN APPEARANCE OF AN ‘ENGLISH COUNTRY HOUSE’ IN MIDST OF LARGE EXQUISITELY DECORATED AND BLOOMING GARDEN.
11. BOTH PALACES WERE POSITIONED IN THE BACKDROP OF LARGE WATER BODIES; (I) RIVER GANGES FOR THE DARBHANGA HOUSE, PATNA AND (II) LARGE ARTIFICIAL LAKES FOR THE ANANDBAGH PALACE, DARBHANGA.
12. ........FOR THE ONLOOKERS, BOTH BUILDINGS RESEMBLED, SIMPLY “PARADISE ON EARTH”, DURING THEIR HEYDAYS.
13. NOW THAT AMBIENCE HAS GONE BUT BUILDINGS AR, THOUGHE STILL THERE AND BOTH ARE TAGGED AS ‘HERITAGE BUILDINGS’.
14. Darbhanga House, Patna: -
(i) After the death of Maharaja Lakshmeshwar Singh in 1898, his younger brother, Maharaja Rameshwar Singh built the Kali Temple, having sanctum sanctorum within the Rani Mahal quarter, which was linked by a passage through Raja and Rani Mahals. It advertently, broke the otherwise perfect symmetry of this majestic palace. He also did renovation work of entire building during 1898 to 1901.
(ii) The eastern and southern side of the sprawling campus of Darbhanga House was also reduced, after the establishment of the Patna College as the then Government was very hard-pressed for acquiring more lands for its successive expansion from 1870s onwards
(iii) In 1920s, the Patna Medical College and Hospital was established in the Patna General Hospital Campus and the Maharaja Rameshwar Singh of Darbhanga was the principal donor of Rs 5 lakhs but he and his son (Later Maharaja Kameshwar Singh) also donated handed over extra lands of the Darbhanga House for the future expansion of the then Hospital. In return, Darbhanga Maharaja took the assurance from the then colonial Government and Temple Medical School was shifted to Darbhanga, which later became the second oldest Medical College of Bihar. The issues of encroachments have also played there parts.
(iv) Thereby, the ambience of the Darbhanga House was lost against the need of the time.
PROMINENT BUILDINGS DESIGNED BY CHARLES MANT
1. High School, Surat
2. Town Hall, Kolhapur
3. Court House and High School, Bhavnagar (1873-74)
4. Mayo College, Ajmer (designed 1875) (completed 1877-85)
5. Church at Balasore, Orissa (1876)
6. Church at Chapra, Bihar (1876)
7. Hospital and Library, Baroda, (1876)
8. Medical School, Patna (1877)
9. Kolhapur Hospital (1878)
10. Palace for Gaekawad of Baroda (1881)
11. Palace of Raja of Kolhapur (1881)
12. Palaces of Darbhanga Raj at Patna and Darbhanga
13. Palace of Cooch Behar (But it was never constructed due to paucity of fund)
PICTURES
1. Anandbagh Palace (Laxmi Vilas Palace) of Darbhanga
2. Darbhanga House, Patna
3. Laxmi Vilas Palace, Baroda (one of the most complex and costliest of all Indo-Saracenic buildings)
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