To make Kolkata a center of ‘vibrant cultural spaces’ three iconic colonial buildings, the Currency Building, Metcalfe Hall and Belvedere House were chosen for conservation and restoration because of time factors, poor maintenance, etc., these structures already lost their old splendor. Thanks to the efforts taken by the center and state governments. of West Bengal. Now the three amazing structures are back to old glory, particularly, Belvedere House where the most powerful English men who decided the fate of colonial India had resided. The Gov. of West Bengal in March, 2019 declared open the renovated Metcalfe Hall at the crossing of Hare Street and Strand Road, overlooking the Hooghly, and Belvedere House on the 30-acre Belvedere Estate in Alipore as public exhibition space.Indian Museum se aside a room at Belvedere House to curate an exhibition titled Story of India through Images and Symbols, besides an additional room to store countless artifacts is allotted to avoid space crunch during exhibition.
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| Belvedere House, Kolkata, WB designconsortiumindia.com |
Above image: Till 1912 Belvedere House in the suburb of Alipore close to Ft. William served as the residence of Viceroys and Gov. generals in the colonial period. Once owned by Gov. Gen. Warren Hastings who made a lot of contribution to the growth of British Empire after Robert Clive.
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| Banquet hall, Belvedere House,Ali[pore Kolkata,.telegraphindia.com |
tLocated in Alipore, Kolkata Belvedere House was carefully restored back to old glory by the Central Public Works Department (CPWD), which is also responsible for its maintenance. “We spent Rs 19 crore over five years to restore the building,” said Shrawan Kumar, joint secretary, ministry of culture and director general of National Library. The banquet hall at Belvedere House is a glittering one with a series of beautiful and big chandeliers. The first floor balcony on either side of this hall has a long parapet with symmetrical balusters covering the space between tall and big cylindrical white painted pillars. The hall served as the reading room of National Library before it was shifted to Bhasha Bhawan.. The national library here is the largest one in India.
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| the Belvedere Estate. theparanormalguide.com |
The Belvedere estate is a big one comprising 30 acres of land in the prime area of Kolkata and inside the campus lies the the National Library The building had been in a state of neglect for a long time. reason: as usual apathy on the part of government officials and poor interest in the old structure. In the early colonial period under the East India company's administration it was the official residence of Governors of Bengal and the Viceroys of India.
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| National library, Kolkata upload.wikimedia.org |
This heritage building owes its origin to the rebel Nawab of Bengal Mir Jafar Ali Khan, a puppet in the hands of the British. Later under compulsion from the English company, he had to give up the throne at Murshidabad (then capital of Bengal) in favor of Qasim Khan in 1760. Mir Jafar another rebel amir when Nawab Siraj ud daualah was the Nawab, moved over to Kolkata where he owned a large court house. His idea of shifting to Kolkata was to be in close proximity with the British so that he could be safe from his enemies when settled within the Company's fortifications at Alipore. He is believed to have many buildings there and gifted Belvedere House to Warren Hastings. After his sojourn in England, hes returned to Kolkata in 1772
Hastings, for certain personal reason, sold the Belvedere House to an English Major Tolly in the 1780s for the sum of Rs. 60,000. Upon Major Tolly's death in 1784 and his family sold the property in 1802. Since 1854 till 1911 the Belvedere had seen many lieutenant governors, starting with Halliday, till the British India capital moved to Delhi. In the later years Belvedere became the official residence of the viceroy of India. Soon after Delhi Durbar in 1912 the capital moved from Kolkata to Delhi in 1912. As for the Belvedere House, the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, who had hitherto resided in in that place was upgraded to a full governor and transferred to Government House.
After independence the main building came under the management of the ASI- Archaeological Survey of India. In vast campus the government has built housing colonies for the National Library employees and the other for central government employees.
A major restoration work was in progress in the recent past prior to 2019 and as part of this work many features of the buildings including the paintings of Elizabeth Bruner, Santiniketan, as well as some old photographs of Kolkata by painters including Raja Deen Dayal got a face-lift.
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