Umaid Bhawan Palace

Umaid Bhawan Palace, Jodhpur
Umaid Bhawan Palace
Location within Rajasthan
General information
Architectural style	Beaux Arts style and a blend of eastern and western architectural styles
Town or city	Jodhpur
Country	India
Construction started	1928
Completed	1943
Client	Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II
Technical details
Structural system	Golden yellow or dun coloured sand stone
Design and construction
Architect	Vidyadhar Bhattacharya and Sir Samuel Swinton Jacob
Engineer	Henry Vaughan Lanchester

Umaid Bhawan Palace, located at Jodhpur in Rajasthan, India, is one of the world's largest private residences. A part of the palace is managed by Taj Hotels. Named after Maharaja Umaid Singh, grandfather of the present owner Gaj Singh of the palace, this edifice has 347 rooms and serves as the principal residence of the erstwhile Jodhpur royal family. A part of the palace also houses a museum.

Umaid Bhawan Palace was called Chittar Palace during its construction due to use of stones drawn from the Chittar hill where it is located. Ground for the foundations of the building was broken on 18 November 1929 by Maharaja Umaid Singh and the construction work was completed in 1943. The Palace was built to provide employment to thousands of people during the time of famine.

Recently, Umaid Bhawan Palace was awarded as the World's best hotel at the Traveller's Choice Award, which was organised by TripAdvisor.

History of building the Umaid Bhawan Palace is linked to a curse by a saint who had said that a period of drought will follow the good rule of the Rathore Dynasty. Thus, after the end of about 50-year reign of Pratap Singh, Jodhpur faced a severe drought and famine conditions in the 1920s for a period of three consecutive years. The farmers of the area faced with famine conditions sought the help of the then king Umaid Singh, who was the 37th Rathore ruler of Marwar at Jhodpur, to provide them with some employment so that they could survive the famine conditions. The king, in order to help the farmers, decided to build a lavish palace. He commissioned Henry Vaughan Lanchester as the architect to prepare the plans for the palace; Lanchester was a contemporary of Sir Edwin Lutyens who planned the buildings of the New Delhi government complex. Lanchester patterned the Umaid Palace on the lines of the New Delhi building complex by adopting the theme of domes and columns. The palace was designed as an extraordinary blend of western technology, and many Indian architectural features.

The palace was built at a slow pace as its initial objective was to provide employment to the famine-stricken farmers of the locale. The foundation stone was laid in 1929. About 2,000 to 3,000 people were employed to build it. However, the actual occupation of the palace by the Maharaja came only after its completion in 1943, very close to the period of Indian Independence. There was criticism in some quarters for embarking on an expensive project but it had served the main purpose of helping the citizens of Jodhpur to face the famine situation. The estimated cost of building the palace was Rs 11 million. When it opened its gilded doors in 1943 it was considered as one of the largest royal residences in the world.