Art & Culture Quiz: Colonial Architecture: Indo-Saracenic, Gothic and Lutyens' Delhi

The correct answer is A, Maharashtra. The Aga Khan Palace stands at Pune in Maharashtra. It was built in 1892 by Sultan Muhammed Shah Aga Khan III, partly as famine relief work for the surrounding villages, and it mixes Italianate arches with wide Indian verandahs over five acres of built space. The palace entered the freedom struggle in August 1942, when the colonial government used it as a detention centre during the Quit India movement and interned Mahatma Gandhi, Kasturba Gandhi and Gandhi's secretary Mahadev Desai there. Both Kasturba Gandhi and Mahadev Desai died in confinement at the palace, and their samadhis stand in its garden. Aga Khan IV donated the building to India in 1969 and it now houses the Gandhi National Memorial. Option B is wrong because Uttar Pradesh is associated with colonial buildings such as the Muir College and the Lucknow Residency, not this palace. Option C is wrong because Kerala's colonial heritage is Dutch and Portuguese, as at Bolgatty Palace in Kochi. Option D is wrong because Madhya Pradesh has no building of this name.

The correct answer is D, King George V. The Gateway of India at Apollo Bunder in Mumbai was raised to mark the landing of George V and Queen Mary in December 1911, the visit on which the Delhi Durbar was held and the transfer of the capital from Calcutta to Delhi was announced. The royal couple actually saw only a cardboard model; the stone arch designed by George Wittet in the Indo-Saracenic manner, in yellow basalt with a central dome and jaali screens, was completed in 1924. The same arch was the point from which the last British troops left India in 1948. Option A is wrong because Edward VII visited India in 1875 as Prince of Wales and is linked instead to the Prince of Wales Museum in Mumbai. Option B is wrong because George I never came to India and reigned in the early eighteenth century, before Crown rule. Option C is wrong because William IV reigned from 1830 to 1837, in the era of Company rule, and made no visit to India.

The correct answer is B, William Emerson. The Victoria Memorial was designed by Sir William Emerson, then president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, after Lord Curzon proposed a memorial to Queen Victoria in 1901. The foundation stone was laid in 1906 and the building was opened in 1921. Emerson used white Makrana marble, the stone of the Taj Mahal, over a plan that is classical in its proportions but Indo-Saracenic in its detail, with a central dome, corner chhatris, arched loggias and a bronze figure of Victory on the dome. Vincent Esch supervised the construction and designed the north approach. Option A is wrong because Stevens designed Victorian Gothic work in Mumbai, chiefly Victoria Terminus and the Municipal Corporation building. Option C is wrong because Lutyens worked on New Delhi, not Kolkata. Option D is wrong because Wittet designed the Gateway of India and the Prince of Wales Museum in Mumbai.

The correct answer is A, Victorian Gothic. The station, built as Victoria Terminus and designed by Frederick William Stevens, is the finest Victorian Gothic Revival building in India, with pointed arches, a ribbed central dome, turrets, stained glass, gargoyles and a stone figure of Progress on the dome. It was completed in 1888 as the headquarters of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway and was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2004; the wider precinct around it was inscribed in 2018 as the Victorian Gothic and Art Deco Ensembles of Mumbai. Option B is wrong because Baroque in India means the Portuguese churches of Old Goa, such as the Basilica of Bom Jesus. Option C is wrong because Dravidian is the temple style of the south, marked by a vimana and a gopuram, as at Thanjavur. Option D is wrong because Nagara is the north Indian temple style with a curvilinear shikhara, as at Khajuraho.

The correct answer is C, Edwin Lutyens. Sir Edwin Lutyens designed the Viceroy House on Raisina Hill, renamed Rashtrapati Bhavan after independence, and it was completed in 1929. The building has about 340 rooms, a copper central dome drawn from the Sanchi stupa railing, a Durbar Hall under that dome, carved elephants, chhajjas that throw off the monsoon and chhatris on the roofline, all set on a classical plan. Lutyens also laid out the plan of New Delhi and designed the India Gate. Option A is wrong because Herbert Baker, who worked alongside Lutyens, designed the North and South Blocks of the Secretariat and the circular Parliament House. Option B is wrong because Robert Tor Russell designed Connaught Place and the Eastern and Western Courts. Option D is wrong because Henry Irwin worked in the south and in Shimla, designing the Amba Vilas Palace at Mysuru and the Viceregal Lodge.

The correct answer is B, Herbert Baker. Sir Herbert Baker designed the old Parliament House, then called the Council House, which was begun in 1921 and opened in January 1927 by the Viceroy Lord Irwin. Its circular plan carries an open colonnade of sandstone columns and three chambers inside for the Council of State, the Central Legislative Assembly and the Chamber of Princes. Baker also designed the North Block and the South Block of the Secretariat that flank the approach to Raisina Hill. Option A is wrong because Lutyens designed the Viceroy House and the India Gate and planned the city, though he and Baker disagreed sharply over the gradient of the approach road. Option C is wrong because Emerson designed the Victoria Memorial in Kolkata. Option D is wrong because Major Charles Mant worked on Indo-Saracenic princely palaces, including the Laxmi Vilas Palace at Vadodara.

The correct answer is C, the Portuguese. The Basilica of Bom Jesus at Old Goa was completed in 1605 by the Portuguese, who had taken Goa in 1510 and made it the capital of their eastern empire. Its laterite facade in the Baroque manner, its gilded altar and the silver casket holding the body of St Francis Xavier make it the most visited church in India, and it was inscribed by UNESCO in 1986 within the Churches and Convents of Goa. Option A is wrong because the Dutch built trading posts and the Bolgatty Palace at Kochi in 1744, not the Goan churches. Option B is wrong because the Danes built Fort Dansborg at Tranquebar in 1620 and a mission at Serampore. Option D is wrong because the French built in Puducherry, Chandernagore and Mahe, where the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is Gothic rather than Baroque.

The correct answer is B, Tamil Nadu. Fort Dansborg was built in 1620 at Tranquebar, now Tharangambadi in the Mayiladuthurai district of Tamil Nadu, after the Danish East India Company obtained the site from the Nayak ruler of Thanjavur. It is the second largest Danish fort anywhere and served as the seat of Danish India until the settlement was sold to the British in 1845. Option A is wrong because Kerala's European forts are Portuguese and Dutch, such as Fort Emmanuel at Kochi and the Dutch Palace at Mattancherry. Option C is wrong because the Danish site in Bengal was Serampore, a mission town rather than a fort, and the main Bengal fort was the British Fort William. Option D is wrong because Odisha's coastal trade posts were Dutch and British, and no Danish fort stands there.

The correct answer is B. The India Gate, originally the All India War Memorial Arch, was designed by Edwin Lutyens as a memorial to the Indian soldiers of the British Indian Army who died in the First World War between 1914 and 1921 and in the Third Anglo-Afghan War. Its foundation stone was laid in 1921 by the Duke of Connaught and the arch was completed in 1931; the names of more than thirteen thousand soldiers are cut into its sandstone. Option A is wrong because 1857 is commemorated at the Mutiny Memorial on the northern ridge of Delhi and at sites such as Kanpur and Lucknow. Option C is wrong because the Jallianwala Bagh memorial stands in Amritsar at the site of the massacre of 1919. Option D is wrong because the Indian National Army memorial of the Second World War stands at Moirang in Manipur and at Singapore.

The correct answer is C, the Delhi Durbar of 1911. George V and Queen Mary came to India in December 1911 and at the Delhi Durbar announced both the transfer of the capital from Calcutta to Delhi and the reversal of the partition of Bengal of 1905. Work on the new city began in 1912 under Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker, and New Delhi was formally inaugurated in 1931. Option A is wrong because the Durbar of 1877, held under Lord Lytton, proclaimed Queen Victoria as Empress of India during a severe famine. Option B is wrong because the Durbar of 1903, held under Lord Curzon, marked the coronation of Edward VII and announced nothing about the capital. Option D is wrong because the Round Table Conferences in London from 1930 discussed constitutional reform, not the capital.

The correct answer is A, Henry Irwin. The Amba Vilas Palace, the Mysore Palace of the Wadiyar rulers, was rebuilt in grey granite and pink marble to the design of Henry Irwin after the old wooden palace burned down in 1897, and the work was finished in 1912. Irwin combined Hindu, Rajput, Mughal and Gothic features in the Indo-Saracenic manner, with three storeys, a five-storey tower and a gilded dome. He had earlier designed the Madras High Court group and the Viceregal Lodge at Shimla. Option B is wrong because Stevens built in Victorian Gothic in Mumbai. Option C is wrong because Wittet designed the Gateway of India and the Prince of Wales Museum. Option D is wrong because Vincent Esch worked in Kolkata and Hyderabad, where he designed the Osmania General Hospital and the High Court.

The correct answer is B. The Rajabai Clock Tower in the University of Mumbai campus, designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott and completed in 1878, is a Victorian Gothic tower modelled on the Big Ben clock tower in London, with pointed arches, stained glass and carved figures. Option A is wrong because the Writers Building of 1777 is neo-classical, with Corinthian columns and a pediment, built as the office of the clerks of the East India Company. Option C is wrong because the Gateway of India is Indo-Saracenic, with a dome, jaali screens and Gujarati decorative detail, and not Baroque. Option D is wrong because the Se Cathedral at Old Goa is Portuguese, with a Tuscan exterior and a Corinthian interior, while Dravidian is a south Indian temple style using a vimana and gopuram. Keeping style pairs straight is the quickest way to answer matching questions on this topic.