Marina Beach

Despite the several man-made structures and architectural marvels on the face of madras. The jewel on the crown for madras has to be the marina beach. The one place where every person in an around Chennai has nostalgic memories. The cheap hangout spot, the lovers park, A foodie’s heaven, a child’s play area- Marina beach is all of these and much more too.
The name Marina is associated with the 3 ½ km distance between the mouth of the Cooum river and the Lighthouse. The idea of building a promenade alongside this stretch of the beach was that of Monstuart Elphinstone Grant-Duff, Governor of Madras from 1881 to 1886. Completed in 1884, he gave it its Italian name – the Marina🌅. The opposite side of the marina beach is dotted with important buildings and heritage sites such as The Madras University, Senate House, Presidency College, Chepauk Palace 🕌, the PWD Buildings, the University Examination Hall, the Ice House, Lady Willingdon Institute, Queen Mary’s College, the office of the Director-General of Police 🏛️ and the All India Radio.

On the beach side we have several statues which also have great historic importance. Triumph of Labour, inspired by the landing of American troops at Iwo Jima, Swami Vivekananda, K Kamaraj, Annie Besant. Three Chief Ministers of the State, CN Annadurai, MG Ramachandran and J.Jaylalitha are remembered with grand memorials on the beach.

The beach has seen several public meetings and historical events from the freedom struggle to the much recent Jallikattu 🐂 Protest. Marina represents everything that is madras. To put it in better words, the marina beach breathes life into this concrete 🌬️ jungle.

Source: Sriram.V

Chepauk Palace

The Chepauk Palace was once the crowning jewel of the Arcot Nawabs is now a sorry state of neglect. This palace was the pioneer for Indo-Saracenic architectural style, later followed by ‘Robert Chisholm, Henry Irwin, Lutyens and Baker.

The Palace comprises two distinct blocks that were a hundred years later linked by Chisholm with the distinctive tower. The northern, single-storey block was Humayun Mahal and a part of it was the soaring two-storeyed Diwani Khana (Durbar Hall). The southern block, the Khalsa Mahal, is two-storeyed and smaller domed. In its heyday, the grounds of Chepauk Palace stretched from what is now Bell’s Road to the beach and from Pycroft’s Road to the Cooum River.

SOURCE: Madras Rediscovered

Presidency College

How often does one get to study in a 177 year old institute which is a page out of a history book in itself? It happens only in Madras or to be more precise Presidency College.

Presidency College had its beginning as a started as a preparatory school in 1840 at Edinburgh House, Egmore🚂. It became a high school on April 4, 1841, when it moved into the D’monte house, Egmore. The building also housed the first offices of the university until Presidency College was built. In April 1853, the collegiate departments were added named the Presidency College in 1855 although the college moved into its current building only in 1870-1871. Women🙅‍♀️ weren’t admitted to the college until 1889. Until 1891, the presidency college was also the law college when it moved to a separate campus.

The first Indian Governor-general C. Rajagopalachari, Sir C.V. Raman and Dr S. Chandrashekar are some of the distinguished alumni of this college. Their lecture room M-28 is dedicated to both the Nobel laureates.

Source: 📖 Madras Rediscovered | S.Muthiah

Senate House, 1873

The Senate house located within the Madras University Chepauk campus is an exemplary piece of architecture in the Indo Saracenic style.
Senate house was built with red hand pressed brick with white gneiss dressings. It has a convocation hall which is lighted by cathedral tinted glasses on the 14 large windows. The style of decoration known as graffito work was later popularised by the architect Robert Chisholm. It is executed in Portland cement rather than ordinary lime plastering to resist corrosion due to the salty sea breeze. Almost 1500 people can be seated at the hall at once. The adjacent lecture hall is complete with a semi-circular gallery and can seat up to 500 people.All the furniture and interiors in the building were also designed by Mr Chrisholm and he made extensive use of the stained glass paintings. The entire cost of the building was about 2,80,000 Rupees.
In its hay days it played host to various cultural and political events from December music festival to convocation and even legislature meetings. Old timers recall the excellent acoustics of the hall which did not require mics at all.
The first steps towards constructing the building were taken by Governor Lord Napier on November 28, 1867 which he envisioned to become the heart of the campus where lectures will be delivered and professorships established .The Public Works Department and Robert Chisholm the architect got down to work and the foundation stone was laid on April 30, 1868.Construction eventually started in 1869 and was completed in 1873. The senate hall was primarily used for the convocation event but was later moved to a different venue owing to lack of space and this put the first nail in the coffin for this majestic building.
A sensitive job of restoration between 2004 and 2007 had brought back the building that had been allowed to deteriorate from the 1970s but today the hall remains largely unused and it won’t be long before another heritage structure also turns to rubble.

Source: Madras Rediscovered

Ice House, 1838

As a child, whenever someone on the bus asked to a ticket to icehouse. My imagination flew away to a snowy wonderland which I later discovered was a museum dedicated to Swami Vivekananda during a school trip. Even though the building has not stored ice for more than a century now. The name is still something that has not melted away from people’s minds.

The Ice House is not a particularly attractive building compared to the rest of them that line the Marina. It was built like an upturned block of ice with a curved tower in the front and a flagstaff. The storage of ice meant that the structure could not use timber, as it would rot in the prevalent moisture. It was left to the architect, Maj (later Col) JJ Underwood of the Madras Engineers, to come up with an ingenious solution. He decided to borrow from the techniques used in Syria where domed structures were built without using wood.
The reason for the Ice house location was so that the ice blocks which arrived through ships could be quickly taken to the warehouse. The ice from the holds of clippers would be first taken to the shore in Masula boats and then carried to the ice house on the heads of porters.

The Tudor Ice company was established in India in 1833. Frederic Tudor exported ice harvested from the frozen ponds. The icehouse in Madras was constructed in 1838 and leased to the Tudor Ice company in 1845. Ice could be obtained from here 6 A.M to 9 P.M. at 4 Annas a pound.
The building was sold to Bilagiri Iyengar in 1885 and in 1897 Swami Vivekananda stayed here for 9 days and addressed crowds in different parts of the city. After passing through a couple of hands, it was acquired by the government in 1930. The building then became a widow’s home and a college hostel before it finally became Vivekananda Illam in the 1963, the swami Vivekananda Centenary year.

Source: Madras Rediscovered | S. Muthiah | Sririam. V