Victoria Memorial Hall, India: engineering, architecture, conservation and modernisation Available to Purchase

Located in Kolkata, Victoria Memorial Hall is the most famous monument of British India. This paper recalls the history of the memorial and describes its engineering. It reports the environmental degradation that occurred to the building in the past decades and records the repairs carried out by the authorities to rectify such degradation. Next, it contends that the architecture of the memorial belongs to the Neoclassical European genre. It refutes that the building is in Indo-Saracenic style, which many commentators claim speciously. Thirdly, it proposes that the authorities may like to study the feasibility of installing one or more tower air purifiers within its precincts to bring down air pollutants to below the values stipulated in the national standards. Such installation would minimise air-pollutant-induced degradation and thereby help conserve the building. Finally, this paper suggests that the authorities may study the feasibility of constructing large additional areas, either over ground or below ground, depending on the outcome of the feasibility study. Such additional areas should be used to provide modern visitor facilities that meet international standards and to install a few new galleries to raise the display ratio of artefacts in its stock.