Situated right across the Record Tower Building the Old Kothi is an administrative buiding commissioned by Maharaja Saiyajirao Gaekwad III. Aimed at public facilities, it was constructed as an office building in year 1876 and was designed by Major Charles Mant. It housed the secretariat, record office, military and police offices along with a library.
The Building :
The building is 3 storeyed stucture built in what is now known as the Indo-Saracenic style of architecture. The lower two storeys display row of semi-circular arches while the top most level has wooden posts in groups of 2. When built, the topmost storey had a open veranda running along the front facade with the above mentioned wooden posts. Along the years this veranda was covered with rows of windows, to increase the utility of the space.
Just like the other buildings, this was also painted in the color scheme of brick red and ivory and white. The building is sparsely ornamented, and apart from a few elements only the color scheme has been used to decorate the building. One of the few elements used for decorating the building, are the wooden panels with cut-work mounted on the tympanums of the arched openings of the windows. Other than this, the building has elaborate wooden eaves boards defining the double pitched-hipped roofs.
*
Kothi, earlier a part of old fort or Juni Kothi is currently used as the Jilla Seva Sadan and serves tons of people coming here everyday with their queries and complaints.
No Comments