ব্যালারডস বিলডিং, থিয়েটার রোড, কলকাতা, c১৮৩৩
Unlike later printed and photographic panoramas, Wood’s had a moving viewpoint so that he gave an accurate vista of those parts of Calcutta which earned it the sobriquet ‘City of Palaces’. The elegant forms of the buildings of European Calcutta heralded an important stage in the history of architecture of the subcontinent: the evolution of Western styles into forms which would become commonplace in the Indian context. This building depicted shows what became the conventional pattern, a two or three storeyed block, well-proportioned and set in a garden, and with columned verandahs protecting its rooms from the heat. The Ballard’s buildings, consisting of numbers 47, 48, 49 and 50 at the corner of Chowringhee Road and Theatre Road, do not exist any longer. See Documents in the Life of Sri Aurobindo
Lithograph of plate 23 from William Wood’s ‘Views of Calcutta’.
PURONOKOLKATA 