Heritage Buildings

Calcutta, city of ruins: Documenting heritage houses, a fading reminder of 'babu culture'

The old and crumbling neighbourhoods of Shovabazar, Bagbazar, and old Chitpur in Calcutta once boasted of palatial houses built by the affluent babu class. These houses were studded with Corinthian pillars, lined with balustrades of delicate grill-work, and strewn with copies of Greek and Roman marble statues

There goes the neighbourhood: Author Amit Chaudhuri talks about Kolkata and its decaying heritage

Whenever people lavish praise on Kolkata’s buildings they usually mean the grand old palaces in the north (the ‘black town’) or the massive colonial edifices dominating the city’s business district – giving Kolkata the nomenclature of “city of palaces” in the hoary past.