Famous Landmarks in Jaipur
A planned 1727 grid city whose old core is faced almost entirely in pink sandstone.
Jaipur's landmarks cluster around the walled old city that Sawai Jai Singh II laid out on a grid in 1727, one of the first planned cities in modern India. The City Palace sits at the centre of that grid, a complex of courtyards and buildings combining Mughal and Rajput architectural elements, completed in 1732 as the seat of the Jaipur rulers. Hawa Mahal rises from its edge, a red-and-pink sandstone screen wall added in 1799 to let the palace's women watch the street below unseen. Outside the walls, Jal Mahal stands apart entirely, a palace built into Man Sagar Lake in the same period. The consistent pink colour scheme that gives the old city its nickname covers buildings of otherwise varied purpose and date.
Hawa Mahal
1799 · Lal Chand Ustad
A street-facing wall of red and pink sandstone, five storeys tall, its surface entirely honeycombed with 953 small arched jharokha windows set edge to edge in tight rows.
Hawa Mahal is a screen wall of red and pink sandstone built onto the edge of the City Palace complex in 1799, under Maharaja Sawai Pratap Singh and designed by Lal Chand Ustad. Its five-storey façade is pierced by 953 small windows, called jharokhas, arranged in a honeycomb pattern that let royal women watch street life and festivals below without being seen themselves. The lattice openings also drew air through by the Venturi effect, cooling the palace's interior during Jaipur's hot summers. It extends toward the Zenana, the women's chambers.
- Despite its palace-like façade, Hawa Mahal is essentially a single screen wall attached to the City Palace's women's quarters, not a freestanding building.
- Its 953 small lattice windows were built to draw air through by the Venturi effect, cooling the interior in Jaipur's summer heat.
- The ruler who commissioned it was reportedly inspired by another palace, the Khetri Mahal, whose design he admired.
Photo: Jupiterthescholar (CC BY-SA 4.0)
City Palace
1732 · Vidyadhar Bhattacharya
A complex of multiple courtyards, gateways and buildings rather than a single structure, combining Mughal and Rajput architectural elements, with part of it now open as a museum of the former rulers' collections.
The City Palace was the residence and administrative seat of Jaipur State's rulers, built soon after the city's founding. Construction began in 1727, when Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II moved his court here from Amer, and finished in 1732 under Vidyadhar Bhattacharya. Built to the rules of vastushastra, it combines Mughal and Rajput elements across a complex of courtyards, galleries and administrative buildings. It remained the kingdom's ceremonial and governing centre until 1949, when Jaipur State merged into Rajasthan. Part of it now houses the Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum, and the royal family still lives within it.
- The royal family, who still occupy part of the palace, is served by around 500 personal staff, according to the palace's own account.
- The palace's museum trust is run by Princess Diya Kumari, who also oversees two schools in the city that carry the family's name.
Photo: FLASHPACKER TRAVELGUIDE (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Jal Mahal
1799
A palace standing alone in the middle of a lake, apparently rising directly out of the water because it is built on its own artificial island rather than the shoreline.
Jal Mahal is a palace built in 1799 in the middle of Man Sagar Lake, standing on what is effectively its own artificial island rather than the shoreline. Unlike Jaipur's other surviving palaces, no architect, patron or later history for it appears in the record: what is documented is simply its date, its type, and its setting in the water. It remains known chiefly for that setting, a palace reachable only by crossing the lake itself.
Photo: Piyushsh9 (CC BY-SA 4.0)
History
The city took shape after 1727, when Sawai Jai Singh II, the Kachhwaha Rajput ruler of Amer, moved his court onto a newly planned site and laid it out on a grid designed by Vidyadhar Bhattacharya. Construction of the City Palace, the new capital's administrative and ceremonial centre, began that year and was finished in 1732, following the rules of vastushastra and mixing Mughal and Rajput architectural styles. Later rulers kept building within and beyond that plan: Hawa Mahal was added onto the palace complex in 1799 for the court's secluded women, and Jal Mahal, a separate palace set into Man Sagar Lake, dates from the same year. Jaipur remained the seat of its own princely state through the colonial period, then became capital of Rajasthan in 1949, after Indian independence.