Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Architecture of Portuguese by José Pereira Church of Our Lady Of Divine Providence. The Church of Our Lady of Divine Providence of pertained to the vanished Theatine Convent of Saint Cajetan, a patron saint frequently but mistakenly attributed to the church itself. The convent building was located immediately to the south of where the Palace of the Fortress once stood, near the Arch of the Viceroys. Nowadays only the church attests to the presence of this order of Italian friars in the territories of the Portuguese Padroado of the Orient. And it was precisely due to their refusal to submit to the Portuguese monarchs that the Theatine friars who had arrived in Goa in 1639 were forced to leave the territory. Before that happened, between 1656 and 1672, they built their convent. According to Rafael Moreira, it was designed by the Theatine Father Carlo Ferrari, assisted in the task by Bother Francesco Maria Milazzo. The convent’s builder was Manuel Pereira. Regarding the church, Rafael Moreira establishes the influences of Saint Peter’s in the Vatican only with respect to the façade; its plan derives from the one at the sanctuary of Madonna della Ghiara in Reggio- Emilia. Articulation between the façade and volume of the church, with its centred plan, is done via a galilee running the width of the building. The high is located above this entrance space and is possibly the most Portuguese feature of the entire church. The worship space is arranged around a central square crowned by a dome over pendentives, in whose drum are eight rectangular windows. A hemispherical calotte and skylight close this architectural feature in the best tradition of Italian Renaissance domes. Inside, four equally sized arms covered by coffered groin vaults make the Greek cross that defines the church type. Four additional square spaces complete (also in plan) the larger square in which they are placed, if we except the galilee. The church is prolonged on the east side by half the depth of the square where the Greek cross is, making it a plan with a one-and-a-half proportion. The chancel is located here, flanked by two octagonal spaces, with the one on the north side functioning as sacristy. The high altar’s retable and the side ’ retables are carved giltwork with baroque forms, as are the Solomonic columns. The convent building is arranged parallel to the church, on its north side. Outside, only the south-facing wing perpendicular to the church’s façade is visible. A photo from the turn of the 19th-20th century shows the ground floor with only one central door and two small oval windows. Windows were later opened on this floor, corresponding to the ones on the floor above. The front of the building was enlarged by a wing equal to the first one, framing a central body with a columned portico on each floor. The Church of Our Lady of Divine Providence has architectural features unique in Goa and totally foreign to the architectural tradition of Christian religious architecture directly influenced by the Portuguese. These include: inside, the Greek cross plan, the dome over the crossing with drum lying on pendentives with hemispherical calotte and skylight, the semi-cylindrical back wall of the chancel and the spaces adjacent to the church with its octagonal plan; on the façade, the seven sections (instead of the usual five on façades with towers) articulated by Corinthian columns and pilasters in colossal or Attic order. Also, the high altar’s retable is different from most Goan retables which either resemble a façade due to the niches’ arrangement in levels, or follow the model of a Roman triumphal arch. The church’s architectural features (of direct Italian influence), in contrast, show signs of the specific nature of Goan Christian architecture of Portuguese tradition. The singular nature of the Church of Our Lady of Divine Providence in Goa thus places it in a privileged position as a witness of the Christian missionary endeavour in the 17th century and the complex process of adhesions and resistance to European architectural models. Baroque Goa: The Architecture of by José Pereira. THE TOWER OF THE CHURCH OF ST.AUGUSTINE "This 46 meter high colossal four storied arched belfry tower built of laterite formed part of the facade of the Church of St.Augustine. The tower and Church were built in 1602 by the Augustinian friars. " Very few travel brochures mention that the church attached to the Augustinian convent was dedicated to Our Lady of Grace. This is what the Igreja da Nossa Senhora da Graca originally looked like (courtesy Baroque India by Jose Pereira). Five bays, four storeys, square towers, arched openings with pediments, and the classical sequence of arch-rectangle-oculus-niche in the central bay. The Church of Santana in Talaulim uses this colossal facade as a model for its own massive front. If the tower is 46 meters high, the vault must have been about 21 meters in span! A remarkable feat of engineering for that time. I find this legend repeated in many places: "During construction, the high vault fell down twice. However, the Italian architect would not give up. When built a third time, he and his only son stood under the vault and asked for a heavy cannon to be fired to test the stability of the structure. It did not fall down- until much later." The archaeological excavated finds are laid out like a miniature Stonehenge! The ravages of the monsoons can be brutal and laterite which is a relatively soft stone gets steadily carved out by the rains before its downfall. And part of the mortal remains of the martyred St Ketevan, Queen of Georgia, are believed to be buried somewhere in this complex! ‘Portuguese architecture’ in Goa has little to do with the Portuguese and everything to do with Goa. Property brokers love to peddle ‘Portuguese homes’. But these unique Goan structures aren’t found anywhere else in the world. Goa’s remarkable and unique colonial-era built heritage is comprehensively misunderstood and wilfully misrepresented. The most common error is to view the Latinate architecture of India’s smallest state via the prism of the rest of the subcontinent’s experience of British colonialism, where every aspect of planning and construction was dictated by the European overlords. But that was not the case in Goa, where the Portuguese ran out of money and energy by the cusp of the 18th century, and almost all the buildings that followed until decolonisation in 1961 were triggered, conceived and executed by ambitious natives. In the new millennium, an overheated marketplace has developed for marvellous old Goan dwellings, which are bought and sold as “Portuguese houses”. About this lobotomised real estate shorthand, the Goan architect and Secretary of Goa Heritage Action Group Raya Shankhwalker writes: “Ill-informed brokers have coined the term, which reflects a deeply ignorant conception of the complex, multi-layered evolution of architecture in Goa. It is wrong, even offensively wrong, and it is extremely irritating to see the term actually gain popularity instead of being discarded. The use of local materials, crafts and skills make the Western-influenced Goan house a unique architectural expression.” These nuances matter beyond mere semantics, because the many-layered syncretic Goan identity is being questioned anew in the current national political atmosphere charged with fanciful notions of purity, and a purportedly unpolluted past. Recently, Goa’s residents were shocked to read that the central government will soon establish a regional centre of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts “to promote local indigenous culture to counter Portuguese cultural influence” and “launch a massive hunt for folklore artistes which have nothing to do with Portuguese culture”. Once again, the intricate cultural expressions of Goa that have arisen over millennia of contact with the outside world, most specifically from 450 years as the centrepiece of the Portuguese maritime empire, are treated as suspect, as though they do not qualify as Indian enough. The argument is quite like what continues to rage about the Taj Mahal, which the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Sangeet Som called “a blot on Indian culture…built by traitors”. His colleague GVL Narasimha Rao agreed, “It is a symbol of barbarism.” More worrisome still was Som’s boast, “What history are we talking about? The creator of Taj Mahal imprisoned his father. He wanted to wipe out Hindus. If these people are part of our history, then it is very sad and we will change this history.” The threats sounded very much like warning shots in Goa, where many churches are undeniably built on sites previously occupied by Hindu temples (and most likely Buddhist, Jain and animist shrines before them) but are nonetheless cherished today by pilgrims and devotees of all religions. In this regard, it is exceedingly important to understand the many ways in which Goan experience of the Portuguese Estado da India is unique in the history of colonialism. In this riparian sliver of the Konkan coast, after an initial heyday that lasted for a couple of centuries, the Portuguese only managed to maintain control via painful negotiations with the local elites, who continually extracted considerable concessions to shift the balance of power in a way that was both alien and offensive to other European contemporaries. Unique identity. Two additional potent factors exacerbated this singular situation. From the very beginning of colonial rule there was an official promotion of intermarriage with the locals. Later, the products of these alliances, along with all other , were granted equal rights and freedoms with all other citizens of . All this appalled the British no end. In his classic travel book, Goa and the Blue Mountains , the usually dauntless adventurer Richard Burton blanched when confronted by “black Portuguese” who enjoyed “perfect equality, political and social, between the two colours”. Fully conscious of the inherent irony, he voiced outrage that “the native members of a court-martial, if preponderating, would certainly find a European guilty, whether rightly or wrongly , n’importe. ” It caused him considerable distress to witness Europeans subjected to parity with Indians. Fontainhas, Goa. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons [Licensed under CC-BY-2.0] Goa and the Blue Mountains was published in 1851, a full generation after secular, liberal republicanism was being practiced in . By this time, a comprehensive internal rout was underway in Portuguese possessions around the Indian Ocean, as Goans seized both economic and political power in a wide arc from to Macau (both of which served under Goan governors). At home, Panjim rose as Nova Goa, the three-dimensional expression of an assertive, self-confident native worldview. As the passionate city historian Vasco Pinho writes, here Panjimites “were assured of the rights to life, property and initiative. Grill-free houses, kept open even at night, spoke for the unsung freedom from fear the like of which has existed perhaps nowhere else”. Citizens of the world. These well-travelled Goan citizens of the world, taking advantage of extraordinary liberties earned long before other Indians attained equality, generated distinctive cultural expressions. The emergent “cozinha de Goa” or cuisine of Goa amalgamated influences from , Africa, Europe and East Asia with ingredients and technique of the Konkan. Indo-Portuguese art turned secular, eventually seeding modern India with a series of masters like Antonio Trindade, Angelo da Fonseca and Francis Newton Souza. The late scholar Jose Pereira writes: “It was in Goa that Indian musicians first began to compose in western musical forms, incorporating into them motifs and nuances of their own immemorial tradition…Goans not only initiated the westernisation of Indian music, but also pioneered in Indian ethnomusicology.” Afonso Guest House, 173, Fontainhas - 19th-20th century. Photo credit: Urbz via Flickr [Licensed under CC BY 2.0] Pereira, a polyglot and a polymath, was a compulsive cataloguer. In a series of landmark books, capped by the tome Baroque India: The Neo- Roman Religious Architecture of South Asia , he made the pioneering effort to meticulously delineate just how different Goan churches are from any others in the world. In an article in a special issue of Marg magazine in 1980, titled Goa Dourada, he wrote, “The roots of the Baroque are partly Hebraic and West Asian, Christianity having arisen in the part of the world, but only in India was it able to establish contact with so many of its antecedents.” In the heavily trafficked entrepot of Goa, Pereira writes: “The Baroque did not come into an architectural void, but into areas which had long established modes of building. In the South were the temples of stately temples of venerable dynasties, the Pallavas, Cholas, Cheras and Chalukyas, and of the kings of Vijaynagar [and] Adil Shah II, the chief innovator of his dynasty at Bijapur where colossal mosques and tombs were soon to rise. Gujarat was graced by the elegant traceries and marble arabesques of its mosques and Jain temples. The Baroque…like the crystal of the Vedanta metaphor in contact with flowers of many colours – came to be tinged by the traits of these several traditions.” Indigenous treasures. If Pereira’s scholarship provided the hardware for Goan architecture’s case for reckoning on its own terms as an Indian form with global significance, the killer software was provided in the 21st century by Paulo Varela Gomes, the passionate Indophile Portuguese architectural historian who passed away last year. Over two highly effective stints as the delegate to India of Lisbon-based Fundação Oriente, this relentlessly curious and open-minded professor of the University of Coimbra came to the conclusion that he was viewing “churches and houses that are unique in the world history of architecture” and decided to delve into the roots of how this stunning oeuvre came into existence. In his superb study Whitewash, Red Stone (Yoda Press, 2011), Varela Gomes touches on the general scholarly consensus “that the houses built in Goa…in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries constitute an extraordinarily coherent and distinct current in the panorama of housing around the world. These houses are now being named ‘Portuguese Houses’ perhaps because of the influence of tourism since ‘Portuguese’ is a more exotic denomination than Goan…There is no need to point out that houses such as those in Goa exist nowhere in any town or village in Portugal, Brazil, or Portuguese-influenced Africa. They are solely Goan.” Holy Spirit Church in , Goa. Photo credit: Ramnath Bhat via Flickr [Licensed under CC BY 2.0] But as important and perceptive as those comments are, the truly invaluable contributions of Varela Gomes come from his highly persuasive interpretative study of Goan church architecture, where he strikes bullseye unerringly: “The reason for the hybrid character of Goan church architecture has often been explained as the result of the fact (more often than not undocumented by building documents) that they would probably have been ornamented by converted local craftsmen and artists, and also sometimes, by Hindu or Muslim painters, artisans and sculptors…To me, this explanation, as all others based on ‘influences’ and ‘contacts’ fails to account for the character and integrity of the churches of Goa.” “One can see Portuguese vault composition, Flemish vaulting or ornament, Bijapuri tower design, Konkan stucco patterns and ornamental design,” wrote Varela Gomes. “But the churches as overall buildings did not result from the sum of their constitutive parts. Their builders and patrons knew how they wanted a to look and how they wanted it to be experienced. Their understanding, I believe, was not Portuguese, Flemish or Indian, but Goan Catholic or Indo-Portuguese. To anyone with architectural or artistic sensitivity, these churches don’t seem to be the end- result of a compromise but the affirmative artistic statement of a cultural position.” St. Anne's Santana de Talaulim church, Goa. Photo credit: Naizal Dias/Wikimedia Commons [Licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0] That cultural stance is simply native pride. Goans were the first Indians to seize the reins of their destiny, and they were not shy about expressing highly evolved aesthetic and cultural preferences. This is the crucial difference between the colonial structures in Goa and Mumbai or Kolkata. These “were not buildings imposed upon Goans, or buildings negotiated between Goans and foreign prelates or authorities…they were buildings by Goans, designed by Goan architects and masons, including Goan Catholic priests, and in many cases, commissioned by Goan landowners or Goan local communities”. In other words, they are an indigenous treasure, treated exactly as such by the natives of Goa, who will happily pay their respects at churches and temples without discrimination. This universalist face of Goan Catholicism can be seen at the exquisite Baroque marvel that is Santana de Talaulim church on St. Anne’s “cucumber feast” day on July 26, where huge crowds flock to petition the deity for male offspring, but only a small minority are Catholics. Another example is the annual celebration of the “Apostle of the East”, St. , at the world heritage precinct, including Se Cathedral (the largest church in Asia) and Bom Jesus Basilica, where tens of thousands of Hindus and Muslims arrive from all over the country to pay their respects. . Photo credit: Bikashrd/Wikimedia Commons [Licensed under CC-BY-SA-4.0] Far from foreign, there could be nothing more beautifully Indian in every aspect of the practices involved. That acceptance is precisely what Mulk Raj Anand wanted for Goa’s churches. In his introduction to that seminal issue of Marg bristling with Jose Pereira’s contentions, he wrote: “There has been so far, through the weight of the great religious archetypes of Hindu temples on our minds, a noticeable allergy to the dynamic churches and cathedrals of the Christians everywhere in India. Now, in the face of the polymorphic architecture of Goa, one hopes the revelations of the gigantic churches, with their richness of adumbration of forms, with the foliage of winged leaves, the mythic signs and pregnant symbols, the spiral-like arches, the dynamics of the mellifluous Christian art of Goa will become part of the cosmic labyrinths of holiness which are everywhere in our land.” Goa Portuguese culture architecture. Respond to this article with a post. Share your perspective on this article with a post on ScrollStack, and send it to your followers. Remembering Goan music, in another continent. Some twenty years ago, maybe a bit more, I imagined Basilio Magno to be a rather elderly senior citizen, if not someone of advanced age. But that is the arrogance of youth; when you’re in your 30s, someone close to their 70s looks ancient to you. But soon you get there yourself. To my pleasant surprise, Basilio Magno Pereira, whom I first met online and now continue to interact with via snail-mail, has been going strong. He continues taking the music of Goa to the world, keeping in touch with his home state, and proudly counting the years passing by. On February 12, 2021, he sent me his latest missive: “I am keeping well at 97.” He wrote to say he had recently produced two CDs – ‘A Day in Goa’, and ‘Folksongs of Goa’ (For the First Time in English). He recently also featured on the online Gallery of Illustrious Goans, online, and was rightly proud with the acknowledgement. Expat Goans never cease to surprise me. They fall in two sharply distinct categories, more correctly, three. Some (a few) are insufferable know-it- alls, perennially giving advice on what Goa should be, how it should shape up. Clearly, the irony of wanting to do everything “for Goa” except live here and put their hand to doing something positive is lost on them. The second lot is largely disconnected from Goa, and have little interest in the place. Life goes on, mostly forgetting their roots or not wanting to keep in touch. In part, they alone can’t be blamed. Their home state treats them like unwanted, prodigal sons and daughters, and does little or nothing to connect with them. (Never mind setting up institutions supposedly aimed at promoting the interests of expat Goans, but in reality just useful to accommodate friendly politicians in official posts.) It is the third lot of expat Goans, those who are far away, but who continue to do something of value for this small region, who one finds both interesting and intriguing. Magno is one of those from this category. There are others too. In particular, there’s this group of diasporic Goans who have done something crucial to shaping the Goan world of music and culture. This is true of both Western and Indian music. Polymath José Pereira is a prominent name from this field, and his many works related to music, let alone other fields, have shaped our understanding of the same. His list of writings, many of them related to Goa, spans a total of some 13 pages in all. Writing in the context of the mando, José Pereira writes: “It was in Goa that a successful synthesis of European and Asian styles of architecture was first achieved, in the grand structures of Indian Baroque, some of the best of which still survive in the former capital of Portuguese India, Velha Goa. It was in Goa that European literary forms were first embodied in any Asian language, the language of Goa, Konkani. And it was in Goa that the first symbiosis of any Asian tradition of music with the European was realised, in Goan song, of which the Mando is the consummation.” There were others too. A friend knowing the subject mentioned to me the role of the Goa Hindu Association, based in Mumbai, in promoting Goan drama (in Marathi) in the past decades. Lourenço de Noronha, who shares a surname but is not related, has set up an ambitious website at songs-from-goa.at. The Austria-based professor has written: “The copyright for the dulpods and mandos published by André Xett and translated by António Vicente de Noronha have been handed over to me by them. I would be only too glad if they are freely used worldwide. I claim no copyright for them.” To me, people like these are inspirations. They have not forgotten their home, even if life is comfortable in their new homes. Sitting half (or a quarter) way around the globe, they remember Goa’s culture. We here, mostly, take it for granted. Magno traces his roots to Saipem, Candolim and was born in Pomburpa on June 13, 1923. He is the son of António Caetano Pereira, an accountant who played the violin for a hobby, and was part of the Bombay Symphonic Orchestra. His mother who was a journalist-singer- composer is Spanish, from Granada. Magno grew up in Bombay, became a journalist with the community newspaper (whose name has been mentioned as the ‘Dadar Goan’), and was offered a scholarship to study music in Portugal by the last Portuguese Governor General, Vassalo e Silva. He has also written two plays in English entitled ‘St Cyril’ and ‘Mother’, presented in Bombay and Kuwait, and an operetta in Konkani called ‘Ek Dis Goyam’ (One Day in Goa), which was broadcast by the erstwhile broadcaster of Goa, Emissora de Goa, in 1960. His subsequent musical endeavours have been unusual, and include composing a song at the age of 23 to Princess Margaret of England titled ‘The Rose of England’ and another to Diana three decades later, titled ‘Princess Diana Waltz’. His ‘Viva el Rey’ is dedicated to the Spanish monarch Don Juan Carlos, in an indication of how globalised the Goan diaspora can get. An interview with the periodical ‘À Voz do Oriente’ offers more insights into the man and his almost ten decades of lively music and life. He was earlier based in Germany; our globalised world has only made parts of the diaspora into the flotsam and jetsam of our times. Technology can build barriers, even as it can connect to build bridges. I’d love to listen to the audio cassettes created by Magno, but realise that most computers come without their own CD players these days! How do we keep track of what’s happening across the Goan world, worldwide? Is it even practical to think of doing so? Alas, it is also true that we in Goa lack a sense of history that would help us to see our own reality in wider context. Around the world in Gardens. Ever heard about the Landscape Architectural ? If not, then you will be surprised to know that Goa is home to the most beautiful leisure gardens, that date back to the Portuguese inquisition in Goa. In 2014, while on a trip to Goa along with my husband, I came to discover one such beautiful garden in the Goan countryside. The landscape architect in me was automatically drawn towards its richness and history, and the idea for writing an article about it came almost immediately as we set foot inside the estate. Goa can perhaps claim to be the only place on the Indian subcontinent where houses dating back to the 1700s are still in pristine condition and still inhabited by generations of the original owners, or enthusiastic Goans who have preserved and restored these structures till today. Unlike the British and French colonies that ruled in India which had a major impact on the public architecture of Colonial India, the Portuguese colonies saw the development and flourishing of residential architecture in the form of mansions, palaces and bungalows, along with great gardens that reflected the Indo-Portuguese style in the design. And amazingly, today even after 300 years many of these structures and gardens are still very well preserved and/or restored so that they can continue to tell the stories of a long lost Portuguese culture and its fusion with the native Indian culture. Introduction. Goa was home to one of the main Portuguese colonies in India during the 1700s. Trade was the primary catalyst that lured the Portuguese to India to set up their colonies in Goa. Portuguese nobility was the class of legally privileged and titled persons acknowledged by the Kingdom of Portugal. During the absolute monarchy, these nobles held the most important offices after the members of the ruling dynasty and the Roman Catholic Church. As trade flourished, the Portuguese noblemen and merchants who came to Goa became wealthy and prosperous, and some decided to make Goa their home. These mansions were built in an era which saw the Portuguese raking in a handsome profit from their trading colonies in Africa and South America. (fig. 1) Figure 1: Plan of Goa during the 1750s. History tells us that in 1780, one such Nobleman Deão José Paulo da Costa Pereira E Almeida arrived in Goa in the entourage of Archbishop Friar Manuel de Santa Catarina. (fig.2). In 1787, Deão José Paulo was appointed the dean of the Goa cathedral and construction work officially started on the Church of the Holy Cross in Quepem. Thus was founded the town of Quepem. Figure 2: A painting of Deao Jose Paulo. It is easy to imagine that being of such high post of nobility, and now founder of a town in colonial Goa, José Paulo saw it fit to construct a mansion for himself. The little hillock of land directly opposite the Holy Cross church, flanked by the strategically important Kushavati river must have seemed like the perfect location to construct it. Architectural Style of Palácio do Deão. Prior to the Portuguese occupation of Goa, the traditional house style was that of the Hindu courtyard house. Inward looking houses that opened into courtyards, with very few outward opening windows were common, and reflected the secluded and isolated status of women in Goan society. After the Portuguese occupation in the 1500s, the society gradually underwent a change. The new rulers, in order to quickly spread their influence and religion in the new land, devised a policy by which the Portuguese noblemen who came to Goa would marry the native Hindu women. This was the easiest way of spreading the catholic faith among the common masses and future generations. As a result, the position of women in the Goan society gradually became less secluded and more open. This in turn was re-reflected in the design and planning of the new Indo-Portuguese houses that were built during the 1700s. (fig.3) Figure 3: A typical Indo-Portuguese house. These were more outward-looking and ornamental, with balcaõs (covered porches) and verandas facing the street. The large balcaõs had built-in seating, open to the street, where men and women could sit together and ‘see and be seen’, chat with their neighbours, or just enjoy the evening breeze. These balcaõs were bordered by ornamental columns that sometimes continued along the steps and added to the stature of the house. This, together with the plinth, usually indicated the status of the owners. The houses of rich landlords and nobility had high plinths with grand staircases leading to the front door or balcão. (fig.4) The planning and design of Palácio do Deão incorporates Indo-Portuguese customs, like the fact that it is organized on one ground floor, contrary to the traditional arrangement of Portuguese noble houses, always with two levels and the main floor marking the first level. The back of the house presents another particularly interesting feature. In Hindu tradition, the building has a long dining room: the vasary. In the middle of this room a large columned veranda (balcao) opens, projecting over the garden, giving the entire complex a rare feeling of recreation and leisure. (fig.10) Figure 4: The impressive plinth and facade. Gardening style of Palácio do Deão. If the architecture of the Goan house underwent a transformation, so did the gardens, evolving from the combination of Indian and Portuguese gardens to become the Indo-Portuguese gardening style. The Portuguese garden style itself was deeply influenced by the Italian Baroque garden in the 1700s. Portuguese Baroque gardens had an abundant presence of water and sculpture, whereas Indian gardens were more about functionality and simplicity. The Indo-Portuguese garden style borrows the aesthetics and planning aspects of the Portuguese Baroque and the simplicity and native-ness of tropical Indian vegetation. The garden of Palácio do Deão is spread over 2 acres and extends from the banks of the Kushavati river to the Holy cross church. (fig.5) The garden falls under the category of the traditional Portuguese ‘Quinta de recreio’ or ‘garden for Recreation’. Quinta in Portuguese literally means a country or farm house. Like architectural buildings of the Indo-Portuguese period, the garden and its size and intricacy indicated the status and power of the owner. As such, the gardens of the Portuguese noblemen were less magnificent and smaller in scale than those of the monarchs. However, they too had their own charm. Figure 5: Location & extent of Palacio do Deao. Like its Italian Baroque counterparts, the garden of Palácio do Deão is treated as a subordinate to the house. Its design is meant to be seen from the top, to provide pleasure to the master of the house. It has various scattered features such as a pond, gazebo, belvedere, balustrades, vases and flame ornaments, which indicate to us that this is a very complex garden without parallel in Goa. The Layout. The garden is approached from a simple rammed earth entrance court which holds the bust of Deao Jose Paulo and an old well. True to Indo- Portuguese style, the boundary walls are made in shaped laterite, and rendered in lime plaster. The entrance gate is topped by finials. A paved stone pathway on a central axis leads the visitor inside, with the palace on the right. (fig. 6,7) Mehrangarh fort, one of India’s most majestic forts is steeped in historic grandeur, and takes us back to the era when Jodhpur’s Maharajas reigned over the region of Marwar (what is now in the state of Rajasthan). Walking through its great halls and courtyards, one experiences the majestic and eventful lives of Jodhpur’s royalty. Mehrangarh is also home to one of the finest examples of Indian gardens, the Chokhelao bāgh . Originally laid out in the 18th century by Maharaja Abhai Singh , this garden has been restored over a period of ten years, and is back to its lush and fresh green self. Planned as a terraced Chahar-bāgh , the Chokhelao bāgh is very much like an oasis in the middle of the desert coloured Mehrangarh fort. A quiet and tranquil space that provides the much needed shade and cool to a thirsty and exhausted visitor. The garden of Chokhelao , the only garden within the Mehrangarh fort, was laid out 1739 A.D. by Maharaja Abhai Singh , as an extension to the Chokhelao palace. Inspired by the Mughal Chahar bāghs of the period, the Chokhelao bāgh is different in the way that it is designed; in response to the climate, to conserve water instead of celebrating it through channels and fountains. Although the garden’s layout is based on the grid system of the traditional Chahar bāgh , the resemblance to the tradition ends here. The grids are made as pathways instead of water channels; the planting is tropical and at the centre of the garden is a large well, which is one of the main sources of water for the garden. There are a series of channels that run outward from the well, but these seem to be a means of irrigation, and are very modest in appearance. The garden is laid out in three terraced levels, and each level has specific theme attached to it. The plants in each terrace are responsible for providing the intended thematic experience. The first level is the Flower garden or ‘ Phool-bāgh ’ (‘ Gul-i-stan ’ as described in the Persian texts on Paradise gardens), to be viewed essentially during the day. Borrowing from the paintings of the period, each bed has been choreographed for an attractive mix of colour and texture. The second level is the Moonlight garden or ‘ Mehtab-bāgh ’, to be enjoyed during the day, but especially during the night, with the fragrance of the flowers wafting through the air. The Mehtab-bāgh became an essential component of medieval gardens of the region. As compared to the bright colours of the Phool-bāgh , the plants here are visually very soothing, with white flowers that are clear visible in the moonlit night. Finally, the third level is the Orchard garden or ‘ Bo-stan ’ (meaning ‘fruit garden’ according the Persian texts on Paradise gardens). Not only did the fruit trees help sustain the garden on economic terms, but were an integral part of Indian culture, symbolizing life and prosperity. These trees also help to create a favorable microclimate in the hot and arid Jodhpur climate. In addition to the terraced levels, the bāgh is surrounded by the fortification wall of the fort. The ramparts of this wall are great viewing points for any visitor to get a sky view of the garden. Set against a perfectly blue sky, the sand- coloured Mehrangarh fort forms a background to the lush green carpet of the Chokhelao bāgh . When the garden was restored back to glory recently, great care seems to have been taken in the design of details like the signage, information booklets etc. Fossilized sandstone slabs with subtle lettering and symbolic graphics make up the signage. Such kind of detail is what is often missing in most of our designed landscapes and this garden serves as a great example of the important role signage plays especially in restored landscapes. Truly a garden for the five senses, the fragrant plants species selected on a seasonal, diurnal and nocturnal basis heighten the sense of ‘smell’, the varied range of textures heighten the sense of ‘touch’, the variety of fruit trees provide for an elevated sense of ‘taste’, myriad colours of the flowering plants highlight the sense of ‘sight’ and providing an environment whereby the rustling foliage of trees and the birdsong bring music and ‘sound’ to the garden. We leave you with a few more clicks to enjoy. Pune’s own Paradise. The natural wonders of the Kashmir valley inspired the Mughals to create gardens that represent the concept of Paradise, where God himself resides. Thus began an era – long Mughal contribution to Landscape Architecture in India…. The city of Pune has recently added a slice of this erstwhile paradise to its city landscape. Designed by Shobha Bhopatkar, this Bagh is a modest but sincere vehicle of imaginary travel, ready to take one to the famous Mughal gardens of Kashmir, or even back in time. A few vignettes…