How This Brother and Sister Are Restoring a 400-Year-Old Indian Palace | Architectural Digest

Hello AD, I'm Manvindra Pratap Singh. And I'm Janki Kumari. We welcome you to the magical Garh Palace here in Boondi. The Garh Palace, built by the Hara Chauhan Rajputs in the 16th century, is one of Rajasthan's hidden treasures. The palace complex, perched on the hillside, overlooks the city of Boondi, is a succession of separate but overlapping structures added to and modified by different rulers over the different centuries. The palace is best described by Radhiyat Kipling, who said, it's a palace as men build for themselves in uneasy dreams, the work of goblins rather than of men. The most remarkable feature of the palace are its trespasses. Each painting, each wall and each room has a story to tell. And each room is a reflection of the era and the history, the time period that they were painted in. For example, the Chhatar Mahal, where we are right now, there's a lot of use of gold in all the paintings that goes to show that the state of Boondi was in a very prosperous position. We are currently in the Badal Mahal. This is the most well-preserved room in the whole Garh Palace, housing India's finest trespasses. The paintings in this room use complex and sophisticated technology, such as the use of mica sheets attached to the surface of the paintings to create a reflective surface such as water, metal or glass. The bright cobalt blue is lapis lazuli, which is a Persian semi-precious stone. It was ground, mixed with a binder and then applied. It's exciting for me to carry out this restoration of this beautiful structure built by my ancestors and the people of Boondi. Sometimes it does get overwhelming thinking about the scale of things and the intricacies involved. But then I think about how this place was created 400 years ago and that serves as motivation for me. My connection to Boondi is through my grandmother, who was the princess of Boondi. She herself loved to paint. And just to honour her passion, it would make me the happiest. Centuries of neglect, bat infestation and water damage made it difficult to access and stabilise certain parts of the palace that were structurally compromised, making areas hazardous to enter. This is the Baradari of the Chhatar Mahal. I've personally been involved in the restoration of these frescoes. We have managed to restore them in a traditional manner using earth colours and natural minerals and vegetable dyes. Sustainability here, for us, not just means ecological care but also cultural continuity. And we hope that people are inspired when they visit the Garh Palace by its dreamlike architecture and the intricate paintings. We really hope that you all fall in love with the magic of Boondi.