Nov 25, 2011

Pallathur House

The empty lanes of Pallathur

The imposing main entry

The Living Hall with clear storey lighting

Colorful Pillar and Aathangudi tiles

Courtyard colonnade

The grand courtyard

another view of the court

rain water collection urn..

rain water collected

entrance porch...woodwork
















Last year as part of an Architect's festival, I had gone on a trip to study Chettinad Architecture along with some fellow Architects...The photos are from a house at Pallathur.It was sad to see these massive houses, once symbols of opulence, dying without maintenance as mostly the owners have moved to the cities or abroad. 

27 comments:

  1. This place has come in some movies right? This is marvelous and u have captured great shots here... the living room hold the attention!

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  2. @Jeevan, the one that usually comes in movies is this:
    http://ashokism.blogspot.com/2006/06/chettinadu-palace.html

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  3. Marvelous pictures, Ashok. You have a wonderful blog here.

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  4. Awesome pictures. The woodwork is pretty.

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  5. Great photos of the sad place to live in, brilliant.

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  6. Love the photos...those urns are awesome...wonder what they were used for..to cook food or to store water..

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  7. @Rakesh- thanks for ur compliments!

    @Mary Das- Yes, Wood works r a speciality here

    @Bob-Thanks

    @Chitra- The Urns are for collecting rain water flowing down from the slope roofs. Very typical of chettinad houses

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  8. Fabulous photos. I am amazed at the spacious house in which people lived. I can imagine the wealth and grandeur and power of the people who lived here. I am sure they even had many servants to take care of the house.
    Amazing photos.
    Joseph

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  9. Wow, wonderful photos, Ashok. The living hall has such a interesting ceiling. I also love the photo of the urn. Fabulous!

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  10. Simply beautifully captured shots...lovely colourful architectures!

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  11. Anonymous11:16 PM

    Wow - how lovely in its splendid emptiness!

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  12. wow wow ! look at those colours ... reminds me of a peacock .. the blue and yellow .. awesome !

    i see i have a lot of posts i want to read ... will read one by one

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  13. Anonymous5:29 AM

    This is a appealing post by the way. I am going to go ahead and save this article for my brother to check out later on tomorrow. Keep up the high-quality work.

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  14. WoW! What an amazing piece of architecture! I adore the colors of the tile and their pattern. Awesome photos to share with us, Ashok! Thanks so much :)

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  15. Anonymous3:16 PM

    wow! wonderful photos... ashok. it brought the place alive and i liked the wood-works a lot and esp. the arrangement of pillars.

    Nice being here and thanks for dropping by :)

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  16. I like your eye for details ~

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  17. Ashok, Simply magnificent structures. The open courtyard concept has all but disappeared in contemporary buildings. Sad that these sprawling bungalows are fast deteriorating. When you visit places like these you are actually going back 50 years on the time machine.People used to live contentedly disciplined lives in huge joint families.

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  18. the courtyard - how lovely! large spaces are a treat :)

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  19. awesome houses, I saw like these at Dakshinchitra only...

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  20. Anonymous2:00 PM

    Hi Ashok,

    Thanks for the photos. I'm one of the owner of the house that you had pictured @Pallathur in 2011 and told that its sad to see the house getting deteriorated.

    Please visit the same house now in 2013, If you have time. The house is completely repaired and painted.

    Your photos r true. My brother and I took initiative and brought back the house back to form.

    Ramanathan

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    Replies
    1. Hi Ramanathan...it is wonderful to hear that you have restored your beautiful house. I really feel sorry for these magnificent heritages that are dying in front of our eyes a slow death. Hope every owner feels as proud as you about their house and restores their pride. The architecture of these houses are perfect for our climate and people fail to
      understand their value and are blindly behind vasthu and other fancy follies that
      will not add comfort or value to the living
      standards. Pls send me some snaps of the restored house that I can share with my readers. Hope to visit your house next time when iam around the area.

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  21. Anonymous12:20 PM

    Hi Ashok,

    Sure will provide you with the photos during June end.


    Thanks,
    A.Ramanathan

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  22. Anonymous3:31 PM

    Hi Ashok,

    As i informed you during June, my house at Pallathur has been restored back to its magnificience.
    Please click on this link.

    https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/117539341351289644967/albums/5908696961604507073?partnerid=gplp0&authkey=CLnIotfc6euFcA


    Complete Civil rework, Electrical phase change from Single to Three phase along with Painting and Plumbing.


    Please check the link for around 90 photos and let me know about it.

    A.Ramanathan

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  23. Hi Ramanathan, It was a joy to see the snaps. You had done a fabulous job in restoring your beautiful house. Its looks awesome! I hope to visit it some day soon. Thanks !

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  24. Anonymous12:47 PM

    Thanks Ashok

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