“STORY BEHIND STOREY”- BENGAL LUMINARIES AND THEIR RESIDENCES

INTACH, the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage, is the largest national voluntary organisation in the country in the field of conservation and prerservation of India’s rich and diverse heritage. INTACH is dedicated to conservation. While conservation and restoration is definitely an important part of our activities, documentation of heritage, tangible and intangible, is also necessary since, if we do not know what we have we cannot obviously protect it. It is with this objective that we have sponsored the project of documenting the built heritage of 100 eminent personalities of the city of Kolkata proposed by our member, Ms Indrani Sirkar. Conservation Architect. Kolkata or Calcutta as it was known then, was called the second city of the British empire and this fact was reflected very prominently in its grand edifices which were built not only by the East India Company and its officials and later by their successors, the British Government and their employees but also by wealthy Indian merchants, landowners as well as professionals such as doctors, barristers, scientists, educationists, performing artistes among others. It is our endeavour to document the architectural features of these magnificent and historic buildings and profile the eminent personalities who resided there. We are sure this will be of interest to heritage enthusiasts as well as historians and researchers and provide them with valuable and authentic information compiled therein. In our own humble way we also pay homage to these great sons and daughters of Bengal. apart from this, the book will also serve as a guide to those who wish to visit these houses as necessary location maps are also provided. We are sure all our readers will find the publication of great interest.