Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Mid September weekend wandering - Part 2
Late crash to bed results in late waking up..Thats exactly what happened on Sunday. Got up late and realised that there were lots of more places yet to be explored as part of the london open house and there is this Thames festival to be covered too. Taking into consideration the fact of limited time and unlimited events to cover, broke my head over this and with lots of compromises, dicided that i would see the India office and the City Hall. The rest was decided to be devoted for Thames festival.
So off i started towards the India Office. For those of you who would have thought it is some indian missionary's office,Let me give a brief about the India Office. India Office was the office of the British Secretary of State for India. This was formed after the Sepoy mutiny in 1857 ('The Rising' thing...) after which the powers were transferred to the British Crown from the East India Company. The India Office was largely funded out of Indian revenues unlike the other departments.It was a miniature Government in itself.The Viceroy of india reports to the Secretary of State for India who in turn reports to the cabinet. Post Independence of India and Pakistan, it took the shape of Commonwealth Office. It is now called as the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). True to expected lines, it portrayed the architecture existant during the time of the British Raj. A statue of a Gurkha (supposed to be belonging to the Gurkha Regiment) welcomes you. The building boasts of long stairways and big pathways. The DurbarHall is a huge open area with plenty of natural lightings.
The designs on the roof is truely facinating. I, in short, felt like taken through a time machine to the days of the British Raj. This talks why it has been classified as a Grade 1 building.
From the architecture of the British raj off i rush to the architecture of the present mordern Britainnia..The GLA City Hall.Well,GLA stands for Greater London Authority. The architecture is that of a Helmet and an out of shape egg. The Ground floor has an area which has the flooring depicting the arial view of the london city.I infact saw lot of people looking around to see if they can spot their neighbourhood. Another interesting architectural point of interest is the spiral stairs. The view of the city of london from the top floor was amazing. The gallery where the City Council and the Mayor conduct the proceedings was too good with the members having individual LCD monitors in front of them.
So off i started towards the India Office. For those of you who would have thought it is some indian missionary's office,Let me give a brief about the India Office. India Office was the office of the British Secretary of State for India. This was formed after the Sepoy mutiny in 1857 ('The Rising' thing...) after which the powers were transferred to the British Crown from the East India Company. The India Office was largely funded out of Indian revenues unlike the other departments.It was a miniature Government in itself.The Viceroy of india reports to the Secretary of State for India who in turn reports to the cabinet. Post Independence of India and Pakistan, it took the shape of Commonwealth Office. It is now called as the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). True to expected lines, it portrayed the architecture existant during the time of the British Raj. A statue of a Gurkha (supposed to be belonging to the Gurkha Regiment) welcomes you. The building boasts of long stairways and big pathways. The DurbarHall is a huge open area with plenty of natural lightings.
The designs on the roof is truely facinating. I, in short, felt like taken through a time machine to the days of the British Raj. This talks why it has been classified as a Grade 1 building.
From the architecture of the British raj off i rush to the architecture of the present mordern Britainnia..The GLA City Hall.Well,GLA stands for Greater London Authority. The architecture is that of a Helmet and an out of shape egg. The Ground floor has an area which has the flooring depicting the arial view of the london city.I infact saw lot of people looking around to see if they can spot their neighbourhood. Another interesting architectural point of interest is the spiral stairs. The view of the city of london from the top floor was amazing. The gallery where the City Council and the Mayor conduct the proceedings was too good with the members having individual LCD monitors in front of them.
Labels: Outings
