Mysore Palace

En un regard

Le château en bref

Mysore Palace, or Amba Vilas, stands at the heart of the city of Mysuru, within a vast enclosure of some 29 hectares surrounded by walls and gardens. The official residence of the Wadiyars, it was rebuilt in stone between 1897 and 1912 after a fire destroyed the earlier wooden palace, to designs by the British architect Henry Irwin. The building, about 75 m long and three storeys high, combines grey granite with pink marble domes; a central tower of five storeys, topped by a golden dome, rises to about 44 m. The interior unfolds a succession of state halls: the octagonal Kalyana Mantapa beneath its coloured glass canopy imported from Glasgow, the public durbar hall with its carved columns, and the Amba Vilas, a private durbar hall with cast-iron pillars and inlaid floors. The enclosure also contains a dozen temples. Managed by the government of Karnataka, the palace is one of India's most visited monuments; it is illuminated by nearly 100,000 light bulbs on certain evenings and serves as the setting for the Dasara festivities.