Wankaner, India | C.1870
While most of Gujarat’s stepwells were carved between the 11th and 16th centuries, Maharana Amarsinhji of Wankaner had other plans. In the 1930s, as the British Raj installed pipes and pumps to replace these ‘unhygienic’ monuments, he commissioned a stepwell at his summer retreat, complete with an Art Deco swimming pool. Built around 1935, it is considered the last traditional stepwell constructed in Gujarat: a final flourish of an ancient tradition wrapped in jazz-age modernism.
Twelve years later, Amarsinhji’s successors folded Wankaner into independent India along with the rest of the subcontinent’s five hundred-odd princely states. The stepwell survives at what is now a heritage hotel, a monument to a ruler who saw no contradiction between reviving an eleventh-century water tradition and installing a swimming pool beside it.
Partner
She won Parliament by a world-record landslide, founded schools, and turned a garden palace into a political headquarters- beauty be damned.
AWA visted here
This Indian luxury hotel, known as the "Jewel of Jaipur," was once the royal residence of the Maharaja of Jaipur.
AWA visted here
This Indian hotel is the fourth structure to be built following catastrophic fires over the course of a century.
This Indian luxury hotel, known as the "Jewel of Jaipur," was once the royal residence of the Maharaja of Jaipur.
AWA visted here
The opulence of this beachfront palace wouldn’t be possible today without the untold history of a friendly invasion by the U.S. Army.
This pool was added to this Zanzibarian hotel in the 21st century, but the original structure dates back several centuries.
Max file size is 40MB. JPEGs are preferred.
You do not have permission to view this form.
Login
login / signup
