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The Hindu
23-07-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
Chennai: The tale of Doveton Clock Tower
Of late, I have been researching the history of public clocks and clock towers in Chennai. And while I managed to gather material on most, the one that I consistently drew a blank on was the Doveton Clock Tower. Most sources on the internet have it that this was the first clock tower of the city (which is correct) but have given it a date of early 1900s, connecting it in one instance with the inauguration of Ripon Buildings. And as usual it was Karthik Bhatt who drew my attention as to why we may be off by a few decades. 'Look at how it is such an example of Art Deco,' he said. 'And if the first in that style in our city is the Oriental Insurance Building on Armenian Street dating to 1936 then this must have been constructed around that time and not earlier.' I wondered as to why this never had occurred to me before. Maybe you need to be a Gujarati chartered accountant whose family has settled in Tamil Nadu for over 300 years to think that way. Armed with that piece of irrefutable logic, I searched further and came up with some interesting information. The clock tower may have Doveton prefixed to it now but around 50 years ago, it was known as the Vepery Clock Tower, standing as it does on a triangle formed by Purasawalkam High Road and Jeremiah Road. The latter thoroughfare becomes Vepery Church Road and that was where Rao Saheb MC Madurai Pillai (1880-1934) lived. In fact, the triangular park on which the clock tower stands was very likely his land. Madurai Pillai made his fortune supplying manpower to the Kolar Gold Fields and was considered a leader of his community that had a large resident population in that mining town. A staunch Vaishnavite, he did much for temples in South India. He also worked for the uplift of members of his community and began schools in Kolar. The magazine Dravidian too was funded by him. In politics he owed affiliation to the Justice Party and also extended support to the Dalit leader, Rettamalai Srinivasan. His interest in civic matters saw him becoming a councilor of the Madras Corporation where he seems to have interested himself in his favourite topic – education. The triangular piece of land on which the clock tower now stands begins appearing in Corporation street records from the mid 1930s. In these, it is referred to as MC Madurai Pillai Garden Park though there is no mention of the clock tower itself. But from the fact that Sylvan, a hotel run by Madurai Pillai, was close by, we can assume that this land was donated either by him, or in his memory by his descendants, after his passing. And the clock tower seems to have then come up on it. Surprisingly, there is no record of the clock tower either at site or in Corporation records. The absence of any commemorative plaque or a foundation stone only adds to the mystery. It may well have been a private initiative that was later made over to the Corporation. Of course, standing proud with letters of gold are recent refurbishment plaques which somehow seem to have conveniently bypassed the memory of Madurai Pillai himself! The park too does not remember him by name. And no restoration seems to have paid any attention to the clock itself, which stopped working quite a while ago. We need to be thankful that the structure is still standing. (V. Sriram is a writer and historian)
The Hindu
06-05-2025
- Business
- The Hindu
Celebrating 100 years of the Art Deco style in Madras
It was on April 29, 1925, that the Paris Exposition formally introduced the Art Deco style to the world. It took 10 years for the form to come to Madras. In between, Bombay took to it, the Syndicate Bank building in that city being the country's first, completed in 1932. And it was a man from the Bombay Presidency who brought Art Deco to this city. Laxman Mahadeo Chitale (1892-1960) was noticed for his skills in drawing by Maharaja Sayaji Rao Gaekwad III of Baroda and took up a draughtsman course and then apprenticed under H.V. Lanchester, who was, in the early 1900s, one of the architects consulted for the city of New Delhi. In the event he did not get that contract but went on to design Umaid Bhavan Palace in Jodhpur, one of India's largest residences in the Art Deco style. Corner entrance Returning after a few years in England working with Lanchester, Chitale moved to Madras, joined the PWD, and then quit in 1932 to set up practice as an independent architect. And thus began Madras' journey in Art Deco. His first major structure in that style in the city was the Oriental Insurance Building, on Armenian Street. Making full use of a corner plot, Chitale, in the style popularised by Sir Edwin Lutyens in Delhi, designed a building with a corner entrance, thereby maximising the sides along two streets. Oriental Insurance Building, still standing, was also the city's first multi-storey, for it had six floors, counting two in the basement. Bombay had already set the trend for banks and insurance companies floated by Indians building their headquarters in the Art Deco style. It was almost as though they wanted to defy British business interests by breaking free of Neo-classical, Indo-Saracenic, and Bombay Gothic. And so Madras followed suit. Chitale built many such as the National Insurance Building (1938) on China Bazaar Road and almost certainly the Andhra Insurance Building (1939). Raja Sir Annamalai Chettiar took a great liking to Chitale and got him to design the Annamalai University building. He therefore designed the Annamalai Manram on the Esplanade in 1952 as well. It is a happy amalgam of Chettinad and Art Deco. Theatres followed suit The rest of the city was not idle. Cinema theatres, which had till then adhered to the strictly classical, and mostly with a street front box office, took to Art Deco, probably with Casino (1941). Cinema studios — Gemini, AVM, and Vijaya-Vauhini — all had even their preview theatres in Art Deco! Businesshouses found the style attractive, with Parry demolishing its old buildings and constructing a new one in 1938, the present Dare House. Even P Orr & Sons, archives reveal, toyed with an Art Deco structure to replace its Chisholm-designed building, but never got around to it. All along NSC Bose Road, the old Madras Christian College campus was sold in lots, and Art Deco edifices came up, most still standing. Even Connemara underwent a facelift in the new style. Hotels such as Oceanic and Dasaprakash were jewels of Art Deco. In housing too, Art Deco became a trend for residences in T. Nagar, Mylapore, Alwarpet, and Adyar. Silverware and furniture took to Art Deco and print used its fonts. It was all the rage. By the 1950s though, the style was giving way to the Modernist/Brutalist made fashionable by Socialist thought. Today, Mumbai has managed to get UNESCO protection for its Art Deco, at least for Marine Drive. We, on the other hand, have watched most of our buildings vanish. We need to protect what is left. (V. Sriram is a writer and historian.)
