103-year-old Park Mansions wins heritage award for restoration

The 103-year-old Park Mansions on Kolkata's upscale Park Street has been given a prestigious heritage award for the restoration of it's colonial era architecture.
The KMC-INTACH Heritage Award 2013 has been given to Park Mansions by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH).
Owned by the Apeejay Surrendra Group, the heritage property was restored at a cost of more than Rs 10 crore to its original glory in 2010, the centennial year of the building, company officials said.
Constructed in 1910 for both residential and commercial use, Park Mansions is spread over more than 5 bighas.

The architecture is a mixture of Victorian and Indo-Saracen styles with a bulbous dome on the roof, British-style interiors with a touch of Indian architectural style on the facade.
During the two-year-long restoration work, architects Dulal Mukerjee and Associates had to change the roofing, reinforce sections that had been weakened by a fire in 1990, reverse the effects of ageing apart from rebuilding its intricately carved facade, inner courtyard, driveway and lighting arrangements.
The building's renovation work involved nearly 70 skilled and unskilled workers. These included a specialised team from Midnapore town of the state, a team of architects, and a presidential award winning artist for excellence in terracotta from Bandel in Hooghly, overseen by Apeejay's own team of engineers.

"This award is an endorsement of Apeejay's belief that a city's heritage plays an important role in the urban landscape re-establishing the city and its citizen's tryst with history and culture, giving the citizen not only a historical perspective but a sense of place and time," company chairman Karan Paul said.