Hawa Mahal

Interesting facts

Maharaja Sawai Pratap Singh was a devoted follower of Krishna, and the tiered façade is traditionally said to imitate the god's crown.

The king reportedly took the idea from the Khetri Mahal, a wind palace built earlier in the Shekhawati town of Jhunjhunu.

The cooling works on what physicists call the Venturi effect: air speeds up as it is squeezed through the small lattice openings.

Behind the plain rear wall, the chambers were finished with coloured marble, inlaid panels and gilding, and fountains stood in the rooms.

In 2006 the building underwent its first major restoration in about fifty years, at a cost of some 4.5 million rupees.

The Unit Trust of India adopted the monument as a sponsor of its maintenance.

Despite its five storeys, the building rises only about 50 feet, because the upper floors are little more than a single room deep.

Why it is worth it

The Hawa Mahal, the Palace of the Winds, is in effect a stone screen five storeys high. Built in 1799 by Maharaja Sawai Pratap Singh, grandson of Jaipur's founder Jai Singh II, and designed by Lal Chand Ustad, it rises about 15 metres above a busy street in the walled old city. What faces the street is not the front of a palace but the back of a wing of the zenana, the women's quarters of the City Palace. Its purpose was to let the women of the court watch processions and street life below without being seen.

The façade is a honeycomb of 953 small windows, the jharokhas, set in projecting semi-octagonal bays and pierced with carved sandstone lattices, some of them in wood. The upper three floors are only one room deep, and the building narrows to a pyramid at the top, crowned by small domes and finials. The red and pink sandstone matches the colour that gives Jaipur its name of the Pink City. The details combine Rajput forms, domed canopies, fluted pillars and lotus motifs, with the Mughal love of stone filigree and arched openings. The lattices also served a practical end: breezes forced through the tiny openings cooled the rooms behind, and fountains in the chambers added to the effect.

From the inside the building feels very different. The entrance is from the City Palace side, through a gateway into a courtyard enclosed by two-storey buildings, with the Hawa Mahal forming the eastern side and a small archaeological museum in the courtyard. The rear of the screen is plain, with narrow corridors and chambers, and the top two floors are reached not by stairs but by ramps. From the upper windows you look out through the lattice exactly as the court ladies did, down on the street life of old Jaipur. The monument is maintained by the archaeological department of the Government of Rajasthan.

Getting there

The Hawa Mahal stands on a street of the old walled city of Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, beside the City Palace. Jaipur International Airport (JAI) is about 11 km away. The best view of the façade is from across the street in the early morning light, when the sandstone glows.

Hawa Mahal

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

Plan your visit

On these lists

From the encyclopaedia