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| Renovated SBI building Chennai. Palladian style. twitter.com |
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| 100 year old SBI building, Anna salai, Chennai.ivechennai.com |
No doubt next to Kolkata, Chennai has the largest number of more than 100 year old colonial buildings and also heritage structures. There are many landmark structures on the busy Anna Salai, Chennai (Madras) where offices and commercial establishments are functioning. The one that grabs our attention is the old State Bank of India (SBI) building which had already completed 100 years in January 2020. Any person visiting this place can not miss the white building with huge and tall cylindrical columns at the entrance and a tall double arched portico. The pediment atop the tall columns has no ornamental features. Quite impressive is it unique European styled design of Palladian architecture, a rare feature in this part.
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| SBI building Anna salai Chennai. thehindu.com |
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| Palladian style villa, wikipedia. |
Above image: Palladian style villa with a superimposed portico, from Book IV of Palladio's I quattro libri dell'architettura, 1736. Ornamental work was not much emphasized rather attention was paid to mathematical proportions. The design of facades with pediment was given much care so that occupant could have clear view from all direction. This style continued from 17th to 20th century in Europe and not used for places of Christian worship. It was deemed to be pagan for Roman catholic worship as Palladianism had its roots in ancient Greek temple.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palladian_architecture#Palladio's_architecture.....................................
Inspiration of this style owes it origin to the designs of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580) who incorporated in his designs classical temple architecture of the Ancient Greeks and Romans. The design is based on main mathematical proportions rather than rich ornamental style also characteristic of the Renaissance
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| SBI 100 year old building, Chennai. economictimes.indiatimes.com |
Above image: SBI building Anna Salai, Chennai, Front view.
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| Chennai Anna Salai SBI branch, big columns bankaddressbyifsccodes.in |
Above image: Huge columns at the entrance of the building in the portico of the State bank of India branch office, Anna Sala, Chennai. Only few images are available on this old structure......................
Opened on 8 January 1920, the single-story structure covering 22,000 sq.ft housed a commercial bank, then called Bank of Madras. In the following year in 1921, it was renamed Imperial bank after the merger of three important Presidency banks. After the formation of the State bank of India (SBI) on 1 July 1955, this branch has been serving the customers without any break and as of 2019 it has a customer base of nearly 20,000 and went past the ₹1,000-crore mark in business as on December 2019.
When the Banks senior officers got up the centenary celebration in January 2020 the highlight of the function was facilitating the Prince of Arcot, a descendant of the rulers of Arcot Nawabs who had close rapport with the colonial rulers. The unfortunate fact is the wily British betrayed the loyal Arcot rulers when facing financial problems.
To meet the increasing demand from the customers and to improve the facilities in tune with latest developments in bank operations, this 100 plus year old structure was renovated with care. The conservation engineers handled the problem of restoration carefully without disturbing the heritage elements in the building. No structural changes were made as they might affect the original style. Deviation from old Palladian style will complete destroy the old colonial ambiance.
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| SBI bldg. Chennai, 1900s image Wille Burke. madrasmusings.com |
https://www.livechennai.com/detailnews.asp?newsid=51648
https://twitter.com/trsaranathan/status/1233395529481998336
http://madrasmusings.com/Vol%2020%20No%206/madras-oldest-bank.html
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