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Washington Post
4 days ago
- Business
- Washington Post
Window-filled Arlington house for sale for $3.2 million
When John Abraham first saw the 1953 house at 2533 N Ridgeview Road in Arlington, Virginia, he thought it felt like someone had tried to disguise it. He saw that beneath mid-century paint and carpet was an International Style house designed by a prominent architect with materials rarely used by builders today. He had to have it, he said, 'come hell or high water.' The house he has owned for almost two decades is now on the market for $3.195 million.
Time of India
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
The making of India's first ‘fairytale palace of modernism'
In place of a turban, a safari hat crowns the Maharaja's head. As if weary of pearls and emeralds, the Maharani wears a glowing smile instead. The striking black-and-white photo of Indore's royal couple in their minimalist chic—he in sunglasses and a blazer, she beautiful and jacketed—was taken in 1933 by a German architect who understood their flair for understatement. By then, Berlin-based Eckart Muthesius had spent over three years building the young couple a sleek palace without a dome, a "temple of avant-garde" that was India's first centrally air-conditioned home. Even as external affairs minister S Jaishankar recently flew to Germany to strengthen diplomatic ties, an exhibition in Mumbai is showcasing a much older dialogue between the two nations, albeit in the realm of architecture. Sepia images on the walls of the Kamalnayan Bajaj Gallery in Byculla's Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum trace the century-old friendship between Yeshwant Rao Holkar II of Indore, his wife Sanyogita, and Muthesius—a bond that gave India one of its earliest modernist buildings: Manik Bagh. Commissioned in 1930 by the maharaja, who met Muthesius in Oxford in the 1920s, "Manik Bagh was far ahead of its time," says the show's curator Raffael Dedo Gadebusch, who heads the Asian Art Museum in Berlin. "The palace was a synthesis of architecture, arts, and design like hardly any other building in that period," he adds, comparing it to The Bauhaus, the steel-and-glass art school designed by Walter Gropius in 1926. Art Deco buildings were just beginning to bloom on Marine Drive in 1933 when the palace—designed in the International Style—was dubbed a "fairytale palace of modernism". Alongside watercolours, drawings, and design studies by Muthesius, the show features 50 rare photographs by Muthesius, German photographer Emil Leitner, and American visual artist Man Ray. Sourced from collections loaned by art patrons Taimur Hassan and Prahlad Bubbar, the images highlight curated objects from the palace, crafted by avant-garde designers who shared Muthesius's minimalist vision, such as Constantin Brancusi. His iconic 'Bird in Space'—a sculpture the Maharaja bought in black marble, white marble, and bronze—are seen soaring in the maharaja's living room, in vintage prints. The palace's readymade furniture—like the tubular steel chaise longue by Le Corbusier and red armchairs by Wassili and Hans Luckhardt —reflected the jazz-loving Maharaja's admiration for the democratic ideals embedded in modernist design. "He was consciously moving away from colonial aesthetics," points out Gadebusch. "Technically, it was a marvel," says the curator about the palace, whose water faucets, staircase banisters, light fixtures, and retractable awnings were all produced in Germany as per Muthesius's strict specifications. Instead of wallpaper, the walls were painted with pigments mixed with glass or metal particles. Doors and windows employed steel frames and thick tinted glass—unprecedented in Asian architecture. Over time, the palace evolved to blend beauty and utility, featuring innovations such as clear and tinted glass panes set in metal frames, India's first air-conditioning system, pictorial carpets, and vibrantly coloured walls. "My father put his foot down on only one major design element," wrote Shivaji Rao "Richard" Holkar, the Maharaja's son from his third marriage. "Muthesius wanted a flat roof, in line with the modernist idiom of Le Corbusier, but my father insisted it wouldn't withstand the monsoon. Muthesius relented, designing a sloped roof with custom-made green ceramic tiles. International acclaim followed its completion in 1933. The palace became a showcase for modernist masterpieces, and Muthesius was appointed 'Chief Master Builder' of Indore. However, after the abolition of the privy purse, Manik Bagh found several of its furnishings auctioned off by Sotheby's. These included an aluminium-and-chrome bed with built-in glass bookshelves, for which designer Yves Saint Laurent made a bid. Stripped of his power and forced to adjust to a new socio-political landscape after independence, the Maharaja of Indore married twice more before passing away in Mumbai at age 53. Some years later, Manik Bagh Palace passed over to the govt, and its once eclectic European furnishings were replaced with Godrej cupboards filled with bureaucratic files. The former home of a couple who once enjoyed tax-free govt stipends now serves as the headquarters of the central GST and excise commissioner. When the Maharaja's Mumbai-based grandson, Yeshwant Holkar, visited Manik Bagh last year to invite the commissioner to an exhibition, he found the palace in a state "not befitting of its history or importance." "It's important that govt officials are made aware of its heritage so that any renovations are sensitive to its legacy," says Holkar, who believes the palace could thrive as a museum or a design institute. "Given its global reputation as a modernist icon, the govt could do far more with it. The ball is in its court."
