Hawa Mahal

Where it sits. The Hawa Mahal fronts directly onto Hawa Mahal Road, part of the Badi Chaupar stretch of Jaipur's walled old city, with Tripolia Bazaar to the west and Jantar Mantar and the City Palace immediately behind. It is not a free-standing palace but the outer screen wall of the zenana, the women's wing of the City Palace complex, and this explains its odd proportions: the famous facade is five storeys tall and barely a room deep at the top. What looks from the street like a grand frontage is, architecturally, the back of the building.

The story behind it. Sawai Pratap Singh, grandson of Jaipur's founder Jai Singh II, had it built in 1799, and the design is credited to Lal Chand Ustad. The stated purpose was practical rather than decorative: the women of the household observed processions, festivals and daily street life through the screens without being seen from below. Pratap Singh is said to have taken the idea from the Khetri Mahal at Jhunjhunu, a stark earlier building of the same open, screened type. The structure is built of the red and pink sandstone that Jaipur adopted wholesale, and its 953 jharokhas — small projecting windows filled with carved lattice — give it the honeycomb outline that has become the city's emblem. Those openings also do real work, drawing air across the interior in a venturi effect that keeps the upper floors bearable in a city where June afternoons pass 40°C. Restoration work was carried out in 2006, the first significant intervention in about fifty years.

What you actually see. The interior is a surprise to most visitors: there are no grand halls and, on the upper levels, almost no rooms at all, just narrow passages and chambers named Sharad Mandir, Ratan Mandir, Vichitra Mandir, Prakash Mandir and, at the top, Hawa Mandir. Ramps rather than staircases connect several floors, a detail usually explained by the need for palanquins to be carried up. The entry is not from the famous street front but around the back, through a courtyard on the Tripolia Bazaar side, which begins at a modest gate and opens into a garden court with a small archaeological museum. From the top storey the view takes in Jantar Mantar's instruments, the City Palace roofs, and Nahargarh Fort on the ridge above the city. The building has no deep foundation of the usual kind and leans back into the palace wall it grew out of, which is why its five storeys taper as they rise and why the topmost chamber is little more than a domed cupola with windows on every side. Coloured glass in some of the upper openings throws patches of red and blue across the passage floors through the morning.

On screen. The Hawa Mahal is the establishing shot for Jaipur in Hindi cinema, used the way the Gateway of India is used for Mumbai. Yash Raj's Shuddh Desi Romance (2013), directed by Maneesh Sharma and shot largely in the old city, worked it into the film's geography along with Jal Mahal and Amber, and the film is unusually honest about the tourist economy those monuments feed — its protagonist works as a wedding-baraat extra and a tour guide. Earlier, the song Koyal Si Teri Boli from Beta (1992) was picturised at the facade. Neighbouring Jaipur landmarks divide the rest of the work: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra filmed Masti Ki Paathshaala from Rang De Basanti (2006) at Nahargarh Fort on the ridge above, and Bhool Bhulaiyaa (2007) used the City Palace and Chomu Palace. Street-level filming here is a dawn operation, because by nine the road carries dense two-way traffic and the pavement opposite is solid with photographers.

Getting there and timing. Badi Chaupar station on the Jaipur Metro's Pink Line sits about 200 metres away and is the easiest arrival; the old city's narrow roads make driving slow. The monument keeps daylight hours, and a composite ticket covers it together with Amber, Jantar Mantar, Nahargarh and Albert Hall. The classic photograph is taken not from inside but from the rooftop cafés directly opposite on Hawa Mahal Road, which open early and charge the price of a cup of tea for the view. Because the facade faces east, the light is on it from sunrise until roughly mid-morning and flat by afternoon. October to March is the sensible season. The interior involves continuous ramps and steps with no lift, and the upper passages are narrow and low, so the building is difficult for anyone with limited mobility.