EnglishMiranda House
Revora, Goa, India
Housing
The Miranda house in the northern hinterland of the State of Goa has a quite unusual scale. It assumes the form of a high tower topped by battlements. The house’s balcony indicates a late 19th century construction yet also accentuates the unreal atmosphere by rising so improbably amid a landscape of palm trees. The surrealist appearance can also be discerned in the veranda columns that develop along the façades from the entrance turret. They are painted in a strong ochre colour and present a vegetal bulb motif with clear affinities to Hindu temples. The use of both European Gothic references and Hindu themes is enhanced by the veranda door transoms with their small stainedglass oculi. Contrary to its outer appearance, the house’s interior structure and programme are typical of the Indo-Portuguese patio-house typology. The grandiose nature of the project determined a programme of two distinct patios, the first organising the main area of the house and the second the service and servants’ area. In the main patio the large classically-inspired columns are of Corinthian design. The formation of an entirely open gallery over this patio heightens the ambience of Hindu tradition observed in various architectural details. The interior structures both approach and distance themselves from native traditions. They have no compartment with the function of a vasary. The dining room rather has a more European rectangular form, without occupying the transitional pivot position between the areas reserved for the lords of the house and the area for services and servants, as in Hindu tradition. Although bereft of furniture and with dependencies in clear ruin, the ceilings and doors of the salons present bas-relief carved adornment attesting to the quality of the woodwork. This is more evident in the dining room’s inset cabinet doors, with their carved motifs of leafy branches and flowers, where Indian and Portuguese influences are also mixed with a Chinese influence seen more clearly in 18th and 19th century furniture.