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Umaid Bhawan Palace Was Built as a Famine Relief Project and Is Still Half Royal Home Today
Commissioned in 1929 partly as a drought-relief employment scheme, Jodhpur's Umaid Bhawan Palace took fifteen years to build and now stands as three things at once: a working royal residence, a museum and a heritage hotel.
Sep 26, 2026 · BigTravel.in
Umaid Bhawan Palace was commissioned in 1929 by Maharaja Umaid Singh of Jodhpur, but its origins lie less in royal display than in relief work: Marwar was in the grip of a severe drought, and the building project was conceived partly to give paid employment to thousands of local labourers over the years it took to complete. Groundbreaking took place on 18 November 1929, and the palace wasn't finished until 1943, a fifteen-year build using golden-yellow sandstone quarried locally and Makrana marble for interior detailing.
An architect from London, a style from nowhere in particular
The palace was designed by the British architect Henry Vaughan Lanchester, working in a style that blends Art Deco's geometric lines and sweeping staircases with domes, courtyards and carved details drawn from Rajput tradition. The result reads as neither wholly European nor wholly Rajasthani, a hybrid that was unusual for a royal commission of its period and remains among the largest Art Deco buildings anywhere in the world.
Three buildings in one
With 347 rooms, Umaid Bhawan Palace is usually described as one of the largest private residences in the world, and it still functions as three distinct spaces: part remains the private home of Jodhpur's former royal family, part is open to the public as a museum of royal memorabilia, vintage cars and photographs, and part operates as a heritage hotel. The three sections coexist within the same sandstone structure without one displacing the others.
Built without mortar
According to accounts of the construction, the palace's stone blocks were interlocked through a system of joints and pressure rather than bound with conventional mortar, a traditional building technique credited with keeping the structure standing without major restoration since 1943.
Traveller tips
- Jodhpur Airport is around 15 minutes from the palace by car.
- The museum wing is open to day visitors independent of a hotel stay, the easiest way to see the building's interior without booking a room.
- Jodhpur's blue-painted old city and Mehrangarh Fort are both a short drive away and pair naturally with a palace visit.
- Rajasthan's cooler months, October to March, are the most comfortable for sightseeing around Jodhpur.
Where this is
Jodhpur, Rajasthan