Inside the restoration of Kerala’s Kilimanoor Palace, the birthplace of Raja Ravi Varma
Walls, as historians will avouch, are enchanting relics—holding on to architectural memory even when everything else has faded. Few places demonstrate this better than the Kilimanoor Palace, the famed ancestral home of Raja Ravi Varma, where long corridors, quiet verandahs, and timeworn masonry speak more eloquently than ornament ever could. Recently, one small yet significant fragment of this vast palace complex—the southern wing known as the Thekkekottaram—was gently coaxed back to life. The task, however, was far from straightforward. There were no old photographs to refer to, no grand restoration budget, and nary any pressure—none whatsoever—to turn the house into a polished showpiece. Instead, architect Aswathy Ganesh of Kochi-based The One Architecture Studio was presented with a deceptively simple question: how do you restore a home that survives largely in memory? The brief came from eminent Malayalam literary translator Prasanna Varma and seven of her cousins, the current custodians of this inherited wing of the palace—family friends of the architect, and quietly confident that she would understand what the place truly needed.
