Resilience : Historic Houses and their Custodians

This week on 'Resilience: Historic Houses of Indian and Their Custodians', the Centre of Historic Houses at The Jindal Global University brings to you The RajBari Bawali introduced to us by Ajay Rawla

About the speakers:

Ajay Rawla
Mr Ajay Rawla is a 3rd generation Punjabi living in Bengal and calls himself a “Bongjabi”. He is an alumni of Mayo College, Ajmer. He is an environmentalist with an eye for architecture and aesthetics, a keen mind with a self-driven hunger to learn more, to evoke the lost and untold histories of our past. From constructing the Nationally Important AGNI base in Chandipur, Orissa while living in a thatched-roof hut, to founding the National award-winning export house, The East India Natural Goods & Co, to restoring a 300-year-old Rajbari to its former glory, he is committed to promoting Bengal’s cultural and architectural heritage. He is the Managing Director of The East India Natural Goods & Co., as well as the Managing Director of Bawali Estate Pvt. Ltd under whose umbrella the Heritage Boutique Resort, The Rajbari Bawali comes. Mr Rawla has a passion for excellence and believes that standards have to constantly improve. His interest in restoration, music, performing arts and culinary delights all come together to create delightful experiences for not just our guests but also set standards of excellence within the industry

About the moderator & organiser:
Dr Esther Schmidt (Oxon) is the director of the Centre for Historic Houses at OP Jindal Global University. She is a design- and architectural historian as well as practising interior designer with a focus on the design, promotion, revival and development of historic houses and palaces. She studied at the University of Oxford, the University of Vienna and the University of Cambridge and received her Ph. D. from the University of Oxford, where she was Michal Wills Scholar and tutor and won the John Lowell Osgood Prize for her dissertation. If she does not visit historic gardens and houses she plays the piano, reads, or spends time with horses and dogs. She currently has 20 dogs she has rescued from the streets of New Delhi. For her work she has received the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art award for contributions to European decorative arts, a fellowship from the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture in New York, the DAAD scholarship, the German Merit Foundation scholarship/Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes and the Ian Karten Award.