AHSAN MANZIL

This imposing pink salmon building is one of the few Anglo-Indian style vestiges. Former home of the Nawabs in Dhaka, the palace was finished building in its current form in 1872. Today, it houses a museum that retraçant the history of the family and allows you to admire antique furniture and old photos that retranscrivent the splendour of a bygone era.

The history of the «Pink Palace» dates back to the Mughal era and Sheikh Enayet Ullah, Lord of Jamalpur. He buys vast land and is built a small palace that houses a harem. His son sells the property to French merchants around 1740. The fortune of the French grows and builds a larger dwelling and a pond. The victory of the British at the battle of Plassey against the French and Indians obliges the French to flee. On 23 June 1757, they boarded 35 ships moored at the doors of the palace and returned to France. All goods are confiscated by the English, before being redonnés to the French. The influence of the British crown only growing in the region, the French decided to sell all their property in Dhaka and in 1830, the property was transferred to the nawab of Dhaka Alimullah. He added stables and a mosque. Then his son began to restore the old French home and add a new wing, Rangmahal. He named the ensemble Ahsan Manzil in honour of his son Ahsan Ullah. In April 1888, a devastating cyclone put much of the palace on the ground. The nawab reconstruire the French wing completely devastated in symmetry with Rangmahal and connects both by a wooden bridge on the first floor. At the death of Ahsan Ullah, the heirs fail to reach agreement and rent the palace, which, in the absence of maintenance, quickly tranforme into dilapidated. The government bought the building in 1952 to make it administrative offices and then ceded it to the National Museum in 1985. Important restoration works are undertaken, on the basis of photographs of the time and Ahsan Manzil finally regains its splendour.