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DATIA AND ORCHA - THE SPIRIT OF INNOVATION

By Manu REWAL

Documentary - Completed 1998

- Year of production
- 1998
- Genres
- Documentary
- Countries
- INDIA
- Languages
- ENGLISH
- Duration
- 29 mn
- Director(s)
- Manu REWAL
- Writer(s)
- Manu REWAL
- Producer(s)
- Manu REWAL
- Synopsis
- Between the sixteenth and the first part of the seventeenth century, a series of innovative palaces and temples were built in the cities of Datia and Orcha, in the Bundelkhand region of central India.
  The Chaturbhuja temple at Orcha represents a bold design in which massive traditional Hindu shikharas were combined with the dome and arch structural system usually found in mosque architecture. All four royal palaces, which were built by successive rulers, followed the traditional plan centered around a courtyard, but each new building enriched and refined the earlier concept. Ultimately, in the last of the four palaces, the traditional pattern was transcended by building a tower in the center of the courtyard.
  A voice-over, accompanied by classical North Indian music, makes up the sound track, while paintings - both wall as well as miniatures - are inter-cut with images of the buildings. The architectural aspects alternate with the political context of Datia and Orcha during the evoked period.