Albert Hall, Side View, Jaipur

"From its opening day," writes Thomas R. Metcalf in An Imperial Vision Indian Architecture and the British Raj, "the building was praised as a 'successful adaptation of the Indo-Saracenic style to a modern public building. For the Journal of Indian Art it showed 'unity of design with strength and boldness of conception,' and they lauded the 'perfect taste and capacity' of its architect. Fifteen years later Rudyard Kipling, on his travels through Rajputana, spoke of the museum as a 'jewel' in a 'superb casing—a wonder of carven white stone of the Indo-Saracenic style'; and the organization of its exhibits excited equal enthusiasm. So late even as Lutyens’s tour of India in 1912 the Albert Hall was still being pointed out as a masterpiece of design, worthy of a visit by the intended architects of the new imperial capital." (University of California Press, 1989, p. 135)