Hawa Mahal’s honeycomb facade in Jaipur’s Pink City
Published on 08/18/2026 at 14:49 | Editorial responsibility: Rafael MĂĽller, Editor-in-Chief AD HOC NEWS
Hawa Mahal in Jaipur is a late eighteenth-century palace whose delicate facade turns the edge of the City Palace into a sandstone screen over the old bazaar. Built in 1799 for Maharaja Sawai Pratap Singh in the Rajput period, it is better known in English as the “Palace of Winds”.
A five-storey palace of sandstone and screens
Hawa Mahal stands on the eastern side of Jaipur’s historic core, attached to the wider complex of the City Palace and facing one of the main market streets. The building belongs to the Rajput architectural tradition of Rajasthan, enriched with Mughal elements that were common in late eighteenth-century palace design in north India.Rajput-Mughal architecture
The palace rises five storeys above the street and is constructed from red and pink sandstone that echoes the colour of Jaipur’s “Pink City” facades.Red and pink sandstone The front portion that visitors recognise so easily is relatively shallow, acting as a vertical wall of rooms and galleries attached to deeper structures behind it. From the outside it reads as an unbroken composition, but inside it resolves into a sequence of small chambers and corridors opening towards both street and courtyard.
The “Palace of Winds” and its honeycomb of jharokhas
The lead idea of Hawa Mahal lies in its facade: a dense grid of projecting jharokhas, or small oriel windows, stacked over five levels and framed by miniature domed canopies. This honeycomb-like composition is so characteristic that descriptions frequently speak of hundreds of individual openings; architectural analyses describe 953 jharokha windows packed tightly across the front.
Each jharokha is closed with a jali screen rather than panes of glass, creating a fine lattice that filters light into the interior rooms.Intricate latticework Together these stone lattices permit air to pass through the building and contribute to the “Palace of Winds” name, which is commonly translated from Hindi as “Palace of the Winds” or “Palace of Breeze”. The repetition of similar bays and arches creates a rhythmic pattern that visitors standing at street level can trace upwards as the facade steps back towards the roofline.
History, patron and place in Jaipur’s cityscape
Hawa Mahal was commissioned by Maharaja Sawai Pratap Singh, the grandson of Jaipur’s founder Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II, and completed in 1799 as part of the expanding City Palace complex.Completed in 1799 for Sawai Pratap Singh The architect most closely associated with its design is Lal Chand Ustad, who worked within the Rajput and Mughal idioms of the period to create a palace frontage that could sit directly on the city’s main thoroughfare.Designed by Lal Chand Ustad
The structure forms part of Jaipur’s planned eighteenth-century layout, where the old city is organised into rectangular blocks and straight streets lined with uniform facades. From the elevated galleries of Hawa Mahal, visitors look out over the traffic of the modern bazaar while still seeing traces of the historic markets and temples that surround the palace. The building rises above shopfronts and stalls at ground level, so the transition from commercial street to royal architecture takes place within a few steps.
Visiting Hawa Mahal: what travellers from Western Europe should know
- Hawa Mahal stands in the old city of Jaipur in the state of Rajasthan, on a main thoroughfare that is commonly referred to as Hawa Mahal Road, close to the Badi Choupad area.
- The palace frontage faces directly onto a busy bazaar street, and reaching the interior involves climbing stairways and ramps through several levels of small rooms and terraces.
- Jaipur lies in northern India; the official language of the region is Hindi and the currency is the Indian rupee.
- Entry requirements depend on your nationality; UK travellers can check the FCDO travel advice at gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice, Irish travellers the Department of Foreign Affairs at ireland.ie.
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Frequently asked questions about Hawa Mahal
Where is Hawa Mahal located?
Hawa Mahal stands in Jaipur, the capital of the Indian state of Rajasthan, on the eastern side of the historic Pink City’s market streets.
What can visitors expect inside Hawa Mahal?
Visitors move through a sequence of narrow stairways, corridors and small chambers behind the facade, emerging onto terraces and viewpoints that look over the bazaar and the wider city.
What makes Hawa Mahal distinctive among Jaipur’s monuments?
Hawa Mahal is distinctive for its five-storey facade of jharokha windows and jali screens, creating a honeycomb effect that rises directly from the shopfronts of the old bazaar.
