As the junior partners of the British Empire in India, the princely states in India had their power confined only to collecting taxes and maintaining law and order in their territories.

Their energies were thus directed to flamboyant assertions of ritual sovereignty.

The Laxmi Vilas Palace of Vadodara is an example of the palaces that came to be built by the princely states during the British rule.

Vadodara has gone through many avatars during its two thousand years long history.

This third most populated city of Gujarat came in to its most recent phase when a Maratha leader, Pilaji, captured it from the Mughals in 1726 AD. Pilaji was originally an officer of the Peshwa but stayed on in Vadodara to carve out a kingdom for himself in the classic free-for-all situation after the collapse ofMughal India.

The princely palace and how it was constructed was important to the British as the palace symbolised authority of the king.

The architectural style of the palace was the visible manifestation of the power linking the Princely State to the British Raj. The palace and other buildings of the princely states were a carefully constructed "scene" of the Raj.

The British political agent at the court advised the princely state from time to time about the "appropriate" architectural style to be adopted for the palace and other buildings in the princely domain.

The Laxmi Vilas Palace in Vadodara was built as the town residence of the Gaekwad Sayajirao III. The principal facade of the palace was 520 feet in length and the building covered some 100,000 square feet.

At a cost of 180, 000 pounds, it was probably the costliest structure erected by a private individual during the century. The palace was completed by the architect RF Chisholm,who was brought by Gaekwad from Madras in 1890 AD.

The palace, located in a garden and visible from all directions, looks like an English country house.

The arches here are both Venetian and Gothic; the local Gujarati feeling has been cleverly fused by the designer with more florid art. There are chhatris and more martial atmosphere, like that of the Bharatpur (in Rajasthan) palace in the maharaja's quarters. RF Chisholm had also designed the MS University of Baroda during his stay in Vadodara.

This university building flaunts a Bijapur style dome of its convocation hall. He designed the museum of the Baroda public park in 1889.

A mausoleum known as Hazira in Vadodara is an important example of the early Mughal architecture in Gujarat.The residence of the Diwan of Vadodara from 1849 to 1854 AD, Vitthal Khanderao, known as "Tambekarwada" is also an interesting building. It is raised on a stone plinth and its back walls are built into a wooden framework.

The two storied back portion of the building, built around a chowk or a courtyard and the three-storied front portion have wall paintings.

This passage displaying wall paintings is reached by a wooden staircase near the north-eastern corner.

The shell-lime plastered walls and wooden doors on the first floor have paintings showing Ramayana and Mahabharata scenes, gods and goddesses of Brahminical pantheon, battle scenes showing Indian and European soldiers and dignitaries.

Some paintings done in the European style seem to be copies.

Always in the front-line of adapting to the winds of change, Vadodara also has examples of the pol architecture in its old town area. The four city gates, the central Mandvi area, the museums, the gardens andthe public statues of this city make it an important city in terms of architecture.