This memorial was conceived by Lord Curzon, then Viceroy of British India after Queen Victoria died in 1901, to commemorate her reign as the Empress of India. The construction took about 15 years from 1906 to 1921, and cost about 10 million Indian rupees. William Emerson, the then President of the Royal Institute of British Architects was the chief architect and assisted by supervising architect, Vincent Esch. The memorial is based on Indo - Saracenic revivalist architecture style with a mix of influences from Egyptian, Venetian, Deccan and Islamic elements. The building is 200 feet tall, including the 16 feet height of the ‘Angel of Victory’, a bronze statue mounted on huge ball bearings on top of the central dome which acts as a lightning arrester and weather vane and rotates with the wind.
All the stone sculptures were sculpted in and shipped from Italy. Surrounded by well landscaped gardens, this is definitely a place to visit in Kolkata, India.