English
Custom House
Panaji [Panagi/Pangim/Panjim/Nova Goa], Goa, India
Equipment and Infrastructures
The Custom House is one of the city’s oldest buildings, a witness to two distinct phases of urban and architectural changes affecting the city of Panaji in the 19th century. The Custom House’s move to Panaji was approved in May 1811 and will have been accomplished that same year. As it originally functioned in sheds, Manuel de Portugal e Castro (1827-35) ordered built what Louzada de Azevedo described as being a handsome building, with good rooms and warehouses in sufficient number to store all that was necessary. That is the construction, designed by Lopes Mendes, which we see nowadays, despite the changes certainly applied over the years, as in all public buildings in Goa. The first documented addition was a new storage area built in 1841-2, which may not have been located next to the building, but rather in the area toward the quay where the annexes were. Comparison of known maps of Panaji from 1870 and 1888 shows that a new enlargement to the west was done between those dates, the only one which is now perfectly discerned in the building group. That enlargement consisted of a two-floor body along the entire façade – a first floor over an arcade, which at the time must have been open. This addition aligns the Custom House perfectly with the street layout and the buildings on the square by the City Council built in the meantime. In 1922 the building was in an advanced state of deterioration, as it also was in the late 1990s when preservation work was carried out with support from the Fundação Oriente. Note also that the building’s relationship with the river changed over the decades due to successive landfills in the shore area.