The façade of the Hawa Mahal has sometimes aroused unfair judgments as ‘a baroque folly’ and a ‘bizarre piece of architecture’. The five storeyed façade encrusted with elegant trelliswork on windows and small balconies have 953 niches. Lal Chand Usta who designed the Hawa Mahal had dedicated it to Lord Krishna and Radha but its fanciful structure appealed to the Maharaja who found it ideal for the seraglio.

The pyramidal outline of the structure has one characteristic feature of architecture – symmetry, and, as in Jain temples, uses repetition of motifs to great enhancement of beauty and looks: “The forms employed are familiar enough, but the bays are crammed together, piled and multiplied so that they combine to form a larger version of themselves, in a manner strikingly reminiscent of a temple shikhara”.

It has been remarked that the Hawa Mahal marks a certain decline in the architectural standards of Jaipur. This may have been the result of the increasing influence of Mughal architecture. Hawa Mahal shows a noticeable similarity with the Panch Mahal – the palace of winds at Fatehpur Sikri. Though the Panch Mahal is now a mere skeleton of columns rising in a crescendo, originally elegant jali screens between columns provided purdah (cover) from the common gaze. The Hawa Mahal follows the same principles of construction while adding to it a regular double storeyed palace in the rear of the façade.

If it appears curious, fanciful or elaborate, it is only because of our habit of making starting comparisons. The Hawa Mahal has even been compared to a fantastic nuptial cake. Still it has an undeniable charm.

Sir Edwin Arnold like so many other admirers of Hawa Mahal paid a glowing tribute to its merits as a “vision of daring and dainty loveliness, of storeys of rosy masonry and delicate overhanging balconies and latticed windows. Soaring with tier after tier of fanciful architecture in a pyramidal form, a very mountain of airy and audacious beauty through the thousand pierced screen and gilded arches of which the Indian air blows cool over the roofs of the very highest house. Alladin’s magician could have called into existence no more marvelous abode.” A sumptuous of splendid architecture.

The beauty of the Hawa Mahal lies in its fragile appearance, which, like a vision, threatens of vanish into thin air. It is, of all buildings in Jaipur, the most romantic and delicate – which cannot be said of some better-known examples of solid architecture.