Tuli Imperial.

Nagpur’s crown jewel when it opened, and the building that marked the city’s arrival in luxury hospitality.

Classical grandeur is set against Indian cultural motifs — soaring ceilings, intricate chandeliers and palatial public rooms with dramatic dual staircases.

Traditional detail runs strongest in the specialty restaurant Majestic Masala. A central atrium with a skylight and palm court forms the architectural centrepiece and sets the tone: understated opulence.

Tuli had been building with us since 1982, and by the time Imperial was drawn the relationship already covered city hotels and a jungle resort. It has carried on since.

A hotel planned around a central atrium is making a deliberate trade. The void costs saleable floor area on every level it passes through, and buys back a public room that the whole building can be organised around — which is what allows the dual staircases and the palm court to read as one composition rather than three separate gestures.

The full scope was drawn in-house: architecture, structure, MEP, fire fighting, interior design and landscape. On a building whose character rests on ceiling heights and sightlines through an atrium, that matters — those are the first things lost when a services engineer who has not seen the drawings needs somewhere to run a duct.