Bernard Dragon, a French architect who worked in Chettinad, located in the southern part of the Tamil Nadu state in South India, said that the Chettiars competed with their brothers, cousins, neighbours, etc. to build better and more beautiful buildings than others. But many of the approximately 11,000 palaces built in the region are now dilapidated and destroyed by vegetation. The current owners of the palaces and mansions are unable to afford their maintenance or are embroiled in ownership disputes.
The traditional capital and largest town of Chettinad is Karaikudi. Chettinad is home to the Nattukottai Chettiars or Nagarathars, a prosperous trading and banking community, many of whose members emigrated to Ceylon and Southeast Asia (especially Burma, Malaya and Vietnam) in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Today, people from the Chettinad community are living in the United States, Singapore and Malaysia, among other places. Chettinad is famous for its cuisine, beautiful mansions and temples.
From the mid-19th century, Chettiar merchants built palaces in the region using wealth accumulated from their economic activities in Asia. Many of the palaces are vacant, still owned by descendants or left without furniture. Because they are expensive to maintain, some have been demolished and sold for the building materials they were made of. Two French architects, Bernard Dragon and Michel Adamant, formed an NGO in the early 2000s to advocate for their preservation with the Tamil Nadu government.
