Vivekanandar Illam, earlier known as Ice House or Castle Kernan, is a historical building inChennai,India. It was constructed in 1842 byFrederic Tudor. Indian SaintSwami Vivekananda stayed in the building when he visited Chennai in 1897, and it was later renamed in his honor. It is currently maintained byRamakrishna Math and houses an exhibition on the life of Vivekananda.
Swami Vivekananda (on the chair, third from left) and Biligiri Iyengar (on the floor, second from left) at the Ice House in 1897
In 1842,Frederic Tudor constructed the building facing theBay of Bengal as a facility to store ice. In 1880, the business collapsed and the building was sold to Biligiri Iyengar, an advocate in theMadras High Court. Iyengar re-modeled the house and named it Castle Kernan after his friend and judge inMadras High Court.[1] WhenSwami Vivekananda visited Madras in 1897, he stayed in the building between 6 and 14 February 1897. Later,Ramakrishna Math functioned from the building from 1897 to 1906.[citation needed]
In 1914, the building was acquired by the Government of Madras and functioned as a hostel and training school for children run byR. S. Subbalakshmi. In 1963, on the birth Centenary ofSwami Vivekananda, theGovernment of Tamil Nadu renamed the building as 'Vivekanandar Illam' meaning 'Vivekananda House' inTamil. In 1997, Government of Tamil Nadu leased the building toRamakrishna Math, and it currently houses an exhibition on the life of Swami Vivekananda.[2]
