Senate House, one of the city’s finest monuments

Constructed by Robert Chisholm between 1874 and 1879, the Senate building is considered to be one of the best and oldest examples of Indo-Saracenic architecture in India. The Senate incorporates many elements of the Byzantine style. 

The great hall of the Senate House is of immense height and proportions and considered to be the finest of its kind in India. The halls here were used as a meeting place of first elected Madras Legislature when it was convened in 1937. 

The Senate House was also the venue for Madras Music Academy in the first years of that institution. Though, the use of Senate house was limited to holding of the convocations and examinations, after the construction of new departmental library building and later on the centenary building, besides being used as classrooms for teaching foreign languages. 

After the construction of the massive centenary auditorium in 1960, the convocations were held there after 1965.