The concept of the ‘Villa’ and other European ideas came to Lucknow with foreign soldiers, travellers and adventurers. For the Nawabs of Lucknow, architecture became the physical manifestation of their new status, and a way of proclaiming their alignment to the new power bloc. _________________. Villas, hence, provided an ideal substitute. Europe sold to the Nawabs the idea of villas, based on designs in publications carried by them, and often aided by memory. The building chosen as the prototype for the famous Dilkusha Kothi was a country house in Northumberland.