The Pondicherry town was planned on a network pattern in oval shape and has two quarters - the French and the Tamil. The French quarter has structures in the European classical style and the buildings in the Tamil quarter have a strong vernacular influence of surrounding Tamil Nadu. Many buildings in both parts of the town are a blend of European and Tamil architectural patterns. The French town was developed along the coastline, around the present Bharati Park, which was once the Central Square, surrounded by stately government buildings.

The buildings are of two main categories - residential and public. The former forms the major stock and are simple. The latter is set amid large plots with fenced enclosures, the plans of which are from France.

Continuous wall-to-wall construction usually characterizes the street facades. The high garden walls, elaborate gateways and the solid walls are divided into smaller panels by the use of vertical pilaster and horizontal cornices that feature flat or segmental arched windows with bands and louvered wooden shutters. The wooden balconies over iron brackets and continuous parapets with simple ornamental features are very common.

In front of the main facades of most of the French houses, columned porticos were built to provide better protection from sun and rain. A major change from the original French model is the use of flat terraced roofs instead of the pitched roofs of the Parisian villas.

The interiors of the buildings feature private garden courts on to which the rest of the building spaces open. In most cases, the entrance court and private court are combined and are more ornate than the exterior. The rooms have high ceilings, high arched doors and windows and in the case of two storied buildings, and an arched staircase spires up.

The native Tamil town developed around a group of temples in the northern boulevard streetscapes with continuous wall-to-wall construction vary much in character from that of the French. Their exteriors mainly feature a thalvaram (street corridor) with platform and lean-to-roof over wooden posts- a social extension of the house and a thinnai (semi-public verandah) with masonry benches for visitors. These "talking-streets", so called because of their interactive nature are typical of the vernacular Tamil architecture and the entire stretch is rendered a continuity by the use of tying elements like the lean-to-roofs, cornices, pilasters and engaged columns and ornamental parapets defining the skyline.

The thinnai marks the sensitive transit space after which one enters the house through a finely carved wooden door. Once inside, the mutram (open courtyard) becomes the central space with functional dispersion of various other spaces.

Within the intimate fabric of the Tamil town, ranging from the simple country tiled single storeyed houses of the old Hindu quarters to the two-storeyed houses with considerable colonial influence of the later Hindu and Christian quarters to the more elaborately detailed houses of the Muslim quarters, an interesting architectural form is observed.

A synthesis of two varying styles of the French and Tamil is evident, especially in the case of two-storeyed Tamil buildings where the ground floor is usually of the Tamil type (with thinnai, thalvaram and carved doors) while the first floor displays French influence and in the case of French buildings the local influence is obvious in the use of Madras terrace roof construction and wooden balconies.