Taj Mahal - Architecture In India

 Historical Background :

• Taj Mahal is a mausoleum complex built by Shah Jahan (1632-1643) in memory of his favorite wife, Arjumand Banu Begum better known by her title ''Mumtaz Mahal''.
• Construction of the building began shortly after Mumtaz's death.
• Today Taj Mahal is recognized as the most perfect building in the world.

Taj Mahal

Background :

• According to Islamic traditions, a woman that dies during children's birth gains the status of martyr.
• In 1631 Mumtaz passed away during the birth of her 14th child.
• According to legend, with her dying breath, she secures a promise from her husband to built for her, a mausoleum more beautiful than any the world had ever seen.
• 6 months after the death of his wife, Shah Jahan lays the foundation for a memorial near the river Jamna near his Palace in Agra.
• To satisfy his Artistic obsessions, vast quantities of white marble are mined from Rajhastahn and are carried 250 miles to the site of the Taj Mahal.
• The emperor reserves white marble for imperial building only.
• Red stone carted from Dehli.
• 20,000worker who labored over 20 years to build the monument.

Architectural Breakthrough :

• In Indian architecture, the trabeation system was widely used for the construction of temples.
• The Mughal introduce the concept of the arch to India and create very wide interior spaces.
• Although the essential style was Islamic, any of the details are Hindu/Indian.
• The Mughal introduced the use of ceramic tiles and precious stones for inlay work.

Engineering Breakthrough :

• The Taj Mahal was built next to the river Jumna.
• The Mughal Enginner's dug deep wells to below the water surface.
• These wells were filled up with vocals and mortar.
• On top of Well bases, the master builders erected stone columns, linked together by massive arches.
• This engineering innovation has been protecting the Taj Mahal from the currents of the Jumna river to date.

Minarets Optical illusion :

• The minarets of the Taj Mahal built to lean slightly outwards.
• Depending on each other, they look perfectly straight.
• This brings a massive advantage.

Dome :

• Today we can build a dome-like Taj Mahal using steel frames and other materials.
• The master builders of the Taj Mahal had to solve this problem in stone.
• They Laid stone on stone and built up the stone in rings.
• The dome rises layer by layer.
• The mortar between the stones gives its stability.

Design Components :

Minarets :

The tomb of Shah Jaha's own father provides the model for minarets.

Minarets

Corner Turrets:

Shah Jahan great grandfather. Akbar tomb had four corner turrets surrounding the central core.

Pishtaq :

The four Pishtaq is inspired by his grandfather Tomb.

Dome :

The dome is inspired by Ulugh Beg Madrasa in Samarkand.

Inside Dome

Religious Symbolism :

Taj Mahal is the architectural embodiment of this life and the next according to Islamic belief.

The ground plan represents this duality of life and the afterlife.

The complex is split between its tomb garden and mausoleum.

Colour Scheme :

The color scheme of the Taj Mahal is deeply symbolic.

The worldly elements and other buildings are all clad in red stone.

The pure white stands for the Spiritually and faith of the person buried here.

The Garden :

The Garden is the heart of the Taj Mahal.

It is an earthly representation of paradise described in the Quran.

The garden is divided into four squares.

Chahar Bagh

The channels along the paths represent the river of paradise milk, honey, wine, and water mentioned in the Quran.

Where the channels meet, there is a pool.

European Influence:

The Taj Mahal itself demonstrates the link between India and Europe.

Technique and Motifs traveled from Europe to adorn the entire interior of the Taj Mahal.

These mosaics of semi-precious stones are called Pietra dura.

Pietra Dura

This craft was used to decorate precious places during the renaissance.

This technique directly or indirectly traveled from Italy to India.

Unfortunately, no chronicles record the name of the artist who decorated the Taj Mahal.

Burial Chamber :

The coffin seen in the Mausoleum is only a cenotaph an empty monument.

Mumtaz Mahal lies in a secret marble chamber below the Taj Mahal, where she rests undistributed.

Here is the view of the Taj Mahal :

Ince Minaret Madrasa - Seljuk Period-Architecture in Turkey

         Ince Minare Madrasa

Ince Minare Madrasa is the 13th-century Madrasa located in Konya. Ince Minare Madrasa is One of the famous Architecture in Turkey. Ince Madrasa is built between 1260 to 165 CE by Seljuk Sultan Sahib Ata Fahreddin Ali. The architect of Madrasa was the kelul ibn Abdallah. It is the most attractive architecture in Turkey. The Ince Minare Madrasa takes its name from the Its Tall Minare. The Minare of Madrasa is extremely much taller than the building.

The facade of the Building has highly ornamented with stone which includes geometric Patterns, Some relief work, and verticle lines. The entrance of the building is decorated with Thuluth, surah 36, and surah 110. The Minare of the Building has square-shaped from the lower part and round shape from the upper part. The lower part of the Minare was made up of Brick and the color was green. The minaret has two balconies and was built for the adjoining mosque, which preceded the Madrasa now ruined.

The Qibla side of the Mosque contains the prayer hall. Besides this, there is a huge hall covered with a huge decorative Dome. The dome of the madrasa is supported on the sets of four triangular pendentives but without tiles. The minaret was truncated by lighting in 1901.

The Ince madrasa has a T-shaped plan. The portal of the Mosque framed with broadband of calligraphy. The Madrasa was built in a rectangular area. The rooms of the Madrasa are arranged on the north, south, and west sides of a domed courtyard.

Ince Minaret is one of the dominant architecture in Turkey. The decorative work in the Madrasa takes place in the Entrance, the courtyard dome, and the walls of the rooms facing the courtyard. The portal and the foundations of the minaret are decorated with carved stone by using floral and geometric motifs. The decoration of the windows' tympana above the entrances to the students' chambers, the base of the dome, and the triangles making up the fan-shaped pendentives, consist of inscriptions and floral and geometric motifs executed in tile-mosaic. The geometric decoration on the body of the minaret and on the surface of the dome is achieved with both glazed and unglazed brickwork.

The Madrasa was converted into a Museum of Stonework in 1956.

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Islamic Architecture Influences

 Influences of Islamic Architecture

• Islamic Architecture emerged soon After Muhammad's S.A.W.W. time, which was inspired by the Byzantine and Sassanid.
• One of the most important buildings of Islamic Architecture is The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem build in 691.

  

  The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem built in 691
  
  
  

• It is patterned after the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and Byzantine  Chritirstin artists were employed to create ita elaborate mosaic against the golden background.
• The extraordinary epigraphic vine frieze was adjusted from the Pre-Islamic Syrian Style.
• The Dome of the Rock featured interior vaulted spaces, a round dome, and the utilization of stylized repeating decorative arabesque patterns.
• Desert palaces in Jordan and Syria served the caliphs as living quarters, meeting rooms and showers, and were decorated to promote an image of royal luxury.
• The horseshoe arch became a well-known component in Islamic structures

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  Horseshoe Arch

  
  
• It said that the adopted it from Syria and Persia where the horseshoe arch has been used by the Byzantines as early as the 5th century.
• After the Moorish intrusion of Spain in 711 AD, the form was taken by the Umayyads who emphasized the curvature of the horseshoe.
• The Great Mosque of Damascus based on the site of the basilica of John the Baptist after the Islamic invasion of Damascus, a still incredible similarity to 6th and 7th-century Christian basilicas.
• Certain modifications were executed, including extending the structure along the transversal axis which is a better fit with the Islamic style of prayer.
• The Abbasid dynasty witnessed the movement of the capital from Damascus to Baghdad, and from Bagdad to Samara.
• The shift to Baghdad influenced politics, culture, and art.
• The great mosque of Samarra, once the biggest in the world, was built for the new capital.
• Other major mosques built in the Abbasid architecture in Iraq as exemplified in the Fortress of AL-Ukhaidir.
• The Great Mosque of Kairouan in Tunisia is viewed as the precursor of the considerable number of mosques in the western Islamic world.
• Its original marble columns and sculptures were of Roman workmanship brought in form Carthage and other elements resemble Roman form.
• It is one of the best-preserved and most significant examples of early great mosques, founded in 670 A.D.
• The Great Mosque of Kairouan is comprised of a massive square Minrate,  a huge courtyard surrounded by porticos, and a large hypostyle prayer hall covered on its axis by two cupolas.
• The great mosque of Samara in Iraq, completed in 474 AD, combined the hypostyle architecture.

  

  Great Mosque of Kairouan
  
  

• The Hagia Sophia in Istanbul also influenced by Islamic Architecture. When Ottomans conquered the city from Byzantine., they converted the Basilica to the Mosque.
• The Hagia Sophia also served the model of many mosques e.g. Shehzad Mosque, The Suleman Mosque, and  The Rustom Pasha mosque.

  

  
  Hagia Sophia
  

   
• Domes are the major structure of Islamic Arts and Architecture.
• The dome first appears in 691 in Islamic Architecture.
• Motifs of Islamic Architecture have always been the mathematical themes of repetition, rhythmic, and patterns. 
• other features are included Colounms, piers, arches, and niches.

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