Mughal
Architecture
Delhi Imperial Mughal Period
11th Century AD 16TH Century AD
Colonial
Slave Babur
Architecture
Khilji Humayun
Arrival of British
Tughlak Akbar
Later colonial (20th
Sayyid Jehangir
Indus Century AD)
Lodhi Post
Valley Independence
Aryans
Modernist
Buddhists
Provincial Contemporary
Various Mughal Period
Hindu Styles 18THCentury AD
Empires 14th Century AD Shahjahan
Ahmedabad Aurangzeb
Jaunpur
Bengal
Bijapur
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TIME LINE OF MUGHAL RULERS
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•In AD 1526, on the striating battle fields of Panipat the Babur
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defeated the last Lodi rulers, Sultan Ibrahim and founded the
Mughal rule in India.
•With Babur, the refreshing and new Mughal architecture had
come to India. Babur is responsible for bringing this Mughal
architecture, persian influences, new style and heralded a
new era in the development of Indo – Islamic architecture,
which had introduced new type of buildings, construction,
decorative and ornamentation techniques to this sub continent
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CHARACTERISTIC
• Persian and Hindu Architecture.
• Perfect symmetry, Monumental Scale, highly proportional.
• Red Sandstone with White Marble Inlays, later pure marble
surfaces.
• Geometric Ornamentation.
• Decoration with Ceramic tile work, pietra dura inlay with
coloured and semi precious stones, carved and inlaid stone
work.
• Domes slightly pointed instead of hemispherical ones.
• Fine cut stone masonry used for facades.
• Rubble stone construction for walls.
• For Domes and Arches, baked bricks were used covered
with plasters or facing stone.
• Carved stone work ranging from shallow relief depictions of
flowers to intricate marble screens. 5
• Shallow arches made of corbels rather than voussoirs.
• Richly ornamented carved piers and columns.
• Design of gardens- Most significant aspect, Garden divided
into four – CHAR BAGH
• Other Constructions like a Chattri – a domed kiosk resting
on pillars.
• Chajjas and Jharokhas – a projected balcony supported on
corbels.
• Use of domes, Bulbous domes, the slender minarets with
cupolas at the four corners.
• Extensive use of tile work.
• Four centre point arch.
• Art and Architecture flourished.
• Painting was a popular expression of art.
• Extensive use of water channels.
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HUMAYUN TOMB
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• The first Mughal building of note to be constructed in India.
• Built in A.D. 1564 by Haji Begum, wife of the Emperor Humayun ,
eight years after his death in Delhi in the vicinity of the city of Din
Panah founded by the emperor.
• The architect was a Persian by the name of Mirak Mirza Ghiyas.
• The architectural style can be said to be a synthesis of the Persian
and the Indian, the Persian influence seen in such elements as the
arched alcove in the façade and the shape of the dome along with
the arrangement of the rooms in the interior, while the Indian
influence can be seen in the kiosks and cupolas.
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• The mausoleum is placed in a spacious, square park like enclosure,
providing seclusion and securing an appropriate setting.
• An imposing gateway is introduced in the middle of each of the four
sides of the enclosure, the western being the main entrance with an
embowed archway which frames the view of the mausoleum.
• The garden is laid out in a formal arrangement of square and
rectangular compartments with flowered parterres and flagged paths
and pavements.
• These are carefully designed and proportioned so as to form an
integral part of the overall composition, the lines and spaces leading
up to and harmonizing with those of the central structure.
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•It is a square ninefold plan.
•Eight two-storyed vaulted chambers radiate from the central,
double-height domed chamber.
•The chambers of each level are interconnected by straight and
diagonal passages.
•Each of the main chambers has in turn eight more, smaller chambers
radiating from it.
• The tomb stands on 120 square metre platform and reaches a height
of 47 metres. Built of rubble masonry, the structure is earliest example
of the use of red sandstone and white marble in such quantities.
•The plan is an irregular octagon with four long and short sides.
•It is surmounted by a 42.5 high double dome cladded with marble .
•Surrounding it are chhatris.
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FATEHPUR SIKRI
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SACRED COMPLEX
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1.BULAND DARWAZA
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• Its is a huge structure and Strength is found because of
scale.
• 42 feet height filled with steep flight of steps.
• Darwaza was built to celebrate continuous victory.
• Scale - Monumental from outside and Human scale from inside.
• Back side parapet into two parts.
• Large central face and smaller sides faces.
• Large arched recess in the centre, the semi dome of which is
carried on 5 surfaces in the form of a half decagon down to
ground.
• Sand stone material.
• Symmetry.
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2.TOMB OF SALIM CHISTI
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• The tomb of Salim Chisti is located in the courtyard of the Jami Masjid at
Fatehpur Sikri, its construction beginning along with the mosque in A.D. 1571.
• Originally a sandstone structure, it was converted into a more expensive marble
structure sometime during the end of Jahangir’s reign and the beginning of Shah
Jahan’s reign as per the style of the period, and thus creates a contrast with the
grandiose, massive and purposeful nature of the structures surrounding it with its
own light and airy nature which gives an appearance of chiseled, polished and
fretted exquisiteness.
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• The tomb consists of a square exterior of 24’ side which contains a
mortuary chamber of 16’ side, the whole covered by a low dome.
• A wide verandah is carried around the outside, its roof supported by pillars
with the interspaces filled with perforated screens, the whole measuring 48’
square.
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• There are carved brackets all around to support the extremely wide eaves.
• The pillars forming the porch with their honeycomb capitals and the brackets
springing from their patterned shafts are its distinctive features. The brackets
or struts are unique as they consist of serpentine volutes with the spaces between
the curves filled in with perforated foliations, having the appearance of carved
ivory than chiseled marble. Their prototype can be seen in the temples of Gujarat.
• The struts serve no structural purpose, but are mainly decorative.
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3.JAMA MASJID,FATEHPUR SIKRI
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1.The Jami Masjid at Fatehpur Sikri was built by Akbar in A.D. 1571.
2.It covers a rectangular area measuring 542’ X 438’, with a large
courtyard, originally entered by gateways on the north, south and east.
Of these, only the eastern or King’s Gateway has remained unaltered
by subsequent additions.
3.It is one of the largest mosques in the country.
4.The mosque follows the conventional plan form with a central
courtyard surrounded by cloisters on 3 sides and the sanctuary on the
western side.
5.The sanctuary façade consists of a large rectangular fronton in the
centre containing a spacious alcove, with a pillared arcade on each
side to form the wings.
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6.Above and behind this central feature rises a large dome over the
central nave and smaller domes over the wings.
7.A range of pillared kiosks all along the entire parapet breaks the
skyline.
8.The nave is a square hall entered through three doorways in the
alcoved fronton which contains the principal mihrab on its
western wall and is covered by the main dome.
9.The aisles are accessed through archways from the nave and
correspond to the arcaded wings of the façade. In the centre of each of
the aisles is a small chapel, covered by one of the two smaller domes.
10.There is an admirable combination of beams and arches, the two
structural systems in a well maintained balance.
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ROYAL COMPLEX
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1.DIWAN-I-KHAS
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• Theology (the study of the nature of God and religious belief)
happened in Diwan – I – Khas.
• It has pillared Kiosk.
• It has big column in the centre where emperor sat on top.
• 36 columns surrounding one column.
• It has 4 bridges connecting (galleries surrounding main
space).
• It was the birth place of Din – I – Elahi.
• Diwan – I - Khas is the hall of private audience.
• 2 stories flat terraced roof pillared kiosks at each corner.
• Principle architecture features include:-
• Large and substaintial pillar occupying central position with
massive expanding capital supporting circular stone platform.
• Sqaure plan.
• Has balcony/chajjas with brackets.
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2. JODHA BAI’S PALACE
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• Jodh Bai’s Palace is a structure built as the house of the principal queen and discloses
some of the conditions of living in the Mughal household.
• The palace in plan measures 320’ X 215’, consisting of a large central courtyard
with buildings arranged around its periphery. The only entrance is through a
guarded gatehouse with staggered doorways to provide seclusion.
• The external wall is 32’ high, plain and forbidding on the exterior, the buildings attached
to its inner side all facing the central courtyard.
• The outer façade of the wall is only interrupted thrice, once by the gatehouse on the east,
the hanging pavilion of Hawa Mahal on the north and service and bathing apartments on
the south. 37
• Most of the buildings, places symmetrically around the square courtyard are two storeyed, with
open terraced roofs at regular intervals.
• In the middle of each side and at each corner the structures rise up into separate blocks. Each of these
blocks is a self-contained suite of living rooms, with corridors and passages communicating with each
block on the ground floor. Each group of apartments could be divided off from the others, while the
chambers below could be heated in cold weather; the one’s above always remaining airy and cool.
• In many of its elements and carved decoration, especially in the design of the niches and brackets with
their volute forms and the shapes of the pillars, an influence of Hindu temple architecture can be seen,
showing that artisans from Gujarat were assigned with the construction of the palace.
• Other interesting details include the application blue glaze tiles to some of the roofs and
cupolas and the use of wagon-vault ceiling with groins in one of the upper rooms
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Panch Mahal at Fatehpur Sikri
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• Panch Mahal is a palace in Fatehpur Sikri, Uttar Pradesh, India.
• The Panch Mahal meaning 'Five level Palace' was commissioned by Akbar.
• This is an extraordinary structure employing the design elements of a Buddhist
Temple; entirely columnar, consisting of four stories of decreasing size
arranged asymmetrically on the ground floor, which contains 84 columns.
• These columns, that originally had jaali (screens) between them, support the
whole structure. Once these screens provided purdah (cover) to queens and
princess on the top terraces enjoying the cool breeze and watching splendid
views of Sikri fortifications and the town nestling at the foot of the ridge.
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BIRBAL'S HOUSE
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PLANS OF BIRBAL HOUSE
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• The building known an Birbal’s house is a two storeyed structure, complex in its arrangements
and elaborate in its architectural ornamentation.
• The ground storey is made up of four rooms and two porches, while the upper storey is
made up of two rooms and open terraces enclosed by screens.
• The upper rooms are roofed by cupolas while the porches have pyramidal roofs, all of which are
constructed on a modified form of the double dome in order to keep the interior cool.
• The chief attraction is the treatment of the exterior, particularly the rich character of the eave
brackets.
• Such bracket supports are common in most of the secular structures in Fatehpur Sikri, but they
have employed most liberally and designed and executed most elaborately in Birbal’s House.
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