Some photos of my walk around (a small) part of Agra’s old city. I walked the area immediately north-west of the Jama Masjid. The area has a similar feel to Old Delhi, with most old buildings dating back to the late-19th/early-20th c. on an urban layout that is older still, with it’s roots in the 17th c. but much altered since then. Continue reading
Made a short trip to Agra and visited the 17th c. Jama Masjid that’s close to the western gateway of Agra Fort, on the edge of Agra’s old city. The eastern boundary wall and arcade of the mosque were torn down by the British after the 1857 uprising, to make way for the railway line and station that sit just in front of the mosque, giving this mosque an “open” feel on one side. Continue reading
Agra Magritte
A handful of random photos from Agra’s “sights”
Here are a few examples of monument restoration from Agra and Ajmer, all of Mughal-era structures from the 16th and 17th c AD. The usual impression we get when we visit historic monuments is that we are looking at structures that have come down over the centuries in the state we see them in presently, but in reality many of these structures have been restored and rebuilt, some multiple times. While there are a lot of arguments and positions regarding the whys and hows of restoration among the conservation/preservation community, from an architectural history viewpoint what’s important is how we can interpret historic monuments when the monument is not all as historic as made out to be. At a general level it entails analyzing the structure keeping in mind and “seeing around” the restoration. Continue reading
While at Sravasti I came across this interesting monastery, which I’m assuming was built around the 1950s/60s, and started by people from Korea or Japan. The architecture is a fascinating mix of colonial bungalow, typical residential embellishments from the 50s – which include a mix of watered-down art deco and watered-down modernism, Hindu temple elements, early-Buddhist elements, ‘East Asian’ pagodas and torans etc etc. I especially love the pagoda made of brick and concrete with an octagonal base that could be part of a government or residential building anywhere in India from that time. The ‘temple’ at the back is very interesting as well! Continue reading
I got a chance to visit Sravasti, an important site pertaining to the life of Gautam Buddha. Of the ancient remains, there are mostly just plinths and foundations of stupas, temples and monasteries, set up in the centuries following the Buddha’s life. He is said to have lived and preached here for over two decades. Continue reading
In the first half of April I went to spend a few days with a friend at Agra, and also visited some sites in Agra that I hadn’t been to before, especially Agra Fort. Agra Fort (as it stands now) is a Mughal fort built during the 16th and 17th centuries. Successive Mughal Emperors built different palaces within the fort. The Jahangiri Mahal, built by Akbar (and not by Jahangir as the name would suggest) is an absolutely awesome structure. The decorations on red sandstone are just amazing. Continue reading
As always, click on image to go to its flickr set
Just a small post to note possible similarities between the Begampur mosque’s pishtaq (the protruding central element on the facade) and the oversized pishtaqs of the Jaunpur mosques (such as the Atala masjid used as an example here). Both are Tughlaq era mosques (though Jaunpur is far away from Delhi) built in the mid-14th c. (Begampur) and late-14th c. (Atala). Of course the Atala mosque is much more ornamented and stylistically there are obvious differences, but the side-turret effect is similar, as is the batter effect, and to me the basic underlying design and massing is very similar. Hmm? Continue reading
I went back to the site where I’d taken the Out with the old, in with the new photo in Dec ’06 to see if the tombs there were still standing and how the area around it had developed, and was pleased to find that the tombs are indeed still there, even though the area around is developing at a pace in keeping with the rest of Delhi! Maybe these tombs are on the INTACH listing and/or are protected by ASI, though that doesn’t seem to be much of a deterrent to the encroachment and demise of such monuments elsewhere! Continue reading
Sarson ke Khet 