2. The Architecture of a country is perhaps most
greatly influenced by outsiders and
conquerers, those who have come to a country in
order to take over it.
• What examples can you think of?
3. Architecture is probably the greatest and most
powerful way of showing that you have arrived
and are here to stay. Think of examples in
Hungary of who has come and built here
4. How does this connect with ideology and culture?
• What makes a group of people believe they have the ‚right’ to
come to a new place, and begin to change everything?
• What makes people believe they have the ‚right’ to not only build
new buildings in their own style, but to kill people who do not want
it?
• Why is architecture so important in this? How does a building
‚bring’ a culture to a country?
• Why might it have been more difficult to ‚conquer’ or take over
India with a new architectural and visual style and ideology?
6. The Moghuls were a medieval Islamic tribe from Persia
(modern Iran), who travelled to western Spain and
Portugal, right across the world to India
• What can we say about their ‚style’? What seems to be
important, or repeated?
7. What were they doing? Why did they use
architecture so much in India…more than in any
other country?
• Not only were they spreading the relatively new religion of
Islam, but they were bringing important new technologies around
the world, from new mathematical systems, to
astrology, poetry, architectural technology and many, many more.
• Moghul architecture became considered to be most beautiful in
the world, and still influences our perception of what is beautiful in
architecture.
• The challenge must have been enormous – India has perhaps the
most striking and famous visual culture in the world… what could
you possibly create to ‚take over’ this culture with your own?
• And did they succeed? Is the most iconic and famous building of
India Muslim, or Hindu? ‚Indian’, or ‚Moghul’?
9. Why is the Taj Mahal so famous?
• One answer is obviously because of its beauty and size. But
perhaps the fact it has a story connected to it which fits with both
Eastern and Western ideas of Romance has something to do with
it…
• What was the function? What is the function now?
• Worksheet 1
10. The Taj is a highly decorated building, but
decorated in a way which is very, very different
from what we have seen before on the Hindu
and Buddhist buildings we have looked at.
• Watch the short picture show, and think about how these buildings
are ‚beautified’ – what did the moghuls do to make their buildings
look special and unique? What shapes, forms and images get used
over and over again?
• Why might this be? Why are there no statues or paintings covering
the walls, as we saw on the Meenakshi temple?
• What techniques have been used to make this building ‚beautiful’?
• Watch the beginning of the documentary and answer the questions
about the decoration.
11. Symmetry was the great art of the Moghuls
• What does it mean?
• Where can we see symmetry on the Taj Mahal?
• The answer…. EVERYWHERE
12. One horizontal line of symmetry is particularly
fascinating and unusual… where is it?
13. And one form of decoration is particularly subtle,
and especially wonderful…
14. The construction of a wonder
• So how was this building built? And what about the single parts
which come to together to make something special? Have a look at
the final worksheet and think about the components and the
materials
15. The Placement of the Taj Mahal
• The Taj is in the city of Agra, not far from either Delhi or Jaipur (which we
looked at in the Desert lesson). It is especially close to the cities of
Mathura and Vrindavan – the two most religiously important cities in India
at the time it was built, the birthplace of Krishna, the most important
deity at the time. It is also built on the banks of the Yamuna river, the
second most sacred river for hindu people. What does all of this mean?
