080014 VO The Taj Mahal in the Indian and Islamic architectural traditions (2007W)

To convey central issues of Indian and Islamic architecture and urban planning through a detailed analysis of the history of forms, ideas and later reception of the Taj Mahal , and to decode the reasons for the universal acceptance of one of the famous monuments of the world.

Content: The Lecture Course is based on my recently published book The Complete Taj Mahal and the Riverfront Gardens of Agra (London: Thames and Hudson, 2006) [at Vienna available at Yellow! Taschenbücher, Garnisongasse 7].
I begin with a representation of the Mughal dynasty the fifth emperor of which, Shah Jahan, built the Taj Mahal (1632-48). Then follows a reconstruction of Mughal Agra, meaning the urban context of the Taj Mahal, after that a discussion of questions about the lawfulness of mausoleum structures, of the planning, the history of the construction, the patron, the architect and artists. Then I analyse the entire complex of the Taj Mahal and its architectural forms, including the ornament; the symbolism, and the reception of the Taj to the present day.

Methodology: A new survey which I carried out with an Indian architect is the basis for my approach in which I adopt an integrative method; informed by the written sources I turn to art history¿s own tool, namely formal analysis, to show how the aesthetics of an art work, an architectural form, a building type, a garden form or an urban design can provide the key to the political, ideological and symbolic concepts of the Mughals. Architecture and art, like language, emerge as communication through a topos of symbols, and like literature, they represent themselves as to understand how the Mughal emperors communicated with their court, their subjects, and the world around them.