More about Taj Mahal!

Hello peeps! It has been a week..............so as usual it's time for me to blog about my topic 'What identifies a religious building?'. In my previous posts, I've briefly talked about Islamic and Church Architectural and it acts as an introduction to my case studies which are Taj Mahal and Chatres Cathedral. If you're interested on my previous blog posts, please kindly scroll down! And as for today, I'll be talking about the interior of Taj Mahal. Without further ado, let's get onto it!

Still remember how Taj Mahal looks like from the outside? Let me refresh your memories. Taj Mahal is one of the prime examples of the integration of architecture and ornaments. The perfect symmetry of Taj Mahal makes clear the building's importance. Massive used of masonry walls contribute to an illusion as though it's made up of complete white stones. Taj Mahal's exterior is the combination of delicate proportions and ornament. So what about the inside? Let's dig deeper!

(Taj Mahal Agara HD Wallpapers, 2014). 

Inside the Taj Mahal, the inlay work is ''not pietra dura, a "painting" of colored stone, marble or jade but precious and semiprecious gemstones'' (En.wikiarquitectura.com, 2015). Every ornamentation of the tomb's interior has been redefined with jeweler's art since Taj Mahal is often called as the ''chamber is a work of jewellery'' (En.wikiarquitectura.com, 2015). Taj Mahal consists of eight halls and side rooms connected to the main space which is the central octagonal chamber that is covered by a doomed ceiling. This space houses a marble cenotaph ( an empty monument ) for Mumtaz and Shah Jahan (Lewis, 2008). These cenotaphs are purely for ceremony purpose, the marble cenotaphs are decorated with calligraphy and arabesque in colorful rare and semiprecious stones (Lewis, 2008).

 Muslim tradition forbids over-decorated graves, so the bodies of Mumtaz and Shah Jahan are laid in a plain chamber. This inspires me that maybe religious building like mosque may remain ornaments or symbolic stuff at certain area while the rest can just keep it simple, modern and sleek so that it wouldn't be left behind in this generation.  Religion has always been quite a sensitive topic around the world including Malaysia since long time ago, can architecture or interior design mitigates religious issues and resolve conflicts? Some may think that if we were able to cut out religious symbolic icon of every religions or unify all the appearance of religious buildings then maybe conflicts will not happen that often? Almost all of the religions teach us to be good, symbolic icons of respective religions may actually be a burden or a cause for the religious extremists to spend hatred against the other religions other than their own religions by destroying the other religions' religious buildings since with all the symbolic icons it's pretty apparent from outside what religion it is.  There are cases like these happening in the world. In my opinion, it's a huge no. Religion is something important that has been established since the ancient times, icon is like the essence of the history of a religion, it also acts as an unifying force among the believers. it will lose its significant if we were to take it away.

Opps, went a little too far, I'm going to show you the plan of Taj Mahal below now hehe

(Baumer, 2014)

The plan of Taj Mahal presents a ''muthamman baghdadi'' shape (large irregular octagon). Here a central, octagonal chamber becomes the axis for the whole.

Elevation of Taj Mahal

(Loui, 2013)

That's it from me today! See you guys soon mwah

References :

Lewis, M. (2008). Architectura. Hauppauge, N.Y.: Barrons Educational Series.

En.wikiarquitectura.com. (2015). Taj Mahal - Architecture of the World - WikiArquitectura. [online] Available at: https://en.wikiarquitectura.com/index.php/Taj_Mahal [Accessed 17 Jun. 2016].

Image Sources :

Baumer, A. (2014). Islam Lesson 12: The Taj Mahal. [image] Available at: http://www.slideshare.net/alanbaumer/islam-lesson-12-the-taj-mahal [Accessed 17 Jun. 2016].

Loui, M. (2013). Architecture of Iqtisad (Balance). [image] Available at: http://mabelloui-islamic-architecture.blogspot.my/2013/12/lecture-4-architecture-of-umayyad-of.html [Accessed 17 Jun. 2016].

Taj Mahal Agara HD Wallpapers. (2014). [image] Available at: http://findwallpapershd.com/taj-mahal/taj-mahal-agara-hd-wallpapers/ [Accessed 17 Jun. 2016].