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].

Eastern VS Europe

Hey peeps! I'm back to blogging life again. I'm really exhausted these few days, homework starts to kick in, i need more sleep TT Anyway I've mentioned about the exterior of my Eastern country case study which is Taj Mahal and also my European country case study, Chartres Cathedral on my past few posts. One is built for the followers of Christianity while another is for Muslims, so is there actually any similarity in architecture form? I'm going to analyze more in depth and make comparison on the appearances of these two religious buildings. So let's get onto it!

First of all, religion art. The exterior of both Taj Mahal and Chartres Cathedral have obvious significant religious art on them. One of the main differences between Islamic and Christian art is the fact that Islam does not allowed any depiction of Allah. While on the other hand, Christianity literally narrates the stories from the Bible through statues, sculptures or even on the stained glass. Remember my last post? Chartres Cathedral was decorated with lots and lots of door jambs which illustrated the Christ's important stages of life and also the magnificent medieval stained glass. The reason of why religion arts were so prevalent in the ancient times might be due to the fact that there was many illiterate at that time or perhaps there was an artistic period where artists emerged and painting, stone carving, sculpture shaping were common. Moreover, Islamic structures are usually decorated with arabesque, calligraphy and geometric art. Most of the time it depicts the Koran, it can be found on almost everywhere and is spread throughout of an Islamic structures and Taj Mahal is a great example. Both of the Eastern and European countries' religious buildings are highly ornamented.

Sculptures that can be seen at Chatres Cathedral

(Sunshine, 2012)

Calligraphy on the exterior of Taj Mahal.
(Taj Mahal, 2016)

Moving on, the structure of both religious buildings. Both religious buildings are tall with points expecting to reach to the sky. Islamic architecture often uses a rounded arch with a point at the top of every arch. Remember the top of Taj Mahal? The top of the dome is decorated with a lotus design. According to Anis, my Muslim friend, Mosque originally meant to remind one of where Muhammad (said to be the last prophet) stood while preaching about the religion. The use of inexpensive materials like wood and clay were used in the ancient times was due to a restriction that was imposed by Muhammed. Moreover, the stained windows in a cathedral tend to make the space looks darker as it won't allow much natural light to penetrate in. Not sure why is it so but it might be due to the influences of Gothic style. Since the word ''Gothic'' always naturally associated with dark spaces. You may realize that there might be a demand for every cathedrals or churches to be designed in Gothic style in the ancient times. Take Chatres Cathedral as an example, Gothic cathedrals often used architectural elements such as high vaults,flying buttresses and stone roof.

Exterior of Taj Mahal

(Sindia,2014)

Exterior of Chartres Cathedral.

(Miou Miou 362190)

Dark interior of Chartres Cathedral.

(Fleturis, 2016)

To wrap it up, both the exterior religious buildings from Eastern and European countries widely apply respective religious art on their buildings but with one depicts God while another doesn't. Moreover, one of the similarities between those two are the fact that they use pointed arch. It may be due to the fact that arch was an ''essential element'' of the architecture of early civilizations. That's it from me today! Hope you guys enjoyed!


Image Resources :

SIndia. (2014). [image] Available at: http://www.tourpackagesforrajasthan.com/gallery/gallery.html [Accessed 13 Jun. 2016].

Fleturis, H. (2016). France's Most Beautiful Stained-Glass Windows. [image] Available at: http://theculturetrip.com/europe/france/articles/frances-most-beautiful-stained-glass-windows/ [Accessed 13 Jun. 2016]

Fleturis, H. (2016). France's Most Beautiful Stained-Glass Windows. [image] Available at: http://theculturetrip.com/europe/france/articles/frances-most-beautiful-stained-glass-windows/ [Accessed 13 Jun. 2016].

Taj Mahal. (2016). [image] Available at: http://www.unknownworld.co/taj-mahal/ [Accessed 13 Jun. 2016].

Exterior of Case Studies 2, Chatres Cathedral!

Hola guys~~~~ It has been a week since I last posted so here i am again! On the previous post of mine, I've started mentioning about my first case study which is the remarkable Taj Mahal. I roughly talked about its background and the exterior and I'm going to do the same today but with a completely different case study which is... *drum rolls* the Chartres Cathedral!

Chartres Cathedral is also known as the Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres, it's considered as the finest monument of Gothic architectures (Lewis, 2008). Chartres Cathedral is famous for having the most astonishing medieval stained glass in the world and for its quality of religious stone carving sculpture (Lewis,2008). Extraordinary harmony between the medieval stained glass, religious sculpture and architecture makes it the pilgrimage destination for many. It's a great mix on adding religious element into architecture. Plus point! It's in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Site (French Moments, 2012).

(Pierre, 2013)

The asymmetrical spires (also known as the North and South tower) on either side of the facade catches my attention. Churches were usually designed in Gothic style back then. They look different from each other because there was a fire that burned down almost everything in the town and part of Chartres Cathedral. Current facade of Chartres Cathedral was built immediately after the fire, starting with the North Tower then the South Tower, 300+ years of gap in between the construction of the towers and it shows the evolution of architecture style and way of constructing (Lewis, 2008).

Towers with different appearance, one is rather pointy, has very strong Gothic vibes and less decorative while the other one looks rather spectacular and more decorative + taller too!

(Clement, 2015)

Take into a closer look, you'll see the royal portal.

(Chartres Cathedral North Facade, 2015)

These three portals are the oldest portal of Chartres Cathedral, it's surrounded and decorated by sculptures (French Moments, 2012). These sculptures on the respective portals depict Christ's Earthly life, Last Judgement and Ascension of Christ (From right to left).

Moving on, from the exterior of Chartres Cathedral, you'll see the flying buttresses. The reason of having it is to keep church from getting damaged by fire again, people who were in charge decided to use stone roof rather than a wooden one, for the sake of fire resistance. But stone roof was way too heavy so the builders decided to use four-part vault for roof instead of the commonly-used six-part vault. To further more distribute the weight of stained glasses and heavy and high roof, the builder decided to use flying buttresses, which act as a support on the outsides of Chartres Cathedral (Lewis, 2008).

Flying buttresses outside of Chartres Cathedral.

(Entrena, 2012)

In my opinion, the use of flying buttresses last time was brilliant. It created support for the high vault (commonly seen in Gothic architecture) and medieval stained glass which depicts the Christ. Moving on, the differences on the appearance of north and south tower seriously shown us the evolution of architecture at a glance. The south tower was more plain and austere while the north tower was decorative and looked a lot more stunning and eye-catching. It proves us that decorative elements do actually do a great job on grabbing one's attention. Looking at the sacred interior architecture industry these days, it actually leans toward modern style which is rather clean and sleek, people don't use much ornaments in this generation. The obvious contrast on interior and architecture between now and last time is very apparent. It makes me wonder if the reaction when we look at an ancient old religious building with stunning ornaments and how the coming generation going to look at our clean and less ornament religious buildings right now will it be the same? Still as breath-taking or not?

That's it from me today! I hope you guys enjoyed, have a great day ahead! xoxo


References :

French Moments. (2012). Chartres Cathedral - French Moments. [online] Available at: http://frenchmoments.eu/chartres-cathedral/ [Accessed 12 Jun. 2016].

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

Image Sources :

Chartres Cathedral North Facade. (2015). [image] Available at: http://pulalohome.com/chartres-cathedral-north-facade/ [Accessed 12 Jun. 2016].

Clement, M. (2015). Chartres Part III. [image] Available at: http://michaelclementphotography.blogspot.my/2015/07/chartres-part-iii.html [Accessed 12 Jun. 2016].

Entrena, C. (2012). la catedral y los edificios civiles. [image] Available at: http://historiadelartecbe.blogspot.my/2012/01/la-catedral-y-los-edificios-civiles.html [Accessed 12 Jun. 2016].

Pierre, (2013). Façade of Chartres Cathedral. [image] Available at: http://frenchmoments.eu/chartres-cathedral/screen-shot-2013-01-13-at-11-22-25-am/ [Accessed 12 Jun. 2016].