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].