The Taj Mahal - UNESCO World Heritage Centre

The Taj Mahal is a mausoleum located in India, in the city of Agra. The emblematic monument of this country, it is in white marble finely chiseled. It was built between 1631 and 1653 under the command of Shah Jahan in order to shelter the tomb of his wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died in childbirth during the delivery of their 14th child. Mumtaz Mahal was also called Arjumand Bano Begum. The Taj Mahal is a marvel of Mughal architecture, at the crossroads of Islamic, Iranian, Persian and Indian styles.

 The Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal has been able to pass through history without suffering any particular damage, which makes it possible to admire it nowadays as it was at its construction. If the mausoleum is the best known, it is not necessary to reduce this monument to this marble construction, the Taj Mahal is in fact a set of buildings, gardens, lakes and fountains with perfectly organized symmetry contained in a rectangular ground of 580 by 305 meters.

 It includes two mosques, one of which is unused because it is not oriented towards Mecca, symmetry obligatory, three Iranian-style gates, three red brick buildings, a central fountain and four bodies of water organized in a cross. 

The Taj Mahal is visited annually by 4 million visitors, making it the most visited monument in India. It is also the most famous monument in India, and its symbol, such as the Statue of Liberty is for the United States, the Eiffel Tower for France, or the statue of Christ the Redeemer for Brazil.

A Symbol of Love in Marble

Every morning the same moving spectacle repeats itself. At first, shy and then forcefully, the Sun's rays illuminate the powerful monument built on the bank of the Yamunâ: The vague silhouette waiting in the gray calm of the night becomes again the glittering jewel of the Indo-Islamic architecture.


What must have been the emotion of Shah Jahan when he could celebrate the completion of the Taj Mahal! In the year of the death of his favorite wife, Mumtaz-i Mahal, the Mughal Emperor brought several thousand workers from the major centers of Eastern architecture, Lahore, Delhi, Shiraz and Samarkand to achieve this grandiose project. It is believed that the main builder was Imperial architect Ustad Ahmad Lahori. 

 
But the name of the true author of the project remains uncertain: Jahan, known for his artistic talents, was perhaps personally the spiritual father. With an extreme ambition, his project was as grandiose as it was expensive; no doubt he wanted to surpass all the marvels of the world of the time.

A Mughal mausoleum must preserve the memory of the deceased and constitute their place of eternal rest, the environment of the Taj Mahal was also designed with the necessary luxury. The wide alleys of the gardens, the immense portals, and the wide alleys reserved for the guests, suggest that the emperor and his court should surround the memory of Mumtaz-i Mahal.


Behind the entrance patio surrounded by arcades pierced by four gates, an idyllic view is offered to the gaze: In the south, a garden divided into four, with marble terrace and central fountain, to the north, on a sandstone terrace 'extending across the width of the garden, the mausoleum and its annexes, a mosque to the west and a meeting hall identical to the east.

The coordination of colors, too, is imprinted with the sense of Indian harmony. The green of the cypresses and flower beds is in harmony with the blue water of the canals and the warm red of the lateral sandstone monument. This grace completes the whiteness enhanced by the colors of the marble mausoleum, according to the remnant principle in the monuments of Jahan: every paroxysm includes a beginning and an end. 

This is why the mausoleum seems to float in weightlessness. Besides the marble structure that hangs light, the high gates and the vertically aligned side niches reinforce this impression. Finally, the four minarets rising at the corners of the main building enhance the elevation effect. As one guest reported during the inauguration, this ascending effect can be compared to a votive prayer rising to the sky. 

The mausoleum unites the formal elements that influenced the architecture of northern India in the seventeenth century. Its double dome - its bulbous exterior dome resting on a drum covers an octagonal plane - is of a purely Persian design. In the same way, the facade is defined by the sober unity of geometric form.

On the other hand, its "Florentine mosaics", also known as pietra dura - inlaid in the marble of polished semi-precious stones and absence of joints - and the bases of the reliefs, in spite of their Persian motifs, reflect the Indian spirit without context, felted and fairytale.

Like a magnet the mausoleum attracts visitors from all walks of life to Agra. Guards control the access to the main hall connected to four small pavilions. With great respect, the crowd revolves around the perforated marble screen, bordered by inlaid semiprecious stones, behind which one sees the cenotaphs. The remains of Mumtaz-i Mahal are kept safe in the crypt, a floor below.


Next to it is the sarcophagus of Jahan, who never managed to realize the second part of his dream of marble, namely his own mausoleum on the other side of the river. The sick emperor was deposed and imprisoned by his son Aurangzeb in 1658. The latter, however, fulfilled his father's wish to have his view of the memory of a white man from his prison at the Red Fort bursting with his great love.