Mughal Palaces

The architectural patronage of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan is best known through the Taj Mahal, the mausoleum which he built between 1632 and 1648 for his favourite wife Mumtaz Mahal at Agra. That Shah Jahan was also a prolific builder of palaces and gardens has received little scholarly attention despite that his constructions include such famous complexes as the monumental palace fortresses of Agra, Delhi and Lahore, the celebrated Shalimar Gardens of Kashmir and Lahore, as well as numerous unpublished buildings, like hunting palaces and country houses which are as yet not even known to experts in the field. This research project will fill the gap and present for the first time a documentation and analysis of all palaces and gardens of Shah Jahan. The identification of the typology and programme of these buildings as well as the analysis of their shape, function and meaning will provide entirely new insights, essential to the understanding of the Mughal empire, one of the most important empires in world history. The project is based on thirty years of field studies of Ebba Koch in India and Pakistan, made possible through generous and unique permissions of the Archaeological Survey of India and the Department of Archaeology, Pakistan, and in Afghanistan with the help of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, as well as the support by Austrian scientific fonds and private sponsors. Ebba Koch` s textual research in the Persian sources of Shah Jahan`s reign has brought to light about 50 palaces and formal gardens that were built or rebuilt by Shah Jahan or done for him by a member of his court. Ebba Koch discovered in extensive field surveys that 32 palaces and garden residences of varying sizes and states of preservation still exist , most of which she measured since 1982 with the Indian architect Richard A. Barraud. He prepared scale drawings of them under her supervision. This is the largest group of palaces and gardens that can be established for a single ruler of the early modern period in the Indian subcontinent and in the Islamic world. In the context of the project the architectural plans and drawings will be completed, cataloged and digitalized with the assistance of Richard Barraud. On the basis of this work Ebba Koch will undertake her analysis and prepare a book manuscript for which she has a commitment from the well known publisher Thames&Hudson in London.

The project "Mughal Palaces: The Palaces and Gardens of Shah Jahan (reg. 1628-58)" has achieved its main goal of completing in cooperation with architect Richard A. Barraud most of the projected architectural scale plans and drawings of the unique corpus of ca. fifty palaces and formal gardens built, as I have established, in the Indian subcontinent for Shah Jahan, the fifth ruler of the Mughal dynasty and patron of the Taj Mahal. As also projected, the drawings (ca. 250) were scanned and catalogued. Since only a few Mughal palaces have as yet been fully documented this archive represents the pioneering result of the project. It is also fundamental for my methodology because the exact documentation forms the base for a detailed formal analysis which goes hand in hand with an analysis of the patronage, function, history as well as the symbolic, social and political significance of the complexes. To establish this synthesis I translated and studied contemporary textual Persian sources, paintings and other records. Decor, ceremonial processes and property rights are form part of the study. This synthetic approach has led in my publications to a new understanding of Mughal architecture. I published aspects of Mughal palaces and gardens as well as of Mughal court culture and art in peer reviewed journals and collective volumes, as well in the entry "Agra" of the 3rd edition of the Encyclopedia of Islam. The interest in my research on the part of the scholarly community and the public has led to newly revised editions of two of my books The Taj Mahal and the Riverfront Gardens of Agra (2006/2012) and Mughal Architecture (2002/2014) of which the discussion of the palaces and gardens of Shah Jahan forms an integral part. My reconstruction of the palace and funerary gardens of Agra met with special interest on the part of the Indian Government and international organizations, it is used by the Archaeological Survey of India, Indian Ministry of Culture, the World Monuments Funds and the Harvard Graduate School of Design for continuative projects of restoring and conserving several of these complexes. To encourage a continuation of my research I was awarded by the Government of India in 2015 the Tagore National Fellowship for Cultural Research under the Ministry of Culture in affiliation with the Agra Circle, Archaeological Survey of India. During the time of the project (November 2009 to January 2014) I have given 54 invited project related lectures and key note adresses in various universities and other institutions of Europe, USA, India and Pakistan (e. g. 2011 Harvard Graduate School of Design; 2012 I. H. Qureshi Memorial Lecture Series St. Stephens College, Delhi University), as well as in international conferences, symposia and workshops. Further I have organized together with Dr. Stephan Popp and Dr. Florian Schwarz, Director of the Institute of Iranian Studies of the Austrian Academy of Sciences the first ever international workshop on Shah Jahan (Vienna 2014).