Fatehpur Sikri Architecture Design and Construction

The setting of the Jama Masjid, the first, the largest and highest building in Sikri, marked the actual beginnings of the city, which then came up around it. Facing Mecca, and based traditionally on the ground plan of the Prophet Muhammad's house, the mosque is entered through a doorway in the east — the Badshahi Darwaza, or imperial gate. A series of monastic cells, where Chisti would teach his followers, were arranged around a vast red sandstone courtyard, below which an underground reservoir stored water for ritual ablutions. Also Visit - Same Day Agra Tour By Car

The western portal of the mosque — its actual prayer chamber — is a splendid domed affair painted internally in blues, chocolate, gold and white. Akbar is noted to have once recited the Friday prayer here, otherwise performed only by the head Imam — possibly wishing to allude to himself as God, since the opening words of the Islamic call for prayer, "Allah-ho-Akbar", can be read as either as "God is great", or as "Akbar is God".

On one side of the court, the small jewel-like tomb of the saint glows with the translucence of its exquisite marble screens, carved in delicate geometric patterns. It is the only structure in Sikri built entirely of white marble. Bits of string, available at the door, are knotted into these screens by believers in the hope that the saint will grant them too the boon of a son. The brackets, so fine and elaborate as to transcend the obvious suggestion of a stylised snake,  retain a graceful suppleness of form more akin to works of nature than of art. Within Chisti's tomb chamber, intricate inlay work in mother-of-pearl, topaz and lapis lazuli provides a brilliant contrast to the white marble.

A few years after the completion of the mosque, when Akbar returned to Fatehpr Sikri from a triumphant campaign in the Deccan, he decided to erect a victor arch. The southern doorway of the mosque was remodelled into a stupendous gateway fifteen stories high, the greatest monumental structure Akbar ever built. The Buland Darwaza, set atop a broad flight of steps 12 m (40 ft) high, overlooks the town below, and is visible for miles around, proclaiming Akbar's triumph in a spectacular display of red sandstone and marble inlay. In most towns of the time, the acropolis containing royal residences was heavily guarded, separated from the general hubbub of the city by high walls and wide moats. Islamic architects often left the layout of the city to chance, allowing streets to develop organically as the settlement grew.  Also Visit - Delhi Jaipur and Agra with Fatehpur Sikri Tour

Fatehpur Sikri was different: it was a planned city, speaking in its entirety of a single innovative architectural mind at work. In the attempt to control the unitary form of the town, a modular grid became a systematic design instrument on all scales. Recent research has shown that the whole city, the sweep of its walls, the placement of its main gates and the road network, all seem to be based on a definitive mathematical grid. Similar modules, of proportions sacred to Islam, were used in the analogous buildings of Akbar, Babur and Jahangir, but later abandoned by Shahjahan, who reverted to a more orthodox Persian tradition. Moreover, Fatehpur Sikri was a dynamic, open city, with an unfortified citadel that was placed uninhibitedly upon the ridge top. With the massive Jama Masjid forming a spectacular western backdrop, Akbar's own palace was to be constructed on the high strip of rock overlooking the lake to the northwest, with the rest of the city spreading out below towards the south. Tents in Stone: In the year 1571, when the architects of Fatehpur Sikri sat down to plan this imperial residence, what would their concept of a citadel have been? How should it have looked and felt? What sort of spaces would they have envisaged as palatial? 

The Mughals, being constantly on the move, usually lived in large encampments comprising magnificent tents of varying sizes, erected from fine cloths in a matter of hours. The beautiful carpets and rich brocades within recalled the splendour of the palaces of Persia and Afghanistan, where their early ancestors had led less nomadic lives. But when the Mughals did settle down, in Delhi, Agra, Lahore and elsewhere, it was not those palaces which they imitated; their built structures, particularly of their secular architecture, seem more to resemble their temporary encampments.

On an average, Akbar spent more than four months a year travelling. On most of these expeditions, he would be accompanied by state departments, the treasury, and noblemen and princesses with their retinues. Soldiers on horseback and road-building gangs would form a considerable part of this vast, moving army. Each halt was an elaborate exercise in town planning and construction. A noted Jesuit visitor to Akbar's India was struck by the organizational expertise which went into the making and unmaking of these huge "towns-in-tents” at every halt. Also Visit - Golden Triangle Travel Package

An ever enthusiastic and innovative organiser, Akbar had devised a flexible plan ordaining broad zoning concepts for these imperial encampments: a diagrammatic representation of the various spaces required, carefully determined for maximum convenience and order. This Mughal camp order, slightly modified each time to suit the topography of the new camp site, turned out to be a virtual design brief for Akbar's palace at Sikri, and for many Mughal cities to follow.

Depicted in this sketch of the camp layout are four central enclosures meant for royal use. In the first enclosure the king would meet his people, soldiers and commoners, while only privileged noblemen, high officials and intimate friends would find access to the second enclosure. A two-storey central tent was used in this enclosure to issue state orders and receive intelligence reports. The third enclosure housed the king's day palace and bed-chamber where he could rest or retire, and the fourth enclosure, strictly guarded, was for the royal women. The four enclosures were thus arranged axially in a series in order of increasing privacy and security. All the services, workshops and stores for the palace were placed around the central core, and were accessible from an outer road. Day and night guards formed an outer ring protecting the royal interior. Research has shown that this overall arrangement must have formed the basis for the planning of Akbar's new palace precinct.

The site at Sikri comprised a narrow rocky ridge running diagonally northeastwards from the mosque, and the space available for the palace was small —smaller, perhaps, than any of the encampment sites. The linear camp layout had therefore to be adapted to suit the shape and topography of the site, and it is here especially that we observe the genius of the architects of Sikri.

The palace courts were laid out parallel to the Jama Masjid — which, being a mosque, was cardinally aligned — rather than follow the incidental disposition of the site. With the background knowledge of geometry as a major guiding force, the four enclosures of the camp order fitted perfectly like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. This spatial setting, based on an interlocking axial system, creates an ordered composition inducing a relaxed mood and pleasure of movement. No one axis prevails, and everything is mathematically ordained — the sizes of the courts and buildings, the modules of the paving stones, the shift of the multiple axes. Also Visit - Golden Triangle with Shimla Tour

The sequential order of these courts was further emphasised by changes in their levels, the hierarchy also being ingeniously integrated with the contours of the site. The most public enclosure was at the lowest level, while on the highest part was placed the most private of the palace zones, the royal harem. The slope of the ridge was used imaginatively to control the flow of water which would collect in a huge reservoir measuring 8 sq. m (90 sq. ft) and 9 m (30 ft) deep. Pavilions on the wide retaining walls caught the breeze and afforded a panoramic view over the lake.

For reasons of convenience, the service structures such as the mint, workshops, kitchen and baths were laid along the contours of the ridge, while all buildings for royal use were placed carefully parallel to the mosque, high on the ridge. Locating the "consumers" directly above the "producers" resulted in an economy of movement which lent itself easily to Akbar's daily task of supervision. This combination of parallel and diagonal placement of buildings produced many unusual, irregular open areas around the palace. This open-plan and accessible design is very different to that of the Red Fort in Delhi, and a long way from the quiet symmetry of Humayun's tomb.

To facilitate the efficient and speedy construction of the palace, Akbar had devised a system of prefabrication whereby the sandstone blocks were fashioned into modular panels and columns down at the quarries, which were reassembled at the site.

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