world architecture

The Inuitthe real peopleof Alaska, Arctic-Canada, northeastern Siberia, and Greenland sometimes build shelters out of water, or at least water in one of its solid states, snow. The highly sophisticated design and construction of that kind of igloo the Inuit word for house is a major architectural achievement, employing a technology that turns a challenging resource to creating a not merely adequate but ideal house form. The oldest identifiable lnuit date from about 2000 b.c. Some of them followed immense migratory herds of bison, caribou, and musk ox across the Bering Strait into North America. Since two-month summers made agriculture impossible in their harsh, treeless environment, the Inuit relied for their food on hunting and fishing. Although some Inuit have now become westernized and eat supermarket food, fish and sea mammals remain the mainstay of the traditional diet of many, and groups still follow a seasonal nomadic cycle through their lands. In comparison with other hunter-gatherer cultures, the Inuit have highly developed technologies, craftsmanship, and art. The dogsled is used for long-distance transportation of large loads, and the maneuverable kayak sealskin-covered canoe has long been a model for Western societies. Inuit weapons are fashioned from ivory, bone, stone, or sometimes copper and often decorated with elaborate carving. Their clothingparka, trousers, mittens, boots, and snow gogglesis often made of caribou skins. It should not be thought as the stereotype has it that all Inuit live in snow houses. They have three traditional dwelling types. A summer house is essentially a caribou-, walrus-, or sealskin tent. A winter house is partially excavated and usually built of stone, with a whalebone or driftwood frame supporting a moss or sod covering. Then there is the circular dome-shaped snow house that some groups use as a winter dwelling. But it is more commonly used by hunters as a temporary shelter while traveling on long journeys. The igloo is built with carefully shaped blocks of snow about 4 feet long, 2 feet high, and 6 to 8 inches thick about 1.3 by 0.65 by 0.15 meters, weighing about 45 pounds 20 kilograms. The house can be up to 18 feet 5.5 meters in diameter, with ample headroom for the occupants. Snow texture and consistency is critical, and the suitable hard-packed snow is usually found on a north-facing slope. Tiny pockets of air trapped between the crystals provide a remarkably effective means of thermal insulation. For maximum structural strength, the first row of blocks is set out in a circle. The blocks are shaped to form a kind of ramp beginning at the front of the igloo, as the base of a self-supporting continuous spiral. As the walls rise to merge into the roof, successive tiers of blocks tilt more and overhang more as they rise, until they converge to form the dome, which is closed with a large fitted cap-block. This method allows the builder to work alone if necessary. The cracks between the blocks are packed with soft snow. Once the first two circuits are completed, it is possible to construct an igloo even during a blizzard, because the structure acts as a windbreak. When intended to be occupied for a long time, the igloo has another low wall of snow blocks placed around it, and the space between the two walls is filled with loose snow, improving thermal insulation. The entrance is a narrow passage, high enough to admit a crawling person and curved to stop the penetration of cold winds. Additional storage vaults may also form part of the house. The translucent snow provides a little light inside the igloo, and sometimes an ice window is employed. A small ventilation hole is cut in the dome. The floors in larger, long-occupancy igloos are often concave, so that cold air falls into a pool. The remainder of the floor surface is covered with furs, while others hung on pegs trap an air layer against the walls, providing interior warmth without melting the snow. The heat generated by the occupants bodies and by lamps or camping stoves raises inside temperatures enough to allow the Inuit to move about naked in their houses of snow.

Shropshire England
Coalbrookdale is regarded by many as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. The town of Ironbridge on the eastern bank of the River Severn is the location of the worlds first metal bridge. Designed in 1775, the gracefully arching prefabricated cast-iron structure, appropriately named Ironbridge, was fixed to its masonry abutments in the summer of 1779. Spanning 100 feet 30 meters, the bridge supports itself without a bolt or a rivet in the entire structure! In terms of the creative application of new materials and technology, it remains one of historys great architectural and engineering feats, the product of the fervent inventiveness of optimistic industrialists, opening the way to the modern era of iron- and steel-framed buildings. Coal and limestone mining and iron smelting made the River Severn, which reaches the sea through the Bristol Channel on Englands west coast, one of Europes busiest waterways. In 1638 one Basil Brooke patented an iron-making process and built a furnace at Coalbrookdale. Seventy years later the operation was acquired and overhauled by the entrepreneurial Bristol Quaker Abraham Darby I, an ironmonger and brass founder. In 1711 he developed a cheaper means of smelting iron by using coked coal as fuel rather than charcoal. The process liberated iron production from fuel restrictionsindustrialization initially meant deforestationas well as making very large castings possible. Within a couple of years Darby and his partner, Richard Ford, developed what was a minor business producing mainly pots and pans into the worlds leading ironworks. After a few decades the Coalbrookdale Company and its subsidiary Lilleshall Company had expanded to own mines, forges, factories, and farms throughout the region. The burgeoning iron-, brick-, and pottery works in the parishes of Madeley and Broseley, facing each other across the Severn Gorge, brought workers flocking to the district. That dramatic population growth and the obvious increase of commercial and industrial traffic meant that the local ferry, precariously approached down steep, slippery banks, soon proved inadequate for local needs. Abraham Darby II had proposed to bridge the Severn between Madeley Wood and Benthall but the project lapsed when he died in 1763. It was left to his son, Abraham III, to carry out the project. With the eager cooperation of the squire of Broseley, ironmaster John Wilkinson, in 1775 young Darby convened a meeting of potential subscribers to plan a bridge. The group obtained Parliaments approval for a structure of cast-iron, stone, brick or timber. The worlds first cast-iron bridge was designed by the Shrewsbury architect Thomas Farnolls Pritchard, who two years before had suggested using the new material for such projects. He proposed a single-span bridge, estimated to cost

Brazil Paraguay border South America
Built between 1975 and 1991, the Itaip

Miyajima Japan
Miyajima is a mountainous island in Hiroshima Bay on Japans Seto Inland Sea, separated from the mainland by the 550-yard-wide 500-meter Onoseto Strait. It has long been a sacred site of Shintoism, and renowned for the Itsukushima shrine, built on piles over the water and dedicated to three sea goddesses, Ichikishima-Hime-no-Mikoto, Tagori -Hime, and Tagitsu-Hime. The entire precinct comprises an inner shrine of thirty-seven axially disposed buildings and an outer shrine of nineteen more. The inner sanctuary, the intermediate sanctuary, the hall of worship, the spectacular O-Torii Grand Gate, several secondary temples, and drama and dance stages are linked by wide covered corridors and galleries known as Kairo. All the timber is finished with vermilion lacquer. The Japanese government has named six of the buildings as National Treasures the rest have been recognized as Important Cultural Assets. The shrine was inscribed on UNESCOs World Heritage List in 1996, and it has been described as one of the great accomplishments of the Shinden-zukuri architectural style of the Heian period a.d. 794 1184. With a backdrop of mountains and built on tidal land that at high tide gives it the appearance of serenely floating on the sea, the Itsukushima shrine is a magnificent achievement of harmonizing architecture and nature. Itsukushima is thought to have been first constructed by Saeki Kuramoto in a.d. 593, but the earliest historical record dates from 881. It was enlarged in 1168, when Taira-no-Kiyomori was governor of Aki Province, and the Taira clan began to worship there. Fire caused damage early in the thirteenth century, and it is likely that the consecutive restorations included changes to the organization of the buildings. The shrine for the Guest Deity Sessha Marodo-jinja was constructed in 1241. The buildings were again restored after being damaged by a typhoon in 1325, since which time the layout has been little changed. By the late twelfth century, the influence of Itsukushima was waning, and by the mid-fourteenth century the buildings had fallen into disrepair. After the warlord Mori Motonari gained control of Hiroshima in 1555, the shrine was restored to its former glory. He commissioned many of the present buildings, including the main sanctuary, in 1571, remaining faithful to the Heian style. Although there are slight stylistic variations in the detailsinevitable over so many centuriesthe overall architecture of the Itsukushima shrine is remarkably homogeneous. The approach from the east by boat first encounters the 52-foot-tall 16-meter, vermilion-colored O-Torii, standing in the sea some 220 yards 200 meters in front of the hall of worship and built on its axis. The eighth since the Heian period, it dates from 1874 to 1875. The great weight of its massive camphor-wood pillars, approximately 44 feet 13.4 meters tall, together with the 76-foot-long 23.3-meter hollow cross piece, filled with stones, allows the O-Torii to stand upon the seafloor without being embedded in it. The main sanctuary Honden, measuring about 78 by 38 feet 23.8 by 11.6 meters is crowned with a decorative tile and cypress-bark roof. An offering hall heiden, a hall of worship haiden, and a purification hall haraiden are linked by covered corridors. The main shrine Honsha has three parts: the inner sanctuary of the goddesses, the sanctuary for the priests, and a space for worshippers. It is faced with turquoise-lacquered folding doors. In front of it is the Broad Stage Hirabutai, used during the annual midsummer musical festival, Kangensai it has a long, narrow pier extending to the Front Lantern Hitasaki, used for the departure and arrival of the sea goddess during those celebrations. The High Stage Takabutai, standing at the center of the Broad Stage, is used for the performances of sacred shrine music and dancing known as Bugaku. The Noh Drama Stage Noh Butai stands at the end of the structure, and its floor is ingeniously constructed as a sounding board to improve acoustics. Some of tire flooring planks are 5 feet wide and 35 feet long 1.5 by 10 meters they were transported from northern Japan. Their spacing is calculated so that the platforms resist the pressure of high seas. Maintenance of the shrine is continuous because of its exposure to wind and saltwater, and the piles supporting it need to be frequently replaced. The Itsukushima shrine has graced the island of Miyajima with its elegant presence for 800 years. Its designers and builders, possessors of a grand vision and a deep understanding of the relationship between architecture and nature, remain unknown and unsung.

Breslau Germany
The Jahrhunderthalle Centennial Hall of 1911 1912 in what was formerly the city of Breslau in Germany now Wroclaw, Poland was a major milestone in the development of the enclosure of large public spaces by reinforced concrete structures. It was by far the largest of several pavilions built in Scheitniger Park now Szczytnicki Park to house the 1913 centennial of Germanys liberation from Napoleonic rule. The Jahrhunderthalle was intended to serve as an exhibition space, an assembly hall, and a venue for concerts, sporting events, and other entertainment. Wroclaw in southwestern Poland fell to the Prussian armies of Frederick the Great in 1741, to eventually be renamed Breslau. By the early twentieth century the city had become a major center for the arts, in part because the Expressionist architect Hans Poelzig was director 1903 1916 of the Royal Art and Craft Academy. Breslaus largely German population then exceeded half a million, and the government decided to create what it called a metropolis of the east. Accordingly, the architect Max Berg, director of Frankfurt am Mains City Building Department, was appointed City Building Commissioner. In Frankfurt, he had been deeply involved with the construction of the citys Festhalle 1907 1909, designed by Friedrich von Thiersch that experience was significant for his work in Breslau. He had also designed the development plan for Berlin. Beginning in the second half of 1910, Berg conceived and developed the structure of the Jahrhunderthalle. Engineering calculations were made by Gunther Trauer of the City Building Department. Trauer described it as an incredibly clever design, although he admitted that it was unusually large and challenging for him. Nevertheless, he rose to the challenge, and the building is evidence of an admirable symbiosis between architect and engineer. Together they produced two feasibility studiesone that employed a fire-resistant steel structure and another of reinforced concreteand prepared two sets of contract documents. Because the City Board of Directors was adamant that the exhibition building should be no-risk [and] fire-proof, the former structural system was virtually precluded because of the bulkiness of concrete-cased steel. On the other hand, such a huge reinforced concrete space had never before been built, and conservative members of the board doubted its practicability. However, after six months of deliberations Bergs reinforced concrete proposal was accepted in June 1911 on the condition that the cost be reduced by 10 percent. The clients insistence on functional flexibility had generated difficulties for Berg. Conventional wisdom pointed to a long space for an exhibition hall and a central plan for the other events. The first design was based upon a longitudinal plan, but that was soon modified to become a central circular space with four semicircular apses that are reached through enormous arches. As built, the hall encloses almost 60,000 square feet 5,600 square meters of floor space. It provides standing room for 10,000 people the seating capacity is only 6,000. The 137-foot-high 42-meter central space is roofed with a 212-foot-diameter 65-meter dome, formed by 32 half-arches of reinforced concreteleft exposed for acoustic purposesspringing from the massive poetic substructure to a tension ring at the apex. In its day it was the widest monolithic dome in the world. The vast interior is lit by four tiers of curtained clerestory windows, supported by the half-acrches and continuous around the entire structure, which diminish in height as they rise. That gives the dome the appearance of a series of concentric rings. The apses, also structurally formed from reinforced concrete half-acrches, have walls glazed in the same manner, adding to the stunning impact of the space. Although the structural system was revolutionary, the spatial organization and the overall form that it yielded had a Renaissance quality, very like the Church of S. Maria della Consolazione 1503 at Todi, Italy, by Donato Bramante and Cola di Caprarola. Bergs inspiration was complex: he drew upon the spirit of Gothic architecture and the esthetic theories of the Frenchman Durand and the Hollanders Lauweriks and Berlage. The monumentality of the huge building evokes the romantic, unbuildable Beaux Arts projects of Boullee and Ledoux at the same time, Berg avoids ornament for its own sake. The result is that, artistically, the Jahrhunderthalle denies the

Jaipur India
Jantar Mantar instruments and formulae, the open-air observatory designed by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II, Indias last great classical astronomer, stands at the entrance to the palace in the old city of Jaipur. Built between 1728 and 1734, the group of large, modern-looking masonry structures is in fact a collection of astronomical instruments. They measure local time to an accuracy of a few seconds the suns declination, azimuth, and altitude the declination of fixed stars and planets and they predict solar eclipses. It is the largest of the observatories established by Jai Singh II in five principal Hindustan cities others were in Delhi, Ujjain, Mathura, and Varanasi Benares. Only two survive: the one at Mathura was quarried for its stone and those at Ujjain and Varanasi are partly in ruins. Jantar Mantar is a remarkable architectural achievement: large buildings constructed with such exactness that they can be used as scientific instruments.Jai Singh II, a member of the Hindu Kachhawaha dynasty, came to power at the age of thirteen. As well as being a capable general, he was so politically and intellectually gifted that the Mogul emperor Aurangzeb conferred on him the title of Sawai literally, a man and a quarter. Mogul power was declining toward the end of the 1720s, but Jai Singhs kingdom was prospering. The water supply in his fortified hillside capital, Amber, was strained by increasing population, so he moved his seat of government to the plains. In 1727 he commissioned the Bengali architect Vidyadhar Bhattacharya to design a new walled city about 125 miles 200 kilometers southwest of Delhi and named it Jaipur. Unlike the laissez-faire contemporary north Indian cities, Jaipurs plan was based on urban design principles found in the Hindu architectural treatise, the Shilpa Shastra. The city was divided by a right-angle grid of wide primary and secondary streets, and further by lanes and alleys, into seven rectangular zones following the caste system, related to occupations and trades. The central rectangle housed the royal complexthe palace, administrative buildings, the womens palaces, and the Jantar Mantar. Jai Singh II was interested in religion and the arts and sciences and his court became a magnet for savants, artists, and philosophers. He was especially interested in astronomy and acquired a multilingual library on the subject, including the works of Ptolemy and Euclid, Persian and Hindu astronomers, and modern European and Muslim sources. Beginning in 1728, he built the Jantar Mantar in Jaipur. Within high walls on three sides, the observatory covers an area of about 5 acres 2 hectares. It contains fifteen astronomical instruments built of local stone and marble. Six had solar measurement functions, eleven were for observing the night sky, and one was unfinished. These large, architecturally refined devices, capable of achieving much greater accuracy than small brass instruments, were based on Islamic astronomical theories. Most were derived from those commissioned by the fifteenth-century Byzantine ruler Ulugh Begh for the well-equipped observatory built in Samarkand in 1428. The largest instrument at Jaipur is the equatorial sundial, a 90-foot-long 27.5-meter straight ramp pointing toward the celestial pole. Graduated masonry quadrants on each side are centered on the nearest edge of the ramp, whose shadow marks local solar time to an accuracy of a few seconds. It was also used to determine the celestial longitude of the sun and to establish the exact time of the equinoxes. The design of another instrument, the Jai armillary sphere, has been attributed to Jai Singh II himself. It comprises two marble hemispherical bowls, each about 13 feet 4 meters in diameter, set into the ground their surfaces are inscribed with coordinate lines of celestial latitude and longitude. A small ring was suspended on wires over the exact center of each, and during the day its shadow marked the exact position of the sun. At night an observer could enter a room under the bowls to take sightings on the stars. The two bowls are complementary, and alternating their use within a two-hour changeover allowed continuous observation. There are also several sundials: a vertical one, hemispherical ones, and a smaller equatorial one that can measure time to about 20 seconds precision. Twelve smaller zodiacal instrumentsone for each signand similar in design to the equatorial sundial, were used for observing the latitudes and longitudes of the sun and the planets. There are also two sets of tall rectangular columns arranged in circles and calibrated to allow reading of the altitude and azimuth of celestial bodies. Finally, the astrolabe, a star chart engraved in a metal disc, is about 6.5 feet 2 meters in diametersix or seven times the usual size of contemporary examplesand made of a seven-metal alloy that Jai Singh had developed to minimize variations caused by temperature changes. Adjustable rulers allow the calculation of rising and setting points of the stars and planets for the accurate casting of horoscopes. That esoteric function underlines a fact that may become obscured as we marvel at the mathematical sophistication of the Jantar Mantar. It is simply this: that despite Jai Singh IIs erudition and urbane universalism, his great observatory and the others like it sprang in part from a religious and not a purely scientific source. In excellent repair after being reconstructed by Chandra Dhar Sharma Guleri in 1901, the Jantar Mantar at Jaipur was declared a national monument in 1948.

Cambridge England
The architectural historian G. E. Kidder Smith correctly identifies Kings College Chapel as one of the great rooms in architecture. Initiated by King Henry VI in July 1446, it was not completed until 1537. Even then, it was acknowledged by many to be one of Europes finest late-medieval buildings. It was an architectural achievement in that it epitomized the English High Gothic, its filigreed stone frame, large windows, and exquisite fan vaulting all demonstrating the pinnacle of structural refinement that had taken almost 400 years to achieve. Henry VI 1421 1471, described as a a pious and studious recluse incapable of governing, succeeded his father Henry V as king of England in 1422. Just a month or so after the infant monarch ascended the English throne, he was also proclaimed king of France. Interrupted by the Wars of the Roses in 1461, his reign resumed in 1470, only to be cut short by his murder the following May. When he reached the age of sixteen he was deemed old enough to rule for himself and, despite a reputedly rebellious youth, by the time he was nineteen Henry had grown to be religious. Neglecting matters of government, he turned his attention to the establishment of two educational foundations: Eton College near Windsor 1440 1441 and the Royal College of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Nicholas of Canterbury now known as Kings College at Cambridge University 1441 provided for seventy scholars drawn from Eton. Henry set out detailed instructions for both colleges and at both his primary concern was for the construction of a chapel. One writer has obsequiously observed that the kings selfless piety accounts for the form of the chapel at Kings, which was conceived

Syria
Once described as the key of Christendom, the concentric castle known as the Krak of the Knights stood on the 2,000-foot-high 611-meter southern spur of the Gebel Alawi, commanding the strategic Homs Gap in the Orontes Valley between Syrias Mediterranean coast and the hinterland. The easternmost in a chain of five castles, it was well placed to control the trade routes between Asia Minor and the Levantine Coast. The formidable fortress represented the height of achievement in medieval military architecture and was described by Lawrence of Arabia as one of the best preserved and wholly admirable castles in the world. Medieval warfare was a cycle of conquest and consolidation. Builders were as important as soldiers to an army and throughout the religious wars known as the Crusades 1096 1291 both sides built scores of fortified strongholds, the ruins of which can be found throughout the Middle East. In 1095 Pope Urban II decreed that he would absolve anyone who fought to reclaim the Holy Land for Christendom, a promise that ignited two centuries of conflict. On the face of it, there was a religious reasonpilgrims could not reach Jerusalembut Urban IIs decision was also prompted by a combination of ulterior political motives. The Byzantine Empire was staggering in the face of Turkish expansion European feudal lords were anxious to profit from their military strength, and some states wanted to exploit their naval might in the Mediterranean. And there was opportunity for the papacy to make the most of rising religious fervor to gain control of the mind of western Europe. Kings and barons squandered the lives and the wealth of their subjects as they led all social classes against Islam. From time to time the Crusaders controlled parts of Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine, capturing Jerusalem from the Seljuk Turks in 1099 and holding it until Sal

Delhi India
Lal Quila the Red Fort was built between 1638 and 1648 at the command of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan who also built the Taj Mahal as the royal residence in his new capital, Delhi. The fort, representing the highest achievement of Mughal architecture, contained all the accoutrements befitting a center of empire: public and private audience halls, domed marble palaces, luxuriously appointed private apartments, a mosque, and exquisite gardens. Much of the opulence has gone, but in its heyday its magnificence would have been unparalleled, as boasted by an inscription on one of its walls: If on Earth be an Eden of bliss, it is this, it is this, none but this. Delhi stands at the western end of the plain of the Ganges. The epic Mahabharata speaks of it as a thriving city built about 1400 b.c., although archeo-logical reality suggests it was settled about 1,000 years later. The first city named Delhi was founded in the first century b.c. by Raja Dhilu southwest of the modern location, it had six successors. Its Mughal history is relevant here. In 1526 Babur, the first Mughal ruler, established Delhi as the center of an empire that would unite vast areas of south Asia for the next two centuries. His son Humayun built a new city near Firuzabad but it was leveled when Afghan Sher Shah Suri overthrew him in 1540. He built a new capital, Sher Shahi, as the sixth city of Delhi. Once more eclipsed when the emperors Akbar and Jahangir moved their courts elsewhere, Delhi reached prominence, even glory, in 1638, when Akbars grandson Shah Jahan moved his capital from Agra to establish the seventh city of Delhi: Shahjahanabad, now known as Old Delhi. Most of it is still embraced by Shah Jahans walls, and four of its seventeenth-century gates still stand. He also built Lal Quila as the royal residence within the new city. Almost immediately, Shah Jahan commissioned the architects Ustad Hamid and Ustad Ahmad to design a fitting royal residencethe Red Fortat the northeastern corner of Shahjahanabad. It was completed within about ten years. An area of 124 acres 50 hectares was enclosed within 1.5 miles 2.4 kilometers of formidable defense walls. It was flanked by the Yamuna River on the eastern side, which fed a moat 76 feet 22.8 meters wide and 30 feet 9 meters deep. Thick red sandstone walls from which the fort derives its name, punctuated by turrets and bastions, rose 60 feet 18 meters from the river those on the other side stood up to 112 feet 33.5 meters above the surrounding terrain. Two of the six main entrancesthe Lahori Gate and the Delhi Gatesurvive. Now the moat is dry and the Yamuna flows almost a kilometer away, but Lai Quila towers above the modern city of Delhi that spreads out to the west. The buildings within the walls are all carefully arranged on the long north-south and shorter east-west axes of the octagonal plan. Although they reveal the delicate work that can be found in all Mughal architecture, they exemplify the later phase of the style, characterized by the increasing use of marble, elaborate floral decoration of external surfaces, and the proliferation of tall minarets and bulbous domes. Shah Jahan seems to have preferred the flowing plant motifs inspired by the European sixteenth-century herbariums that had been perfected by his fathers artists. The walls of carefully cut marble were patterned with precious and semiprecious stones and surfaces were decorated with inlaid flowers of hard stones in many colors. Immediately inside tlie fortified Laliori Gate was tlie Chatta Chowk. a vaulted two-story arcade containing thirty-two shops. East of it. on the same axis, was another gate called Naubat Khana Dram House, also two stories high, from which musicians played martial, music for tlie emperor five times a day. or announced tlie arrival of important guests. Further east on tlie axis and across a courtyard stood tlie Diwan-i-Am Public Audience Hall, ornamented with gilded stuccowork and hung with heavy curtains. There the emperor, seated in a canopied, marble- paneled alcove set with precious stones, would hear through his prime minister tlie complaints and petitions of tlie commoners. The Diwan-i- Am was also used for state functions. At tlie eastern terminus of tlie short axis of tlie plan stood tlie Rang MahalPalace of Colors, its roof crowned with gilded turrets. It housed tlie emperors wives and mistresses. The interior was richly decorated with painting. Its ceiling, overlaid with silver and gold, was reflected in a pool in tlie marble floor. The Nalir-i-Bihist Stream of Paradise flowed through its center, feeding small water channels that flowed to cool tlie other rooms of tlie Red Fort. The north-south axis, through tlie center of a courtyard that separated tlie Diwan-i-Am and tlie Rang Mahal, was flanked by sumptuous pavilions. In tlie Diwan-i-Klias Hall of Private Audiences, tlie emperor met with his courtiers and dignified guests. Standing on a plinth and supported by thirty-two pillars, tlie white marble hall was decorated with floral patterns of precious stones. At its center tlie fabled Peacock Throne carried off to Persia in 1739 stood on a white marble dais under a ceiling inlaid with silver and gold. South of that building lay tlie emperors private apartments, tlie Klias Mahal. On their east side was a large sitting room that opened to a cantilevered gallery, where each sunrise tlie emperor appealed before his subjects. At tlie northern end of tlie large square in front of these buildings stood tlie Hammam Royal Bath. Built of marble and extravagantly decorated with inlay, glass, and paint, it comprised three apartments that were also used for private meetings. Shah Jalians son Aurangzeb built tlie Moti Masjid Pearl Mosque within an enclosing wall beside tlie Hammam in 1659- 1660. At tlie northern end of tlie long axis stood a three-story octagonal tower. Shall Bhuijtlie shahs private working area. At tlie southern end Shah Jalianbuilt the Mumtaz Mahal, a palace for his favorite daughter Jahanara Begum. Mughal power waned in the eighteenth century. The British captured Delhi in 1803, and the city was the focus of Indias first war of independencethe British still prefer to call it the Indian Mutinyin 1857. In 1911 the colonials moved their imperial capital from Calcutta to Delhi and began to build the eighth city, New Delhi, officially inaugurated in 1931. India finally expelled the British in 1947, and the nation celebrates its liberty by flying the Indian flag above Lal Quila each 15 August, Independence Day.

Ethiopia
Lalibela is a village in the mountainous Welo region of northern Ethiopia, about 440 miles 700 kilometers north of Addis Ababa in the Middle Ages it was known as Roha and was the capital of the Zagwe dynasty. Standing on a rock terrace at an elevation of 8,500 feet 2,600 meters, it is the site of eleven large rock-hewn monastic churches that date from the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Each is architecturally distinctive and all are finely carved inside and out. Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978, they are not the earliest such churches in Ethiopia others predate them by at least 500 years, but they are widely recognized as the most beautiful. Francisco Alvarez, a Portuguese Jesuit missionary, visited Lalibela in the 1520s, the first European to see the churches. He was reluctant to report to his superiors, fearing that they would not believe his account of buildings unlike any to be seen elsewhere in the world. Nevertheless, he described them. hewn entirely out of the living rock, which is sculpted with great ingenuity. The culturally unique churches are remarkable for that reason: each has been cut from the purple-red volcanic tufa, in some cases 90 feet 27 meters into the ground. Some of them are connected by tunnels or passageways open to the sky. Even to the modern mind, they are an architectural marvel. The history of the churches is swathed in mythology. It is probable that King Lalibela 1181 1221 commissioned them. According to legend, angels carried him to heaven when he was affected by a poison that his envious brother had administered God sent him back to earth with instructions to build the churches and later dispatched angels to continue the work at night. Another account says that the king recruited Indian, Arab, and Egyptian builders, or even white men from Jerusalem, a link that is strengthened by the naming of the local river, Jordan. It has been suggested that, upon learning that the Holy City had fallen to Islam, Lalibela wanted to create a new Jerusalem in his secure mountain fastness. Tradition has it that the eleven buildings were completed in twenty-four yearsarcheologists calculate that would have needed 40,000 workersbut the time frame seems too short. Maskal Kabra, Lalibelas queen, is said to have built one of them to his memory. The churches stand in two groups flanking the Jordan. Four of themBet Medhane Alem, Bet Maryam, Bet Amanuel, and the cruciform Bet Ghiorghis, dedicated to Ethiopias patron saintare in effect huge blocks of sculptured stone standing in deep excavated courtyards and attached to the rock only by their bases. Bet signifies the house of. They look like normal buildings, but each one is a single piece. The others must be accurately described as semimonolithic, because they remain attached to the rock by at least one face, whether the roof or walls. For example, although the twin churches of Bet Golgotha and Bet Qedus Mikael share a roof, they have, respectively, one and three facades exposed. Bet Abba Libanos is isolated from the mother rock except for its roof, which is integrated with the overhanging cliff in front of it stands a large forecourt, cut from the tufa. The other churches are named Bet Danaghel, Bet Debre Sinai, Bet Gabriel-Rufael, Bet Merkorios, and Bet Meskel. The eclectically blended artistic influences are variedGreek, Egyptian, and even Islamicand the nature and the extent of the carefully carved exterior and interior walls, ceilings, moldings, and window tracery are just as diverse. Bet Qedus Mikael has smooth exterior wall surfaces, and its interior is austere, decorated with Greek crosses on the other hand, Bet Golgotha is more ornate, perhaps because it houses the tomb of King Lalibela, and it contains bas-reliefs of saints, the only sculptures in any Ethiopian church. Other churches have painted decoration, mostly with a teaching function, in various states of preservation. The churches of Lalibela are home to hundreds of monks, clerics, and students, who celebrate liturgies that are tlie same as they were eight centuries ago. It is tlie most important pilgrimage site in Ethiopia, a country that includes an island of Christianity in a sea of Islam, and during tlie major holiday seasons it may be visited by as many as 50.000 devotees. More recently. Lalibela has become a tourist attraction, precisely because of its spectacular churches, and draws over 10.000 secular visitors a year. Inevitably, there is a tension between conservation and development. But because tourism is tlie villages only real source of wealth and is encouraged by tlie central government, a compromise must be reached. In 1996 the European Community earmarked EUR4.7 million for shelters to replace tlie corrugated-steel roofs that covered Bet Medhane Alem. Bet Maryam. Bet Meskel. Bet AmanueL and Bet Abba Libanos from damage caused by torrential rains, and an international architectural competition was held. Structures designed by tlie first-prize winners. Teprin Associati of Italy, were completed by December 2000. UNESCO and tlie Ethiopian Department of Preservation of Cultural Heritage are urging restoration of tlie deteriorating fabric of tlie churches.