Architecture Here and There

My column "Meet the real international style" (Sept. 3) made its way to Prof. Krupali Uplekar at Notre Dame, who sent me word of her and her students' work to identify the blood lines of the temple architecture of India in past millennia. The temples of India show a strong resemblence to the essentials of Western classicism, suggesting not that Indians cribbed from Vitruvius - far from it - but that the impulses of design that gave rise to the classicism of ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome were natural phenomena that influenced early forms of architecture around the world.

Professor Uplekar wrote: "In the last four years my students in fourth
year studio have studied architecture from India, especially classical Indian. It
has been interesting to observe in these years through their work, and also
that of my research team, which has been documenting and
analyzing monuments in India, that the architecture in the East is not so far
fetched from the western classical we know of. This summer while working
with some of the Sanskrit translations of the Indian treatise 'Manasara,'
which has evolved from the Hindu Vedas, we found a direct co-relation
between Vitruvius's text and principles suggested through the ancient Hindu
scriptures. It is interesting that when some of the layers of overpowering
carvings are removed from the building, the clear profile of moldings and
division of orders is to be seen. It is amazing to see such a good
'globalization' of building knowledge long before the modern concept of
global design came into place."

Professor Uplekar sent these photos of columns in Hindu buildings. They run in the following order down the left side of this blog entry:

1) Agra Fort (built in 1573)
2) Fatehpur Sikri (built in 1570)
3) Itmad -ud-daulah tomb (built in 1628)

I will update readers on the progress of the professor's work, including a book she is writing that will summarize the findings of her research.

 Tags  architecture classical India international style Krupali Uplekar Notre Dame temples

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