Taj Mahal The Taj Mahal 'Crown of the Palace' originally the Rauza-i-munawwara is an ivory-white marble mausoleum on the southern bank of the river Yamuna in the Indian city of Agra.It was built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal with construction starting in 1632 AD and completed in 1648 AD, The Taj Mahal complex is believed to have been completed in its entirety in 1653 at a cost estimated at the time to be around 32 million rupees. Ustad-Ahmad Lahori was the main architect of the Taj Mahal.The Taj Mahal is a perfect symmetrical planned building, with an emphasis of bilateral symmetry along a central axis on which the main features are placed. The Taj Mahal is built of white marble that reflects hues according to the intensity of the sunlight or the moonlight.The Taj Mahal is a perfect symmetrical planned building, with an emphasis of bilateral symmetry along a central axis on which the main features are placed. The Taj Mahal was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983 for being the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world's heritage. The Taj Mahal is considered to be the greatest architectural achievement in the whole range of Indo-Islamic architecture. The Taj Mahal attracts 7-8 million visitors a year and in 2007, it was declared a winner of the New 7 Wonders of the World (2000-2007) initiative. |