Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
Not very many paddle-strokes – and a short walk – distant from Dal Lake’s floating market is the pictured, “pagoda-esque” mosque.
Srinagar’s older mosques are distinctly Kashmiri in style.
They surprise and delight many visitors – ourselves included.
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Q: who usually rules the skies over the Indian subcontinent’s megacities?
A: Milvus migrans – black kites.
One of the world’s most abundant raptor species (possibly, the most abundant) has proved very adept at taking advantage of the “rubbish” discarded by urban humans.
If one is almost anywhere within a big Indian city, one needs no bird-watching expertise to see black kites; simply look up, and there they are!
”Holy” places are no exception…
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Moghul Emperor Shah Jahan commissioned what is still Delhi’s greatest mosque.
He was also responsible for Agra’s Taj Mahal.
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In the context of the Indian subcontinent’s human history, what we now call “Old Delhi” is not very old.
The original walled city was meticulously planned; its foundation stone was laid in 1639.
Then named Shahjahanabad, it was the result of Emperor Shah Jahan’s decision to shift the Mughal Empire’s capital city, from Agra.
What is still Old Delhi’s most imposing structure was built between 1650 and 1656; at that time Jama Masjid was the subcontinent’s largest mosque.
In 2024 it remains one of India’s largest mosques – probably, its second biggest.
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Description, courtesy of Wikipedia:
In 1861, part of the facade collapsed, damaging the atrium. The whole front of the church was then rebuilt to a design by architect Errico Alvino in a richly decorated manner drawing on Italian Gothic and especially Arab-Norman styles, similar to but more ornate than the original.
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Construction began around twelve centuries ago, but most of what a 21st century visitor sees when looking at Amalfi Cathedral (aka “Duomo di Amalfi” and “Duomo di Sant’Andrea”) is of much more recent vintage.
Allegedly, it has housed the “relics” of St Andrew (Sant’Andrea) since not long after “Crusaders” delivered them from Constantinople to Amalfi in 1206 CE.
Many a “landmark” Italian church has a “medieval” exterior, now ill-matched with a lavishly reworked, much more ornate, “Baroque” interior.
Over the centuries, Amalfi’s cathedral has become a riotously eclectic hybrid of very different styles. (and of different buildings, joined together, repaired, and re-imagined)
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Even as a spectacularly distorted reflection on the facade of another, lower and more “glassy” edifice, St Martins Tower is unmistakably itself.
Since we moved to Perth in 1983 many different tenants have “badged” St Martins Tower; as you can see in lower right hand quarter of the above photo, the current logo is that of ICBC – a Chinese bank.
From 1978 to 1988 St Martins Tower (140 metres) was Perth tallest building.
In the much more crowded and taller 2024 skyline, it is #10.
The #1 ranking, however, has remained unchanged for 32 years; Central Park (249 metres) still looks down on all other WA rooftops.
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Architecturally speaking, much of what stands tall in Perth is depressingly typical of what stands tall in just about every other substantial city on “our” planet.
Most post-1960 “towers” are both bland and brutal.
However, Perth’s unusually intense winter light can work “magic”, when combined with the happy fact that “vertical”, “flat” glass panes are hardly ever truly vertical or truly flat.
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Arguably, India’s Taj Mahal is the most world’s most sublime building.
However, Agra is not the global hotspot for prime examples of Mughal architecture and its decoration.
Lahore – Pakistan’s second largest city – has the largest number of bona fide “jaw-dropping” Mughal constructions.
(I think Lahore is also a much more generally-rewarding/likeable destination than is Agra)
The last Mughal mosque – the world’s largest mosque, when constructed in 1671-73 – is in Lahore.
Lahore’s Old City is much less frenetic than Old Delhi, but the former is much the richer, architecturally.
Agra’s Red Fort is stupendous, but Lahore Fort is even more so.
Above, you are looking at merely a small section of Lahore Fort’s picture wall.
The world’s biggest such “mural” occupies circa 6,600 square metres of the fort’s exterior.
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They are in varying states of repair, but many striking examples of distinctive “traditional”/“vernacular” architecture still stand in Kashmir’s capital.
Such buildings typically employ both timber and bricks in their construction, and they have proved remarkably capable of withstanding earthquakes.
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