We all are aware of the booming real estate all around us these days,
be it Chennai, Bangalore or Gurgaon. Malls & Offices are becoming more
and more sophisticated and are being talked about in international
circles too!!
Here is a selection of some of the top most ventures on Indian soil
being talked about the most. Includes Siruseri too! May be you have
already received it as a forward, I have not, but either way this is
sure worth a dekho :D If you are unable to view this at office due to
the nonsensical Websense I would suggest you to try & view it outside
office.
1.Ramoji
Film City
Ramoji Film City (RFC) is the
world’s largest integrated film studio complex, at nearly 2,000 acres.
It is also one of Asia’s
most popular tourism and recreation centers.
Infosys is one of India's IT giants with the sort of infrastructure
that would make any engineer want to work there. But by any standards
this is just amazing!
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If you want to know why this is indeed such a masterpiece you might
want to take a look at these
photos (40 in number owned by Eric Sanders).
The Bandra Worli Sea Link is a 8-lane, twin carriageway
cable-stayed bridge with pre-stressed concrete viaduct approaches, which
will link Bandra and the western suburbs of Mumbai with Worli and
downtown Mumbai, and is the first phase of the proposed West Island
Freeway system.
Mall of India is a shopping mall based in Gurgaon,
India. It is the largest mall build in India. It has 4 million sq ft
sprawling property that is being touted by its developer DLF Universal
as the biggest mall in India.
5. Tata Consultancy Services Campus
This structure due to be completed in 2010 was designed by
Tod Williams and Billie Tsien. This Mumbai campus is said to very
ecologically friendly and incorporates elements such as a jali, a
traditional carved screen used for centuries as both sunshade and
ventilated wall. Tata Consultancy Services is not stranger to
eco-friendliness - their Chennai campus became the only campus outside
the U.S.A to receive the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environment
Design) Platinum ranking when it opened due to its recycling center.
Hafeez Contractor proposed the Noida Tower. At 710m it would tower
over all except the Burj Dubai which would top out at 800m. "The
building is to look like the peaks of Himalayas, and is scheduled to be
open for business by 2013. The building will contain a 50-floor
five-star hotel, a 40-story glass atrium and 370,000 sq meters of
shopping space." It will be part of the Noida City Center built over 140
hectares.
7.Siruseri Technopark
India is no stranger to technoparks but this one sure makes the
others stand in envy. This structure is created by noted Uruguayan
architect Carlos Ott.
8. Environmental Township
This township is proposed to be built in Pune and schedules to be
completed in 2016 with the primary focus on being environment and
ecology friendly while providing a pleasurable living surrounding.
This twin tower project is set to redefine the skylines of Mumbai.
Schedules to be completed in 2007 this modern structure boasts 60
stories and is all set to claim the title of India's highest
reaching residential towers'
10.Wipro Technologies Development Center
This Development Center created for Wipro Technologies is one of the
very few buildings constructed which adopted the concept of
' green architecture'.
Originally from
Business Week. With thanks from
scorpfromhell.blogspot.com
Indian architecture encompasses a wide variety of geographically and
historically spread structures, and was transformed by the history of
the Indian subcontinent. The result is an evolving range of
architectural production that, although it is difficult to identify a
single representative style, none the less retains a certain amount of
continuity across history. The diversity of Indian culture is
represented in its architecture. It is a blend of ancient and varied
native traditions, with building types, forms and technologies from West
and Central Asia, as well as Europe.
Studies of Indian architecture normally begin with the Indus Valley
Civilisation, moving through the late Vedic period, the Maurya-Gupta age
of Buddhist monuments, monasteries and rock cut architecture, followed
by the great temple-building of the medieval era. Turk and Afghan rulers
in the north in medieval times brought with them West Asian traditions
of the arch, the dome and the vault. The rise of the Mughal Empire in
the 16th century established a sophisticated synthesis of Indian
regional elements with ideas from Persia and West Asia, a pan-Indian
style that was adopted across the subcontinent even by post-Mughal
rulers and recognised today as Mughal architecture. The subsequent
European colonization of India paved the way for the entry of styles
from that continent, including Mannerist, Baroque, Neo-Classical and
Neo-Gothic styles, which were followed in the late 19th century by the
hybrid Indo-European style called the Indo-Saracenic.
Indian architecture has influenced the world, especially eastern Asia,
due to the spread of ideas with Buddhism. A number of Indian
architectural features such as the stupa (temple mound), sikhara (temple
spire), pagoda (temple tower), torana (and temple gate), have become
famous symbols of Hindu culture, used extensively in East Asia and South
East Asia. The variant gopuram (southern temple gate) is noted for its
intricacy and majesty. The arch, a cornerstone of world architecture,
was first developed by the Indus Valley civilization, and would later be
a staple of Indian architecture. Indian style Hindu and Buddhist temples
were contructed abroad in ancient times, with especially noteworthy uses
of Indian style in Cambodia's Angkor Wat, and Java's Prambanan.
Indus Valley civilisation, the Vedic Village and the rise of Buddhist
monuments
The earliest civilisation in India was the Indus Valley Civilization,
comprising many urban settlements, including the large cities of
Harrappa and Mohenjo Daro, and characterised by a variety of house
types, many of which had private baths connected to public drainage
systems. The cities consisted of a citadel raised above residential and
production districts with streets laid out in a grid plan and lined by
drains. The citadel was intended to contain the most important
buildings, including the grainaries and trading depots, and in the case
of Mohenjo Daro, the Great Bath, widely believed to be a fertility
shrine. The uniformity in urban layouts, house typologies and sizes as
well as construction methods of the standard kiln-fired bricks, is
evidence of significant social and political co-ordination.
Many of the late Vedic texts speak of purs (forts or citadels) made of
stone and metal. The Vedas have a number of words houses including
chhardis (a house with a thatched roof), harmyam (a house of brick and
stone that had a courtyard in the middle), and gotra (a multi-dwelling
complex with sheds for animals). The Rig-Veda speaks of a palace with
1000 doors, and also of one with 1000 columns.
Viharas (Buddhist monasteries) began to appear soon after the death of
the Buddha particularly in the Mauryan Empire with charachteristic stupa
monuments, and chaityas (meditation halls containing a stupa). The same
period saw the beginning of stone architecture, evidenced by palace
remains at Pataliputra as well as the Ashoka Stambha, or the monolithic
free-standing columns inscribed with his edicts put up by the Emperor
Ashoka. Their forms, spaces and designs, were to leave an indelible mark
on the future architecture of the subcontinent. The Ashokan time is also
remarkable for the introduction of rock-cut architecture, the
1000-year-long tradition of cutting vast, complex and multi-roomed
shrines -- Ajivika, Buddhist, Hindu and Jain -- into the living rock.
The practise is supposed to have originated in Egypt and appeared in
India for the first time in the Barabar caves given by Ashoka to the
Ajivika sect.
Quite a few Buddhist and Jain monasteries and shrines are said to have
been destroyed in the early and middle medieval era, for exmple, by the
Chola rulers in the south, the followers of Shankaracharya in the north,
and then the Turks and Afghans.
Hindu architecture
Under the
influence of the Vedas in India, Hindu art and architecture rose in
South Asia. The ruins of Aihole and Pattadakal are the earliest known
traces of Hindu temples, also known as mandirs in today's Hindi. The
reference to Hindu temples in literature goes back to 5th century B.C.
when Hindu scholars Panini (520 BC - 460 BC) and Patanjali described the
elaborate architectural designs of the Vedic/Hindu temples. Later, with
increasing architectural differentiation, the southern Dravida and the
northern Nagara styles emerged as dominant modes of temple architecture,
differring mainly in the shape of the roofing structure, the former
being a stepped pyramid while the latter has a curved profile,
epitomised in productions such as the magnificent Brihadeeswara Temple,
Thanjavur, and the Sun Temple, Konark. Buddhist elements and motifs
continue to influence Hindu temple architecture to a considerable extent
to this day. Along with the dominant Dravida and Nagara, there arose a
number of regional styles of temples in places like Bengal, Kashmir and
Kerala.
Many of the Hindu temples during the early medieval era were rock-cut.
The Kailasanatha temple at Ellora was excavated from top to bottom out
of a massive rock face.
The structural system of temples was essentially trabeated and with
massive blocks of stone being the basic raw material for the Indian
craftsman, construction could be carried out with minimal or no mortar.
Decoration was fundamental to Indian architecture and is seen in the
often intricate detail of figured sculpture as well as in the
architectural elements. The concept of fractals has been used to examine
the form of the Hindu temple, both in terms of its planning and external
appearance.
Icons and sculptures of Hindu gods and godesses are an essential design
feature of most of the temples in southern India. Shown here is the
famous Meenakshi temple in Tamil Nadu.The garba-griha or the womb
chamber forms the central focus housing the deity of the temple and is
provided with a circumambulation passage around. There are also,
however, many subsidiary shrines within temple complexes, particularly
in the South Indian (Dravidian) style temples. As the Hindu temple is
not intended for congregational worship, the garba-griha is small in
scale when compared to the whole temple complex. It is articulated
externally, however, by the vimana (or sikhara), the towering
roof-structure. Mandapas (multiple pillared halls) are found preceding
the garba-griha.
The spatial experience of a South Indian temple complex is considered
particularly enriching and meaningful. In many, such as the Sri
Ranganathaswamy Temple at Srirangam, prakaras (concentric enclosures)
along with the series of entrance gateways (gopurams), reduce in scale
moving towards the garbha-griha, setting up a rhythm of solids and voids
as well as providing a ritual and visual axis.
The principles of temple architecture were codified in treatises and
canons such as Manasara, Mayamatam, and Vaastu Shastra. These offered an
ordering framework yet allowed some latitude for contextual
articulation.
List of notable Hindu temples outside India:
Angkor Wat in Cambodia
Hindu temples in Java and Bali, including Prambanan
Neasden Temple in United Kingdom
Swaminarayan temple, Chicago, USA
Buddhist and Jaina architecture
The Adinath temple in Ranakpur is one of the most beautiful Jain temples
in India.
Buddhism gained prominence as mentioned above especially during the
reign of the Emperor Ashoka. It is primarily represented by three
important building types- the Chaitya Hall (meditation hall), the Vihara
(dormitory) and the Stupa. The latter was a hemispherical mound modelled
on ancient funerary mounds, surrounded by a stone fence known as the
vedika, and topped by a smaller enclosure, the harmika, containing the
casket for the relics of the Buddha; it was intended to be a
meditational focus. Numerous fine examples of stupas can be found at
Sanchi and Sarnath.
This is also the time of the rock-cut monastic foundations, many in
today's state of Maharashtra, and exemplified by the magnificent
rock-cut cave complexes of Ajanta and Ellora; usually comprising one, or
several, chaitya halls containing a stupa fronted by a hall divided into
a broad nave separated from two side aisles by a row of columns.
Galleries for musicians were also sometimes provided. Chaitya halls were
flanked by many viharas. Many of the caves are intricately sculpted and
brilliantly coloured, perhaps intended to aide in trance maditation.
The Post-Mauryan period saw the development of two distinct styles of
sculpture; the Mathura school, which was popularised under the
succeeding Sunga Empire, and the Gandhara school which stemmed from the
Indo-Greek Kingdom established in northwestern South Asia (Kabul Valley
and Pakistani Punjab) and incorporating influences of Greek art and
architecture. The division of Buddhism into Hinayana and Mahayana phases
also influenced the nature of rock-cut art, the former being represented
by artefacts used by the Buddha, and the latter by images of the Buddha.
Bhattiprolu is well known for its Buddha stupa.
The Jaina temples of the medievial period by a richness of sculptural
detail and material, especially in the Solanki temple style of Gujarat,
that can be seen in the Dilwara Temples in Mt.Abu and Ananthanatha Swami
Temple at Puliyarmala, outside Kalpetta.
The Rajput architecture
Rajput architecture was inspired partly by the existing Indic styles of
architecture, and partly by interaction with the Persian and Islamic
world, with a greater emphasis on arches, domes, and other Saracenic
features.
South Indian Architecture
Ancient South Indian temple architecture does not use the northern
Indian Persian, Rajastan and Jain styles. In south India four kingdoms
ruled and stamped their influence on architecture:
The Pallavas ruled from AD (600-900) and their greatest constructed
accomplishments are the single rock temples in Mahabalipuram and their
capital Kanchipuram, now located in Tamilnadu.
The Chola kings ruled from AD (900-1150) and included Rajaraja Chola I
and his son Rajendra Chola who built temples such as the Brihadeshvara
Temple and Siva temple of Thanjavur.
The Hoysala kings ruled southern India from AD (1100-1350) and Hoysala
architecture was reflected in Belur,Halebid and Sringeri which are now
in Karnataka state.
The whole of south India was ruled by Vijayanagara kings AD (1359-1565),
who built a number of temples and monuments in their style in Hampi,
Vijayanagar and banks of river Tungabhadra. King Krishna Deva Raya built
famous temples in South India in vijayanagara architecture style.
Influence of Islam and Mughal architecture
With the advent of Islam, Indian architecture was adapted to accomodate
the traditions of the new religion, but it remained strongly Indian at
its heart and character. Arches and domes began to be used, and the
mosque began to form part of the landscape, adding to a new experience
in form and space. The sahn (open courtyard) for congregational worship
with the enclosing liwans (cloisters) and the sanctuary at the Western
end offered a different architectural vocabulary. The fundamental
difference being the Islamic prohibition on idolatry, thus a
concentrated point of focus such as the garba-griha was unnecessary.
However, the mihrab on the Western wall of the sanctuary articulating
the Qibla (direction towards Mecca) offered a notional focus. With
idolatry prohibited, adornment was largely surface decoration through
the use of geometry, arabesque and calligraphy. Later, mosques began to
be built with original style. The Jami mosque in Delhi is a
representative example of an Indian mosque. Islamic architecture was
also represented by distinct regional styles that drew inspiration from
the local context.
The Taj Mahal, AgraMost of the Islamic buildings in India were built
during the Mughal period, the architecture of which built on traditional
Hindu architecture but incorporated Persian influences. Over time, Hindu
and Islamic architecture produced a synthesis that is exemplified by the
city of Fatehpur Sikri, and the Taj, renowned for its proportions, white
marble, its intricate engravings, its minarets and its setting.
The most popular Islamic building type in India is the mausoleum (tomb)
which evolved from the basic cube and hemisphere vocabulary of
architectural early phases, into a more elaborate form during the Mughal
period where multiple chambers were used, and tombs were set in gardens
known as the char-bagh. The tomb chamber houses the cenotaph below which
is the grave. Well known examples are the Gol Gumbaz, Bijapur and the
Taj Mahal, Agra.
Secular architecture
Colonialist study of Indian architecture was largely focused on
religious buildings, hence there is much scholarship in this area. In
recent times, secular architecture of India is gaining more attention.
Unique in their response to socio-cultural and geographic context are,
for example, the cities of the desert region in the North such as
Jaisalmer and Jodhpur, political centres such as Vijayanagara, Fatehpur
Sikri and Shahjahanabad at Delhi, towns such as Srirangam in Tamil Nadu
evolving around the temple as nucleus, the stepped wells of Gujarat, the
wadas of Maharashtra, the pols of Ahmedabad, the havelis of northern
towns, and the steep pitched roofs and timber structures of the warm,
humid area of Kerala.
Architecture under the colonial rule
The Victoria Memorial in Kolkata is an example of Anglo-Indian
architecture.
Though the Dutch, Portuguese and the French made
substantial colonial forays into India, it was the British who had a
lasting impact. The architecture of the colonial period varied from
early attempts at creating authority through classical prototypes to the
later approach of producing a supposedly more responsive image through
what is now termed Indo-Saracenic architecture-a mixture of Hindu,
Islamic and Western elements. Institutional, civic and utilitarian
buildings such as post offices, railway stations, etc., were built in
large numbers over the whole British India. Perhaps the most famous
example is the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) in Mumbai, originally
named in honor of Queen Victoria. The creation of New Delhi in early
20th century with its broad tree lined roads and majestic buildings
generated lots of debate on what should be an appropriate architecture
for India.
Post-independence architecture of India
With the introduction of Modern Architecture into India and later with
the achievement of Independence, the quest was more towards progress as
a paradigm fuelled by Nehruvian visions towards which the planning of
Chandigarh by Le Corbusier was considered. Later as new directions were
sought in the West, in India there was a search for a more meaningful
architecture rooted in the Indian context. Known as Critical Regionalism
the direction is exemplified in the works of architects such as B.V.
Doshi, Charles Correa, etc.,
The following monuments have been classified as UNESCO World Heritage
Sites:
Agra Fort
Ajanta Caves
Great Living Chola temples
Buddhist Monuments at Sanchi
Churches and Convents of Goa
Elephanta Caves
Ellora Caves
Fatehpur Sikri
Group of Monuments at Hampi
Group of Monuments at Mahabalipuram
Group of Monuments at Pattadakal
Humayun's Tomb, Delhi
Khajuraho Group of Monuments
Mahabodhi Temple Complex at Bodh Gaya
Qutub Minar and its Monuments, Delhi
Sun Temple, Konarak
Taj Mahal
Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka
Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (formerly Victoria Terminus)
Champaner-Pavagadh Archaeological Park
Mountain Railways of India
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