Build the tower for the call to prayer in the form of the regional tradition: square and stepped in the Maghreb and Spain, cylindrical and tapering in Iran and Central Asia, needle-like and polygonal in the Ottoman lands.
Rules · Proportion · Façades
The Taj Mahal: a composition of equal heights
Balance the tomb so that the dome with its finial rises as high above the pishtaq as the pishtaq rises above the plinth, and let every element be answered by its mirror image on both axes.
pishtaq ≈ dome + finial ≈ 33–35 m; total ≈ 73 m (approximate)
The tomb is a cube with chamfered corners, some 57 metres across, standing on a square marble plinth about 7 metres high. Each face is the same: a great pishtaq with a deep iwan, flanked by two storeys of smaller arched recesses. Above it the dome swells from a tall drum, surrounded by four chhatris. Surveys show a composition of simple, nearly equal heights (plinth to top of pishtaq, pishtaq to finial) and a plan of perfect four-fold symmetry. Figures differ between surveys; those in the model are rounded, and the model is a simplified reconstruction.
The symmetry is total: the tomb has the same face in four directions, the garden is divided in four, the minarets stand at the four corners, and the whole group is flanked by a mosque on one side and an identical building (the jawab, “answer”) on the other.
Related rules
Set the iwan arch in a tall rectangular screen that rises above the roofline, framed by bands of inscription and flanked by minarets.
Build two domes, one above the other: an inner shell proportioned to the room below and an outer shell raised on a tall drum and proportioned to the city outside.
outer crown ≫ inner crown; the gap may be a third of the total height
Cover the tomb chamber with a low inner dome and raise over it, on a tall drum, a bulbous outer shell whose swelling profile is visible from every direction.
Mark the corners of roofs, minarets and gateways with chhatris: small open domed kiosks on columns with a projecting eave.
Stand the minarets free at the corners of the plinth, so that they frame the tomb in every view without crowding it.
Cite this page Chris Paton, “The Taj Mahal: a composition of equal heights”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/taj-proportion. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.