Taj Mahal Grounds Is Aim of Design by Students, Faculty

U of Ideas of General Interest -- September 2000University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Contact: Melissa Mitchell, Arts Editor (217) 333-5491; [email protected]

LANDSCAPE DESIGN

Enhancing Taj Mahal grounds is aim of design by students, faculty

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Majestically situated on the banks of the Yamuna River in Agra, India, is one of the world's most recognizable man-made monuments -- the Taj Mahal. Halfway around the globe, at the University of Illinois, is an internationally recognized program in landscape architecture.

Thanks to an invitation by the Uttar Pradesh Tourism Department in India, these two institutions have been joined through a research and planning effort aimed at enhancing the landscape around the Taj Mahal and another nearby national heritage site, Agra Fort, about 100 miles southeast of New Delhi.

"The project seeks to promote tourism by improving the environs of these sites and linking them with other historic gardens and mausoleums in the city," said project coordinator Amita Sinha, a UI professor of landscape architecture. The focus of the project is Taj National Park, an area that the Indian government hopes to develop on 340 acres of land opposite the Taj Mahal and across the Yamuna River. Sinha believes Uttar Pradesh officials sought the expertise of the UI's landscape architecture department because of its reputation for designing an earlier development plan at Sarnath.

"The current project is part of a comprehensive plan to restrict unwanted development in the vicinity of the building considered to be the epitome of classical perfection in architecture and romantic ideal in love," Sinha said. Completed in 1648, the Taj Mahal was built by the sixth Mughal emperor, Shah Jehan, as a mausoleum and monument to his wife, Mumtaz Mahal. Today, the area surrounding the monument is plagued not only by encroaching development but by air and water pollution, poor access and neglect of its once lush gardens that were irrigated by an elaborate waterworks system.

The UI's involvement in the project began in fall 1999 when Sinha and department head Vincent Bellafiore traveled to Uttar Pradesh to meet with state officials. In January, they returned to India with a team of students and faculty members, who surveyed the site and documented it in photographs and sketches. Back at Illinois, the students joined with other class members in Sinha's design workshop course to craft a comprehensive plan for the site. They also received instructional and critical support from landscape architecture professors Terry Harkness and Ken McCown.

Students and faculty members reported their progress at an international symposium on the Mughal Gardens in Agra, hosted last April by the UI's landscape architecture department and Program in South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. Located directly across the river from the Taj Mahal, the gardens are considered to be an integral part of the proposed Taj National Park. Sinha drafted the text of the final report, which includes drawings of the development plan by the team. With Harkness, she illustrated the complex design process involving critical social and environmental issues. The pair also contributed the drawings of the development plan. The report and an accompanying CD-ROM, produced by former UI professor Brian Orland, will be presented to Indian officials in the near future.

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