Architecture
Whole chapter · 24–36 focused hours
Architecture
A first-attempt learner with school-level reading and little retained ancient/medieval history or art history. Later chapters assume the earlier chronological context; History optional and practical arts training are outside scope.
Includes
- Selected explanatory readings, images/maps and source extracts
- Brief chronology or comparison notes
- Available mapped practice, mistake review and one initial recall review
Separate time needed
- Subsequent spaced revision and full mock examinations
- Reading every reference book and optional exercise in full
- Exclude reproducing artwork or learning architectural design; inscriptions, sculpture and dynastic narratives have separate homes.
Editorial planning estimate; not measured learner time
- Mauryan court art and the first monuments
- The stupa: form, types and major sites
- Rock-cut architecture: chaityas, viharas and cave complexes
- Origins of the structural temple (Gupta and Chalukya experiments)
- Nagara temples of north, west and east India
- Dravida temples: Pallava, Chola, Pandya, Vijayanagara and Nayaka
- Vesara and Deccan temples: Chalukya, Rashtrakuta, Hoysala, Kakatiya
- Indo-Islamic architecture: Sultanate and provincial styles
- Mughal and later Indo-Islamic architecture
- Forts, palaces, stepwells and secular architecture
- Architecture and modernity
- Colonial architecture
Whole chapter reading
- An Introduction to Indian Art Part I, Class XI, ch. 3 Arts of the Mauryan Period ↗
Mauryan monuments and construction forms
- An Introduction to Indian Art Part I, Class XI, ch. 4 Post-Mauryan Trends in Indian Art and Architecture ↗
Stupas and rock-cut buildings; sculpture details are assigned separately
- An Introduction to Indian Art Part I, Class XI, ch. 6 Temple Architecture and Sculpture ↗
Temple plans, regional forms and selected monuments
- An Introduction to Indian Art Part I, Class XI, ch. 8 Some Aspects of Indo-Islamic Architecture ↗
Indo-Islamic building forms and selected sites
- Themes in Indian History Part II, Class XII, Theme 7 An Imperial Capital: Vijayanagara ↗
Hampi water/city/building evidence only if not already studied in the Vijayanagara chapter
- Nitin Singhania, Indian Art and Culture (publisher page with table of contents) ↗
Chapter 2; selected secular, colonial and later examples; use only sections filling gaps in the assigned school-text readings.
Book required - The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier: Outstanding Universal Value ↗
Outstanding Universal Value, brief synthesis and criterion (ii); Chandigarh is one component of a transnational serial property.
- Santiniketan: Outstanding Universal Value ↗
Description and brief synthesis: relate open-air learning, local materials and international influences to the built environment.
- Nitin Singhania, Indian Art and Culture (publisher page with table of contents) ↗
Chapter 2, colonial architecture: compare the named design traditions through one illustrated example each.
Book required