Society, culture, architecture: impressions in Ahmedabad

Abstract

The historical landscape of India is woven from texts by scholars, rulers' biographies, travelogues, and folklores. A deeper search into the cultural identity of a place is facilitated by studying architecture, material and construction, motifs and ornamentations. The city of Ahmedabad, an important royal capital of western India of the Gujarat Sultanate in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, is a suitable case study. This research investigates how the structures in Ahmedabad reflect the stories of their patrons, socio-political context, mythology, religion, textiles, and craftsmanship. The study uses the Ahmed Shah Mosque (1414 AD) and Rani Sipri Mosque (1514 AD) as its cases. With a focus on motifs and ornamentations, the paper unveils the stories of how the city of Ahmedabad developed economically and politically, how the patrons changed from kings to queens, how the method of construction evolved from a method of assemblage to a detailed design process and how the Indo-Islamic architecture of Gujarat has its provincial influences deeply ingrained in each motif while respecting the sensibilities of the religions. The research adopts a multidisciplinary approach, combining archival research and photographic documentation to discuss the relationship between design, architecture and cultural identity.