Landscape of Mandu. A living heritage in Central India

Abstract

This contribution, part of an in progress PhD study on forms and design of architecture and landscape of the central Indian Mandu plateau, focuses on a bird eye view of the human structures getting the landscape of the XV century onward study case in order. The research is methodologically based on the Muratori’s achievement of territories as living organisms where philosophy, economy, history and aesthetic meet together building a permanently transforming reality that reflects the cultural identify of a civil society. The study identifies the categories of the designing thought acting on the natural structure to build the XV century cultural landscape . The interpreting categories reflect the habit of a heritage to be preserved for next generations, where the spontaneous action-building of endogenous players has always been merged with the critical contribution of exogenous interpreters as rulers, scholars, travellers and anonymous designers. The study is based on a preliminary high resolution satellite imaginery survey and further measurements and documentation on the field. The extract we are presenting to the 2nd ICAUD Conference will pay special attention to the hydraulic network of kundas, dams and tanks providing water to the heritage site of the so called Lal Mahal complex. Water architectures have always played a key role in building the artificial landscape of hundreds of historical sites, embodying a clearly identifiable north-western Indian territorial type. There, lands, water, architecture and gardens have supported for centuries the construction of an organic landscape where the hierarchies of forms, the relationship between elements, the way of transforming an identity thought in formal principles, has provided us a talking palimpsest merging functions, symbolic meanings, religion and day life style. The XV century gardens and architectural complex will be investigated in their role within the territorial organism.