Architecture

...

For most tourists visiting this historical spot, what they feel is just the overwhelming shock over this magnificent palace and just the honor to the constructor. However, few people have learned the background of this meaningful symbol, not any mention to deeply immerse themselves into its touching story. To build a unique tomb for his lover, Mumtaz Mahal, Sha Jahan spent more then twenty years to finish this marvelous not only for Mahal’s last word but to record their impressed loving stories.

Maybe it is too young to think about the love between them and I will never realize because I am not one of them. However, I still can slightly know that because I also have the one I want to take care and pour my whole heart to satisfy. The love, is not just the thing that you think you love her; it has different part; different aspect just like the Taj Mahal have different faces during different time. It is the most precious one can let you give up all the others just like Sha Jahan to give up all his power and his empire.

As the Tagore’s poem saying:

“You allowed your kingly power to vanish, Sha Jahan, but your wish was to make imperishable a tear-drop of love.

Time has no pity for the human heart, he laughs at its sad struggle to remember.

You allured him with beauty, made him captive, and crowned the formless death with fadeless form.

The secret whispered in the hush of night to the ear of your love is wrought in the perpetual silence of stone.

Though empires crumble to dust, and centuries are lost in shadows, the white marble still sighs to the stars, “I remember.”

“I remember.” But life forgets, for she has her call to the Endless : and she goes on her voyage un- burdened, leaving her memories to the forlorn forms of beauty“

“A tear-drop of love”, what a perfect metaphor made by Tagore. This poem deeply describes their permanent love and let this mausoleum to be the witness of sincere love. Taj Mahal, to be one of the well-known architecture in the world, not just play an important role for the younger generation but convey the most genuine and purest love to every one lives in the world.

For the modern society, architecture will not only to be the building for function but it can be spiritual sustenance. The campus, perhaps it is the most ordinary architectural style compared to the other. However, it is the very place that ciltivates lots of elites and provides the home for those students who study here. Take cu campus for example, for the vistor, maybe it is just a campus for sight seeing, but for the people like me, a student studying abroad, it is my home that provide me the place whether I am happy or sad. It is the building that give me the sence of safty and let me feel just like I am in my home, also it is the ordinary buildings that help me to pursue my dream here. This kind of architecture, maybe cannot be regard as a model represents for any style of the one developed in the world, however, each thing exsisting in the world has it purpose, architecture would not be excluded. Though it is a normal building, but it gives me the faith and the power to keep going when I feel sorrow at some time, support me when I encounter the obstacle.

Different architectures have different meaning for the people, just like the church give one to release and redemption; like the tomb give people the connection to the one passed away; like the home building give people the safe feeling. No matter which meaning it is, architecture is the best communication way for us living in the world.

Not just for the western style architecture, also Chinese architecture has its important impact on the world, which affected the building style of Japan and Korea and else in Asia or even Europe. As far as I am concerned, to compare the Architecture style between Chinese and Western can vary in some ways. Due to the different between cultures, generally, Chinese culture focus on the people, while the Western culture emphasize on the substance; Chinese people weight on moral and art, while the West is more emphasis on science and religion.

Famous French writer, Victor Hugo, outlines fundamental differences between East and West building system, he said: "Art has two origins: one is the idea which produces European art and the other for the fantasy which produce Oriental Art. "That is, in the shape of Western form, the building had the feature of carving; while the Chinese building has a painting characteristic, which focused on the pictures filled with the meaning, not on the perspective effects. Western tended to weight on the principle of building of overall beauty, and also the ratio between balance, rhythm, so on and so forth; while Chinese emphasized the importance on space and paid attention to people’s feeling of space in the building environment.

We can conclude that the concept of European architecture embodied in a "real", while the Chinese architectural fantasy embodied in an "empty" one.

Just take Chinese courtyard, fences, screen walls and other ones for example, it reflected the closed mentality of the Chinese people, and someone also thinks that: "Enclosed courtyard symbolizes our closed society.” Chinese people tend to simulate the garden as the natural landscape to be enclosed by buildings and walls.

With the globalization of the world today, we can see many kinds of architectures just around your hometown, not need to go around the world to have the sight for all. As what I said above, each of them plays important roles in our life, just like the music to be considered a world language without barrier for communication. The architecture also convey the unique thinking for someone care about. It is a wordless beauty in the world to let anyone feel confortable to keep in touch with.

Reference

Book:

Later Poem of Rabindranath Tagore, 1976

A history of landscape architecture,

Landscape in history,

Website: http://www.ebaomonthly.com/window/arts_literature/arts/architecture/garden/garden_1.htm

http://travel.synyan.net/8771.html