History of Architecture

Indus Valley Civilization

This is situated the bank of the river
Sindhu.
Travelling further up the river they
discovered land of the five rivers-
Sindh, Jhelum, Chenav, Ravi, Sutlej later
know as Punjab.
The people most likely lived in forest
and the bank of the river
 The Indus Valley cities are
outstanding example of
extremely town planning.

The similarities in plan and construction

between Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa
indicate that they were part of a unified
government with extreme organization.
The planning , building and civic
administration of their principal cities
constitute the greatest achievement of
the people of the Indus valley.
Both cities were constructed of
the same type and shape of bricks.
Remains of palaces or temples in
the cities have not been found.
Both Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa
were nearly a square mile in plan
set within crenellated defensive
walls.
Video link

MUST WATCH https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juc3msgLMoc&ab_channel=JeetoBharat

• Late Paleolithic and early Mesolithic (9000-8000 BC)
– Caves, rock shelters, open spaces
• Late Mesolithic (5000 BC)
– Round stone paved huts
• Early Neolithic (4000 BC)
– Rectangular houses
– Pressed earth and sun-dried bricks
• Mehrgarh
– Examples of domestic architecture
– Made up of small villages known as Mehrgarh I to VII
– Each established on new ground after previous abandoned
– Mehrgarh I and II
• Rectangular multi-room dwellings
• About 8m x 4m
• About 6-9 rooms on either side of a central corridor
• Built with mud-bricks with finger imprints on the upper face
– Mehrgarh VI and VII
• Plan became more complex
• Two-storey with living rooms in upper storey
• Timber floors with 1m high undercroft for storage
• Mohenjo-Daro 2500-1700BC
– 3 broad divisions
• Western part – citadel
• Northern part – agriculture and
industries
• Southern part – administration,
trade and commerce
– Streets
• Major streets along cardinal
directions
• Streets within were narrow
– Citadel
• Religious, institutional &
cultural centre
• To the west on an artificial
mound 15m high
• A refuge in times of flood
• Separated from city by an open
ground
• Fortified with baked brick-wall
with solid towers
• Contained public buildings
– Monumental but plain
– Communal granary
– Great bath
– Great Bath
• Open air pool about 12m
x 7m x 2.5m deep
• Construction
– Bricks sealed with
bitumen
– North and south ends
were brick steps with
timber treads set in
bitumen
– Drained from corbel-
vaulted drain through
an outlet on south-west
corner
– Surrounding the bath
covered colonnade
– Beyond it on 3 sides
changing rooms
– Some changing rooms
had private toilets and
baths
– Baths may have been
for ritualistic purposes
– Granary
• Timber lined
building
• Supported on tiered
brick lined podium

• Lower tier
– Mud brick
– Reinforced with
125mm square
timber sections
– Later enlarged and
partially re-bulit
– Brick-stair leading
to upper level
timber
superstructure
– Sloped external
walls
• Upper tier
– 27 blocks of
brickwork
– Intersected by
ventilation
channels
– Residential areas
• Tightly packed dwellings
• Oriented along cardinal directions
• Regular rectangular blocks
• Separated by streets with public water supply and sewerage
system serving public buildings and public wells
• Each block
– Single or two-storey courtyard houses with flat roofs
– Shops
– Entered by narrow winding alleys which cut through rectangular
blocks
– Blank windowless walls faced the main streets
• Harappa
– Large scale development
– Spread over 502,000 sq miles
– Region had more than 200 settlement sites – 6 metropolitan
centres, 20 towns, and 200 villages
– High degree of cultural uniformity including architecture and
urban form
• Sophisticated design and construction
• Regularly laid streets, brick buildings and a variety of civic
amenities
• Citadel
– On a mound
– Fortified with 12m thick tapering mud-brick wall - external baked bricks
• Residential districts, cemetery
• Provision of public utility and services – high level of social
coordination
• Between citadel and town
– Barrack-like women’s quarters
– Circular brick floors on which grain was pounded

– Decline
• Rise in water table, deforestation, soil erosion, invasion

– General outline and a bit of residential area survived

– Granary at Harappa
• Unusual – not on the citadel
• Between citadel and river – on
shallow brick podium 1m high
• Approached from north
• 12 granaries - 16mx6m
• Aligned in 2 separate rows
separated by a central passage

– Other buildings
• Assembly halls
– Rectangular
– 70m x 24m with open
courtyard 10m square
– Surrounded on 3 sides by
verandahs
– May have been official’s
residence
– Timber columns on brick
base/plinth
– Fine brickwork on the floor
• Garrison
• Official’s residences
– Residential area
• Rectangular blocks
• Oriented north-south
• Subdivided by lanes
• Main street about 14m wide
• Central N-S street flanked by open
drain
• Single storey flat roof
• Fired brick
• Arranged around courtyards onto
which household rooms opened
• Dwellings varied in size
– From one-room to 12-room dwelling
arranged around many courtyards
– Almost all houses has private wells
and hearths
– Bathrooms
» Brick pavements
» Drains to shafts (within walls)
to sewers in main street
– Brick stairs giving access to first
floor or roof

• Temples or shrines
– Not clearly identified
– U-shaped building approached by
some gateway
– Opposite to temples is believed to
be priests’ college or police station
• Resources
– Rich in timber for building and fuel
– Kiln-fired bricks were standard building materials
– Suggested that building facades decorated with timber that may
not have survived
– No local building stone

• Building techniques and processes

– Kiln-fired bricks (also sun-dried bricks)
– Standard size 280x140x70
– Unbaked brick only as a platform upon which major buildings
were supported
– True arch unknown, only corbelled arch
– Mud plaster used as a finish
– Flat roofs constructed with timber (sq section members)
spanning up to 4 mts
– Granaries built of timber on brick podia
– Water supply and sewerage system
• Covered brick drains with neat inspection holes
• Public wells of fine bricks