Indian Architecture: Temples, Stepwells and Modernism

India has one of the longest continuous building traditions in the world, and one of the most varied. Within a single subcontinent you find temples carved from living rock, stepwells descending many storeys into the ground, Mughal tombs in marble and sandstone, and some of the twentieth century’s most important modernist buildings. Indian architecture is less a single style than a set of overlapping traditions shaped by religion, climate, materials and patronage.

This article follows the main threads — the Hindu temple, rock-cut architecture, stepwells, Islamic and Mughal building, the colonial Indo-Saracenic style and Indian modernism — and ends with where the influence can be seen in Singapore.

The Hindu temple: Nagara and Dravida

The Hindu temple is conceived as a dwelling for a deity and a model of the cosmos. At its heart is the garbhagriha, the “womb chamber”, a small, dark sanctuary housing the image of the deity. Above it rises a tower, and in front of it one or more halls, mandapas, prepare the worshipper for the approach. Temple design was governed by traditional texts on building and proportion, often referred to collectively as the vastu shastra and shilpa shastra literature.

Two broad regional families are usually distinguished. In the north, the Nagara style crowns the sanctuary with a curvilinear tower, the shikhara, rising like a mountain peak. In the south, the Dravida style uses a stepped, pyramidal tower over the sanctuary, the vimana, and, in later centuries, enormous gateway towers called gopurams that came to dominate temple complexes. A third, hybrid type is often identified in the Deccan between them.

Structurally, most temples are built of stone using corbelling and post-and-lintel construction rather than true arches. Corbelling — each course of stone projecting slightly beyond the one below — allows towers and ceilings to close over a space while keeping all the masonry in compression, a principle shared with many early domes and vaults.

Rock-cut architecture

India has a remarkable tradition of architecture made by subtraction rather than construction. Buddhist, Hindu and Jain monuments were carved directly into cliffs, from early Buddhist prayer halls with ribbed ceilings imitating timber to complete temples.

The most extraordinary is the Kailasa Temple at Ellora in Maharashtra, generally attributed to the eighth-century Rashtrakuta king Krishna I, although some scholars think work continued over a longer period. It is a full temple complex — sanctuary, halls, gateway, courtyards and free-standing columns — carved down from the top of a single rock mass. Nothing was assembled; everything that is not temple was removed. From an engineering standpoint it is a lesson in planning: every opening and span had to be right first time, because there was no way to add material back.

Stepwells: architecture of water

In the dry regions of western India, especially Gujarat and Rajasthan, communities built stepwells: deep excavations lined with stone, with flights of steps and colonnaded landings descending to the water table. They stored water through the dry season, offered cool shade and were places of social and religious life.

Rani ki Vav at Patan in Gujarat, built in the eleventh century and traditionally associated with Queen Udayamati, descends through seven levels of stairs and pavilions richly carved with sculpture. It was buried by silt for centuries, restored by the Archaeological Survey of India, and inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2014. Structurally, stepwells are retaining structures: their walls and columned galleries resist the pressure of the surrounding soil, a problem every engineer designing a basement still faces.

Islamic and Mughal architecture

From the late twelfth century, Islamic dynasties brought the true arch, the dome, the minaret and geometric ornament to the subcontinent, combining them with local stone-carving skills. The Mughal emperors, from the sixteenth century onwards, developed this into a refined imperial style: red sandstone and white marble, bulbous double domes, axial gardens divided into four parts, and inlaid stonework.

Humayun’s Tomb in Delhi set the model of a garden tomb on a raised platform, and the Taj Mahal in Agra, built in the seventeenth century for Shah Jahan, brought it to its most celebrated form. The symmetry, the relation of the tomb to its gardens and the careful control of proportion make it one of the most studied buildings in the world. Our article on Islamic architecture covers the wider tradition the Mughals drew on.

Indo-Saracenic: the colonial synthesis

In the late nineteenth century, British architects in India developed what became known as the Indo-Saracenic style: modern buildings — railway stations, courts, universities, museums and government offices — wrapped in domes, chhatris (domed pavilions), pointed arches and jali screens drawn from Mughal and other Indian sources. Behind the ornament, many used contemporary structural methods.

The style travelled with British administration. In Kuala Lumpur, the Sultan Abdul Samad Building, opened in 1897 as government offices, is the best-known Malayan example. In Singapore, the Sultan Mosque, designed by Denis Santry of Swan & Maclaren and completed in 1932, uses an Indo-Saracenic vocabulary of onion domes and arched openings.

Indian modernism

After independence in 1947, India became a laboratory for modern architecture. Le Corbusier planned the new Punjab capital at Chandigarh in the 1950s, including the Capitol Complex, now part of a UNESCO World Heritage listing of his work. Louis Kahn designed the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad in massive brick. Indian architects then developed a modernism of their own: Charles Correa’s climatic planning, and Balkrishna Doshi, who worked with Le Corbusier and in 2018 became the first Indian architect to receive the Pritzker Prize.

What links their work to earlier Indian architecture is climate. Deep shade, courtyards, verandahs, thick walls and controlled openings recur from stepwells to modern campuses, and they remain relevant to tropical architecture in Singapore.

Indian architecture in Singapore

The Sri Mariamman Temple on South Bridge Road is Singapore’s oldest Hindu temple. It was founded in 1827 by Naraina Pillai as a simple timber and attap structure, rebuilt in brick in the 1840s and enlarged over the following century. Its tiered gopuram, crowded with sculpted figures, follows the South Indian Dravida tradition, and the temple was gazetted as a national monument in 1973. For a broader map of how these traditions relate, see architectural styles and principles.

Frequently asked questions

What are the main styles of Indian architecture?

The main traditions are the Hindu temple styles, Nagara in the north and Dravida in the south; rock-cut Buddhist, Hindu and Jain monuments; Islamic and Mughal architecture; the colonial Indo-Saracenic style; and post-independence Indian modernism.

What is the difference between Nagara and Dravida temples?

Nagara temples, typical of northern India, have a curvilinear tower called a shikhara over the sanctuary. Dravida temples, typical of southern India, have a stepped pyramidal tower called a vimana and, in later examples, large gateway towers called gopurams.

What is a stepwell?

A stepwell is a deep, stone-lined well reached by flights of steps and landings that descend to the water table. Found mainly in western India, stepwells stored water through dry seasons and served as cool, shaded social spaces; Rani ki Vav in Gujarat is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

What is Indo-Saracenic architecture?

Indo-Saracenic is a late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century style developed by British architects in India, combining Mughal and other Indian elements such as domes, chhatris and pointed arches with Western building types and construction. The Sultan Abdul Samad Building in Kuala Lumpur is a well-known regional example.

What is the oldest Hindu temple in Singapore?

The Sri Mariamman Temple on South Bridge Road, founded in 1827, is Singapore’s oldest Hindu temple. It is built in the South Indian Dravida style with a tiered, sculpted gopuram and is a gazetted national monument.

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