Karnataka: Architecture: Gol Gumbaz

by Guest Thu Jun 13, 2013 3:00 pm

Many consider Gol Gumbaz as the second largest domed structure after St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. This was built as a tomb for Muhammad Adil Shah II in the 17th century. A hemispherical dome with an external diameter of 44m covers the tomb. Eight intersecting arches contained in a massive cube of a building support this huge dome. Within this dome structure, the sound travels in a peculiar whispering way and entertains a large number of visitors.

http://www.hindu.com/yw/2007/05/25/stories/2007052550460200.htm

by Guest Wed Jun 19, 2013 1:12 pm

But it was Ibrahim Adil Shah’s son and successor, Mohammad Adil Shah, who gave Bijapur its greatest marvel the Golgumbaz. It was to be his mausoleum, and it took 20 years to build. Completed in 1659, it houses the tombs of the king, his two wives and one mistress, a daughter and a grandson. Over 150 ft high, this immense square structure is capped by a vast dome that is the world’s second largest, its 38 metre (about 110 ft) diameter exceeded only by that of the Vatican’s St Peter’s Basilica. Octagonal seven-storey towers stand attached to the four corners of the building, and it’s through the steep spiralling staircase of one of these that you reach the terrace from which the famed Whispering Gallery inside the mausoleum can be accessed.

The Whispering Gallery, 90 ft above ground, runs around the base of the dome; it is so called because even a whisper murmured here can be picked up and echoed some ten times over by the hemispherical dome. But to test that, you need to be here by 6 a m when there is no one around. By mid-morning, the gallery turns into a Tower of Babel as scores of visiting children (and even adults) scream, squeal and shriek to revel in the cacophony of ricocheting reverberations.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2002/20020324/spectrum/heritage.htm

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Karnataka: Architecture: Gol Gumbaz

Karnataka: Architecture: Gol Gumbaz

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