Rajput Architecture

Rajput architecture is the building tradition associated with the forts and palaces of the Rajput rulers of northwestern India, whose territories spanned present day Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh as well as parts of what is now Pakistan. The tradition spans both religious and military building, including temples, forts, stepwells, gardens and palaces, and continued as a living practice into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, as the rulers of British India's princely states commissioned large palaces such as the Albert Hall Museum, Lalgarh Palace and Umaid Bhawan Palace, often blending Rajput forms with European styles in a practice that helped give rise to Indo-Saracenic architecture. Its finest surviving examples are the Hill Forts of Rajasthan, a group of six fortifications at Amer, Chittor, Gagron, Jaisalmer, Kumbhalgarh and Ranthambore built by various Rajput kingdoms across the medieval period and inscribed together as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, alongside other major forts such as Mehrangarh Fort and Jaigarh Fort. Mughal and, later, European architecture both shaped the indigenous Rajput style over the course of its long development.