The beginnings

Architecture is the art and the skill of designing and putting up buildings. A good building has to work well and also look good.

So the chapter says architecture is "not only an art but also a highly technical field". You need an eye for beauty, and you need to know how to make a wall stand.

India has been good at this for thousands of years. Building styles changed over time, and they are very different from one region to another.

Our story starts at the very beginning, with the Harappans. Theirs is the earliest known tradition of town planning and building in the subcontinent.

What made Harappan building special? Three things:

• carefully laid-out cities;
• the same town plan used again and again (standardised);
• great care for drains, water and running the city.

Notice what is missing from that list: no grand palaces, no giant temples. Look at a Harappan city plan and it looks a little like a modern gated colony, with neat streets and drains. Their big success was planning for everyone.

Most Harappan cities were built of brick. Why? They stood on alluvial plains, land laid down by rivers, where clay is everywhere. Clay is what bricks are made from.

Mohenjo-daro had wide streets and narrow lanes running roughly north–south and east–west (the cardinal directions).

Almost every home had a bathing area. Used water ran out of the house into a network of drains.

In one large house, the servants probably lived downstairs, and the owners lived upstairs, away from the dust and noise of the street.

Dholavira, in the Rann of Kachchh in Gujarat, is different. It used a lot of stone, because stone was found nearby. Builders used what the land around them gave.

At Dholavira's Castle entrance you can still see:

• smooth, finely finished stone blocks;
• a large sentinel room, where guards checked people coming in or going out;
• two highly polished pieces of a stone pillar.