Taj National Park, Agra, India

Department of Landscape Architecture
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Vincent J. Bellafiore, Head
217-333-0176, vbellafi@uiuc.edu

In January 2000, five faculty and seven students from the University of Illinois visited Agra to conduct extensive site analyses and preliminary planning for a master plan for the Taj
National Park, centered on the Taj Mahal and extensive areas of riverfront and agricultural land adjoining the Taj Mahal. The site includes both banks of the Yamuna River, the
Agra Fort, and extensive Mughal gardens dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that have been located and in many cases preserved on the banks of the Yamuna.

Work is in progress and will be completed during the summer 2000.

A walk beside the Yamuna River

The theme for the emerging master-plan is based on the idea of a series of views of the Taj, or of historic or contemporary India framing the Taj, that together constitute a nested set of tourist opportunities geared to short- and long-stay, international and domestic visitors.

Image Library:

January Workshop images

Photo-CD Images

Taj Mahal and environs - I

Taj Mahal and environs - II

Taj Mahal and environs - III

Context images, 1988 and 1990 Sarnath Project