Taj Mahal vs Cologne Cathedral

Informations

The Taj Mahal (; lit. 'Crown of the Palace', [ta?d? ?m???(?)l]) is an ivory-white marble mausoleum on the southern bank of the river Yamuna in the Indian city of Agra. It was commissioned in 1632 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan (reigned from 1628 to 1658) to house the tomb of his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal; it also houses the tomb of Shah Jahan himself. The grave is the centrepiece of a 17-hectare (42-acre) complex, which includes a mosque and a guest house, and is set in formal gardens bounded on three sides by a crenellated wall. Building of the mausoleum was basically completed in 1643, but work continued on other stages of the job for the following 10 years. The Taj Mahal complex is believed to have been completed in its entirety in 1653 at a cost estimated at the time to be approximately 32 million rupees, which in 2020 will be approximately 70 billion rupees (about U.

S. $916 million). The construction project employed some 20,000 artisans under the guidance of a board of architects led by the court architect to the emperor, Ustad Ahmad Lahauri. The Taj Mahal was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983 for being'the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world's heritage'. It is viewed by many as the best example of Mughal architecture and a symbol of India's rich history. The Taj Mahal attracts 7--8 million visitors annually and in 2007, it had been announced a winner of the New 7 Wonders of the World (2000--2007) initiative.

Source: Wikipedia

Informations

<p>Cologne Cathedral (German: Kölner Dom, Formally Hohe Domkirche Sankt Petrus, English: Cathedral Church of Saint Peter) is a Catholic cathedral in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. </p>It is the seat of the Archbishop of Cologne and of the government of the Archdiocese of Cologne. It is a monument of architecture and German Catholicism and was declared a World Heritage Site in 1996. It is Germany's most visited landmark, bringing an average of 20,000 people every day. In 157 m (515 ft), the cathedral is now the tallest twin-spired church on earth, the 2nd largest church in Europe after Ulm Minster, and the third largest church in the world. It contains the second-tallest spires and is the largest Gothic church in Northern Europe. The cathedral is given the of any church in the world by the towers for both spires that are huge. The choir has the largest height to width ratio, 3.6:1, of any medieval church.Construction of Cologne Cathedral started in 1248 but was stopped in 1473, unfinished. Work did not restart until the 1840s, and the edifice was completed to its original plan in 1880. Cologne's medieval builders had planned a grand structure to house the reliquary of the 3 Kings and fit its function as a place of worship for the Holy Roman Emperor. Despite having been left incomplete during the medieval period, Cologne Cathedral eventually became unified as"a masterpiece of exceptional intrinsic value" and"a powerful testimony to the strength and persistence of Christian belief in medieval and modern Europe".

Source: Wikipedia