From the Inside Flap:
Departing from the conventional path of describing and explaining the architecture of Fatehpur Sikri, Prof. Jaimini Mehta delves into a series of representations the Mughal city has been subjected to and concludes that there is an inexorable tension at its core embodied in the constantly shifting axes, complex rhythms, raising or lowering of the ground planes, juxtapositions of mythical symbols and the conflicting pulls of traditions and human will. The space of Fatehpur Sikri is revealed to us through perception more than through geometry.
Prof. Mehta's unconventional interpretation of the architecture of Fatehpur Sikri emanates from his exploration of the history of architectural representation and leads him to conclude that the tools of designing, representation and analysis, i.e. various kinds of drawings, which we normally use today, did not exist in sixteenth century India when Fatehpur Sikri was built. These drawings, which assume our "mind's eye" hovering above the city and taking in the whole of reality at once, have failed to represent the existential lived experience of inhabitation of architecture. An interpretation of architecture, based on the embodied vision of the retina, together with all the other perceptual faculties of the entire body of the observer, moving through space on two feet, opens up qualities inherent to the essence of architecture as a thoughtful system of ordering mass and space through a visual continuum; aided by the temporal, experiential engagement of the owner of that vision - the spectator, us, each one of us. This generates a narrative, or, more precisely, a thousand narratives, where each one validates architecture.