The Walled city of Lahore, the historic city Centre, contains many buildings, bazaars, public spaces, and monuments of high cultural, architectural and historic value. Despite recent developments and over-commercialization of the area, it retains much of its intangible and tangible heritage including a high concentration of pre-colonial architecture.
Wazir Khan Mosque: The Wazir Khan Mosque is 17th century mosque located in the city of Lahore, capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab. The mosque was commissioned during the reign of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as part of an ensemble of buildings that also included the nearby Shahi Hammam baths.
Construction of Wazir Khan Mosque began in 1631 C.E., and was completed in 1635.Considered to be the most ornately decorated Mughal-era Mosque, Wazir Khan Mosque is renowned for its intricate faience tile work known as Kashi Kari, as well as its interior surfaces that are almost entirely embellished with elaborate Mughal-era frescoes.
The Shahi Hammam, also known as the Wazir Khan Hammam, is a Persian-style bath which was built in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1635 C.E. during the reign of Emperor Shah Jahan. It was built by chief physician to the Mughal Court, Ilam-ud-din Ansari, who was widely known as Wazir Khan. The baths were built to serve as a waqf, or endowment, for the maintenance of the Wazir Khan Mosque.
Golden Mosque (1753): In the hustle and bustle of the dazzling Kashmiri Bazaar one cannot ignore the majestic, glittering monument the Sunehri Masjid or the Golden Mosque standing on the masonry platform, about one story above street level. It is a small mosque but a remarkably handsome building, and combines perfect symmetry of form. The mosque has three gilded domes (golden domes) which are the key features and main focus point. They also make it unique inside the Walled City of Lahore.
Due to its gilded domes this mosque is named Sunehri or Golden Mosque. The inner prayer hall is decorated with pulsating fresco work and floral designs. On the north and south of the mosque, small white dome-lets are seen, which give a fine-looking border to the site. Four tall minarets add to the exquisiteness of this mosque.
Fakir Khana Museum “the largest antiques collection in south Asia” is the honor, predecessor and pride of the well-known Fakir Family whose vibrant history can be amazingly traced back hundreds of years. This Private family museum is basically inside an early 20th century house carrying a kaleidoscope of unimaginable pieces, from gems & stones, portraits & miniatures to original manuscripts of holy Quran and Relics of Islam, including the relics of the Holy Prophet.
It is a place full of history, memories and treasures. Every single artifact at Fakir Khana Museum has a story to tell. Entering the arches of the Fakir Khana Museum you truly get to know that not only this family is the proud bearer of the relics and the antiques collection but it’s also a part of an eventful history.
Nau Nihal Singh Haveli is inside the walled city of Lahore and is housed in a nineteenth century Sikh period haveli of Nau Nihal Singh, the son of Maharajah Ranjit Singh. The haveli is one of the few remaining royal residences from the Sikh period in Lahore. It is an intact structure of over forty rooms with most elements of its original ornamentation preserved on the two main elevations and the interior courtyard facades.
The most important and incidentally also the better-preserved feature of this haveli is the ‘rang-mahal’, a small picture gallery on the top floor. The ‘shish mahal’ or ‘rang-mahal’, is a typical feature of both Sikh and earlier Mughal architecture and consists usually of a highly ornamental room with embellishment in the form of frescoes, mosaics with mirror pieces inlaid in stucco, decorative ceilings with painted designs and beading patterns. The rooms were used for entertainment and relaxation and opened on to a view or the courtyard. While the rest of this valuable piece of architectural heritage has lost most of the interior surface ornament due to its heavy use as a school building for over a hundred years the room has been saved due to its location on the top floor and its fame as the haunted room was also a reasonable deterrent.
In the Mughal days, the Old City was surrounded by a 9-meter-high brick wall and had a rampart running around it which served as a protection for the city. A circular road around the rampart gave access to the city through thirteen gates. Some of the imposing structures of these gates are still preserved.
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