Discuss the architectural features of the monuments of Agra.

Materials and plans

• Akbar’s Agra Fort and the Sikandra tomb use carved red sandstone, trabeate halls, brackets, and chhatris; Shah Jahan later set white marble palaces inside the same Fort, so one precinct shows two Mughal phases.
• Persian charbagh—four-fold water gardens—organises the Taj and other river tombs; the Yamuna terrace itself is a design face, not a back wall.
• Islamic religious grammar supplies the pointed arch, pishtaq, bulbous double dome, minarets, and Quranic calligraphy bands.

Ornament and structure

• Pietra dura (parchin kari) hard-stone inlay on marble is the signature surface of the Taj and, earlier, of Itimad-ud-Daulah’s “Baby Taj.”
• Jali screens, lotus finials, and inlaid floral panels are Indian workshop habits sitting on Timurid-Persian plans.
• Double dome, high drum, and four free-standing minarets at the Taj solve both skyline and structural thrust; the Fort’s walls and Delhi/Amar Singh gates solve defence plus ceremony.

Ensemble

• Chini-ka-Rauza, Mehtab Bagh, and the Jama Masjid of Agra repeat river-axis, garden, and mosque types around the two UNESCO cores (Fort and Taj).
• Fatehpur Sikri, though a short ride away, shares the same red-sandstone court vocabulary—Buland Darwaza, jali, and trabeate palaces—that trained the Agra masons.