Mud and Light

Rajasthan, India · architecture

A traditional mud wall painted with a fan-shaped white motif, a deep-set window, and a string of low festival lights set into the lintel. Vernacular architecture at its most quietly accomplished.

Mud architecture in India's drylands is one of the oldest continuous building traditions in the world. The walls are thick and earthen, sometimes painted with mineral pigments, sometimes inlaid with small mirrors or carved into low relief. The technique varies by region — in Kutch it's all about mirror-work, in Rajasthan and parts of Madhya Pradesh the surfaces are smoothed and painted with simple white motifs — but the principle is the same: a building that cools itself, costs almost nothing to make, and lasts as long as it's maintained.

This wall belonged to a small village house. The fan-shaped motif beside the window is one I have seen all across Rajasthan — it is said to be a stylised sun, or sometimes a peacock's tail, depending on who you ask. The string of festival lights along the lintel was a more recent addition. The whole thing was lit by a single hanging bulb just out of frame, which gave the mud surface that warm amber tone. There is no architecture less ostentatious than this, and very little that does more with less.

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