Qutb complex
— — red sandstone holding seven centuries of weather.
Not only on a wall.
“The complex sits at the southern edge of old Mehrauli, around a tower of red and buff sandstone that has stood since the end of the twelfth century. The minaret tapers seventy-two metres into the sky, ringed by inscriptions in Arabic and Nagari. Inside its walls: a mosque built from older temple columns, an iron pillar that has refused to rust for sixteen centuries, an unfinished second tower.
Qutb complex, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Qutb complex stands in Mehrauli in south Delhi and was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1993. Its centrepiece, the Qutb Minar, was begun in 1199 by Qutb al-Din Aibak, founder of the Delhi Sultanate, and completed in stages by his successors Iltutmish and Firuz Shah Tughluq. The minaret rises 72.5 metres in five tapering storeys of red and buff sandstone, with white marble added in the upper levels. Around it stand the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque, the tomb of Iltutmish, the unfinished Alai Minar, and the Alai Darwaza gateway of 1311.
The minaret is built from the red and buff sandstone of the Aravalli range west of Delhi, banded with white marble in the upper storeys added by Firuz Shah after a lightning strike in 1368. Each storey carries deeply cut inscriptions, fluting that alternates round and angular by level, and balconies set on muqarnas brackets. At the foot of the tower, the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque was assembled in the 1190s from the columns of twenty-seven earlier Hindu and Jain temples on the site, their carved figures still visible at the bases of the prayer-hall pillars.
The complex opens daily from sunrise to sunset, with last entry around six in the evening. The entrance lies off Aurobindo Marg in Mehrauli, and the Qutub Minar station on the Yellow Line of the Delhi Metro is roughly a kilometre north. Tickets are sold at the gate and through the ASI online portal, with a higher rate for foreign visitors. The tower itself has been closed to interior climbing since a stairwell incident in 1981. Morning light favours the eastern face; the Iron Pillar in the mosque courtyard catches the sun fully by ten.