Ebba Koch

Ebba Koch is an architectural historian, an art historian, and a political historian; presently she is a professor at the Institute of Art History in Vienna, Austria.

She completed her doctorate in philosophy and her Habilitation from Vienna University.

Since 2001 she has been the architectural advisor to the Taj Mahal Conservation Collaborative. 2005-2009 Austrian delegate to the Management Committee of the COST Action A36 of the European Commission, "Network of Comparative Empires : Tributary Empires Compared : Romans, Mughals and Ottomans in the Pre-Industrial World from Antiquity till the Transition to Modernity".

Ebba Koch has made an outstanding contribution to the understanding of early modern India, particularly the architecture, art, and culture of the Mughal Empire. She is widely considered to be the leading authority on Mughal architecture. With the collaboration of the Indian architect Richard A. Barraud, she has conducted majour surveys of the palaces and gardens of Shah Jahan, reconstructed the Mughal city of Agra, and prepared the first full documentation of the Taj Mahal. In this way she built one of the largest archives of photographs and measured drawings of the Islamic architecture of the Indian subcontinent. She has also made important contributions to Mughal painting and applied arts, the artistic connections between Europe and Mughal India, and imperial symbolism.

"Methodology": Ebba Koch's special concern is to establish art as a historical source. She uses an integrative method; informed by the written sources she turns to art history’s own technique, formal analysis, to show how the aesthetics of an art work, an architectural form, a building type, a garden form or an urban design can provide the key to the political and ideological concepts of the Mughals. This approach leads to the discovery of important aspects of Mughal culture because the Mughals did not put down all their concerns in writing, and many of their ideas and concepts were only expressed in architecture and the arts. Architecture and art, like language, emerge as communication through a topos of symbols, and like literature, they represent themselves vital for the study of cultural and political history, to understand how the Mughal emperors communicated with their court and subjects.

"Honours:"

Research grants for majour surveys of Mughal architecture in the Indian Subcontinent sponsored by the Jubiläumsfonds der Österreichischen Nationalbank: 1982, 1994, 1997, 1999; Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung: 1982, 1984, 1987, 1989; des Bundesministeriums für Wissenschaft und Forschung: 1992; des Bundesministeriums für Unterricht und kulturelle Angelegenheiten: 1997.

1998: Hagop Kevorkian Lectureship in Near Eastern Art and Civilization, New York University.

1998: Distinguished Visiting Professor of the Department of Arabic Studies of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the American University in Cairo.

2002: Fellowship of the Aga Khan Program for the Study of Islamic Architecture at Harvard University.

2008: Visiting Professor, Khalili Centre, Faculty of Oriental Studies, Oxford University

2008: Visiting Professor (fall term), Department of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University

Selected Publications

"Shah Jahan and Orpheus: The Pietre Dure Decoration and the Programme of the Throne in the Hall of Public Audiences at the Red Fort of Delhi", Graz, Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1988

"Dara Shikoh Shooting Nilgai: Hunt and Landscape in Mughal Painting.", Freer Occasional Paper, New Series 1. Washington D. C.: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. 1998.

"Mughal Architecture: An Outline if Its History and Development", München: Prestel, 1991; 2nd ed. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002.

with Milo C. Beach and Wheeler Thackston, "King of the World: The Padshahnama, an Imperial Mughal Manuscript from the Royal Library, Windsor Castle", London: Azimuth Editions und Washington DC: Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution 1997

"Mughal Art and Imperial Ideology", New Delhi: Oxford University Press 2001.

"The Complete Taj Mahal and the Riverfront Gardens of Agra", London: Thames and Hudson 2006.

Prof. Koch has published numerous papers in journals and collectaneous volumes on Indian and Islamic architecture and painting and she has contributed several articles to the new edition of the Encyclopedia of Islam.

External links

* [http://kunstgeschichte.univie.ac.at/index.php?id=ifk-koch Ebba Kochs Homepage at University of Vienna]
* [http://www.archnet.org/library/documents/one-document.tcl?document_id=3696 Diwan-i 'Amm and Chihil Sutun: The Audience Halls of Shah Jahan.]
* [http://www.archnet.org/library/documents/one-document.tcl?document_id=8975 Mughal Palace Gardens from Babur to Shah Jahan,]
* [http://www.archnet.org/library/documents/one-document.tcl?document_id=3848 The Mughal Waterfront Garden]
* [http://www.archnet.org/library/documents/one-document.tcl?document_id=4884 The Zahara Bagh (Bagh-i-Jahanara) at Agra]
* [http://www.archnet.org/library/documents/one-document.tcl?document_id=3696 Diwan-i 'Amm and Chihil Sutun: The Audience Halls of Shah Jahan]
* [http://www.museumislamischerkunst.net Virtuelles Museum Islamischer Kunst]
* [http://homepage.univie.ac.at/ebba.koch/articles/outlook_india.pdf 'The Man Of Marble' - Outlook India]
* [http://homepage.univie.ac.at/ebba.koch/articles/derStandard.pdf derStandard Review of 'The Complete Taj Mahal']
* [http://www.indiaenews.com/art-culture/20061203/30997.htm India eNews.com 'Love is fine, but Taj a monument of power as well']
* [http://homepage.univie.ac.at/ebba.koch/articles/SundayTribune.pdf The Sunday Tribune 'Design Devine']
* [http://homepage.univie.ac.at/ebba.koch/articles/thehindu.pdf The Hindu Review 'Ethereal beauty']
* [http://homepage.univie.ac.at/ebba.koch/articles/HighBeam.pdf HighBeam Encyclopedia The Complete Taj Mahal Review 'Paradisiacal House of the Queen']
* [http://homepage.univie.ac.at/ebba.koch/articles/timesedu.pdf The Times Higher Education Supplement 'Memories are made of this']
* [https://www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=20817 The New York Review of Books 'The Most Magnificent Muslims' November 22,2007.]