Ebba Koch is an Austrian

art Art is a diverse range of cultural activity centered around ''works'' utilizing creative or imaginative talents, which are expected to evoke a worthwhile experience, generally through an expression of emotional power, conceptual ideas, tec ...

and

architectural historian An architectural historian is a person who studies and writes about the history of architecture, and is regarded as an authority on it. Professional requirements As many architectural historians are employed at universities and other facilities ...

, who defines and discusses cultural issues of interest to political, social and economic historians. Presently she is a professor at the Institute of Art History in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

and a senior researcher at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. She completed her doctorate in philosophy and her

Habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...

Vienna University The University of Vienna (, ) is a public university, public research university in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV in 1365, it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and among the largest ...

. Koch has spent much of her professional life studying the architecture, art, and culture of the

Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an Early modern period, early modern empire in South Asia. At its peak, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus River Basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to ...

, and is considered the leading authority on

Mughal architecture Mughal architecture is the style of architecture developed in the Mughal Empire in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries throughout the ever-changing extent of their empire in the Indian subcontinent. It developed from the architectural styles of ea ...

. In 2001 she became the architectural advisor to the

Taj Mahal The Taj Mahal ( ; ; ) is an ivory-white marble mausoleum on the right bank of the river Yamuna in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India. It was commissioned in 1631 by the fifth Mughal Empire, Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan () to house the tomb of his belo ...

Conservation Collaborative.

Professional life

Early Modern India

Koch's work has made considerable contributions to the historical understanding of early modern India. In collaboration with the Indian architect Richard A. Barraud she conducted major surveys of the palaces and gardens of

Shah Jahan Shah Jahan I, (Shahab-ud-Din Muhammad Khurram; 5 January 1592 – 22 January 1666), also called Shah Jahan the Magnificent, was the Emperor of Hindustan from 1628 until his deposition in 1658. As the fifth Mughal emperor, his reign marked the ...

, reconstructed the Mughal city of

Agra Agra ( ) is a city on the banks of the Yamuna river in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, about south-east of the national capital Delhi and 330 km west of the state capital Lucknow. With a population of roughly 1.6 million, Agra is the ...

, and produced the first, comprehensive documentation of the

. Through this work, Koch has developed one of the largest archives of photographs and measured drawings of the

Islamic architecture Islamic architecture comprises the architectural styles of buildings associated with Islam. It encompasses both Secularity, secular and religious styles from the early history of Islam to the present day. The Muslim world, Islamic world encompasse ...

of the Indian subcontinent. She has also contributed to recording

Mughal painting Mughal painting is a South Asian style of painting on paper made in to miniatures either as book illustrations or as single works to be kept in albums (muraqqa), originating from the territory of the Mughal Empire in the Indian subcontinent. It ...

and

applied art The applied arts are all the arts that apply design and decoration to everyday and essentially practical objects in order to make them aesthetically pleasing."Applied art" in ''The Oxford Dictionary of Art''. Online edition. Oxford Univ ...

s, the artistic connections between

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

and

Mughal India The Mughal Empire was an early modern empire in South Asia. At its peak, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus River Basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to the highlands of pre ...

, and imperial symbolism.

Methodology

Koch supports establishing art as an historical source, believing that an integrative approach can provide the key to the political and ideological concepts of the historical period being studied. Architecture and art emerge as a means of communication, through a

topos In mathematics, a topos (, ; plural topoi or , or toposes) is a category that behaves like the category of sheaves of sets on a topological space (or more generally, on a site). Topoi behave much like the category of sets and possess a notio ...

symbol A symbol is a mark, Sign (semiotics), sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, physical object, object, or wikt:relationship, relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by cr ...

s, and like language and

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

, they represent vital clues in the study of cultural and political history. In her work with the Mughal Empire, informed by written sources, she utilises the art historian’s technique of

formal analysis In art history, formalism is the study of art by analyzing and comparing form and Style (visual arts), style. Its discussion also includes the way objects are made and their purely visual or material aspects. In painting, formalism emphasizes compo ...

: utilising elements of the aesthetics of art, architectural form, building type, garden and urban design to form an understanding of the period. This approach has uncovered aspects of Mughal culture which were never recorded, but expressed only in architecture and the arts.

Honours

Research grants for major surveys of Mughal architecture in the Indian Subcontinent: * 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. * 2005–2009 Austrian delegate to the Management Committee of the

COST Cost is the value of money that has been used up to produce something or deliver a service, and hence is not available for use anymore. In business, the cost may be one of acquisition, in which case the amount of money expended to acquire it i ...

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". * 2008: Visiting Professor, Khalili Centre, Faculty of Oriental Studies, Oxford University * 2008–09: Visiting Professor (fall term), Department of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University * 2009-2012
FWF Austrian Science Funds, project "Mughal palaces"
ref>

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 ''

Encyclopedia of Islam The ''Encyclopaedia of Islam'' (''EI'') is a reference work that facilitates the academic study of Islam. It is published by Brill and provides information on various aspects of Islam and the Islamic world. It is considered to be the standard ...

''.

Notes

External links

Ebba Kochs Homepage at University of Vienna

Diwan-i 'Amm and Chihil Sutun: The Audience Halls of Shah Jahan.

Mughal Palace Gardens from Babur to Shah Jahan

The Mughal Waterfront Garden

The Zahara Bagh (Bagh-i-Jahanara) at Agra

Diwan-i 'Amm and Chihil Sutun: The Audience Halls of Shah Jahan

Virtuelles Museum Islamischer Kunst

'The Man Of Marble' – Outlook India

derStandard Review of 'The Complete Taj Mahal'

* ttp://homepage.univie.ac.at/ebba.koch/articles/SundayTribune.pdf The Sunday Tribune 'Design Devine'
The Hindu Review 'Ethereal beauty'
* Ebba Koch (January 1, 2007)
''The Complete Taj Mahal'' 'Paradisiacal House of the Queen'
(book review), ''

The Architectural Review ''The Architectural Review'' is a monthly international architectural magazine. It has been published in London since 1896. Its articles cover the built environment – which includes landscape, building design, interior design and urbanism � ...

'', via

Encyclopedia.com ''Encyclopedia.com'' is an online encyclopedia. It aggregates information, images, and videos from other published dictionaries, encyclopedias, and reference works. History The website was launched by Infonautics in March 1998. Infonautics w ...

The Times Higher Education Supplement 'Memories are made of this'

The New York Review of Books 'The Most Magnificent Muslims' November 22, 2007.

AKPIA newsletter 2008-09

Jaipur Literature Festival 2012 with Video of Taj Mahal Session

ORF Religionen der Welt "Auf den Spuren des Islam – in Geschichte und Architektur der Wiener Karlskirche." mit Prof. Dr. Ebba Koch
{{DEFAULTSORT:Koch, Ebba Austrian art historians Harvard University staff Austrian architectural historians Historians of Indian art Historians of Islamic art Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Austrian women art historians