Asafi Imambara, Lucknow

Bara Imambara, Lucknow

The Roof That Holds Up Nothing — and Everything

Fifty metres long, sixteen wide, fifteen high — and not one beam: the central vault of Lucknow's Bara Imambara is among the largest unsupported arched chambers in the world, raised in a famine to feed the starving. Architect and Nawab lie buried side by side in its hall, as equals in death as the workforce was in wages.

What Is Here

• The vault: interlocking-brick concrete shell; whisper from one end and be heard at the other — guides demonstrate
• Bhul Bhulaiya: the labyrinth — 489 identical doorways, balconies, and passages above the hall; go only with the ASI guide
• The side halls: Chinese (dragons), Persian (mirror-work), Indian (lotus dome) — Awadh's cosmopolitanism in three rooms
• Asafi mosque and step-well (bawli, the summer palace); Rumi Darwaza (18 m) at the approach
• The graves: Asaf-ud-Daula, his wife, and Kifayatullah the architect — patron, family, maker together

Visiting

• Old Lucknow; guides mandatory for the labyrinth (and worth it); Muharram season most alive, most crowded
• Pair with Chhota Imambara (Husainabad) and the Residency in one day