Wow Place #295: Amer Fort, Jaipur India
I was talking with a friend in Japan, Mie, the other day about air conditioning. When I mentioned that my home in California doesn’t have any, she was shocked. “How can you live without AC?” I assured her that in our area, unlike in Japan, it doesn’t get that hot or that cold; we mostly manage our temperature by increasing or decreasing our layers of clothing, depending on the season. Mie thought this was the strangest thing ever.
It turns out that air conditioning wasn’t even a thing until the 1960s and 1970s, when post WWII technological advancements made it cheaper and more compact. (Of course these days, thanks to climate change, the rising summer temperatures are making AC even more necessary!) Adjusting the temperature of your home is nothing new, however. In the pre-industrial days, people just had to be more creative.
Take the Amer Fort in Jaipur, India for example. Built in 1592 as the main residence of the Rajput Maharajas, the building is a striking structure constructed of red sandstone and marble. A UNESCO World Heritage site, Amer Fort perches high on a hillside looking down on landscaped gardens and a pretty reflecting pond. It’s the principal tourist attraction in Jaipur, and well worth a visit!
What intrigues me the most about the fort is its ingenious, 500-year-old climate control system. For example, the “Pleasure Garden” is located in the center of a lake for use on exceptionally hot days. While inside, a resident could expect the staff to move screens and curtains to keep the rooms cool. One of the most fascinating air-cooling techniques are the apertures, some as small as 1 cm, designed to let air in. The air then gets filtered through an underground tunnel and over shaded water, cooling it naturally by the time it reaches the interior of the palace.
And this is all in the late 16th century!
Pretty cool, huh?
(When it comes to technology, I’m about the farthest thing from an “early adopter.” No Luddite, I’m surrounded by the usual array of screens and devices – but somehow I’m never one of the first people to buy something new. Although I admire innovation, I tend to say, “Let someone else try out that new gadget and tell me how they like it!” A good life seems to involve striking the right balance between tried-and-true habits and trying new things (outside of your comfort zone). We need both the static and the dynamic. We need to build up a solid base in our sand castle before expanding upwards with the towers and spires. In other words, we need both institutions and individuals, mortgage banks and performance artists. Robert Pirsig, the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, argues in his book, Lila, that the individual is slightly more valuable than the institution because the individual has the capacity for creativity and innovation. This resonates with me, but how about you? Are you Merrill Lynch or Bill Gates?)