Lahori Gate, Red Fort, Delhi

The story of Lahori Gate, Red Fort, Delhi

The Lahori Gate is the main entrance to the Red Fort in Old Delhi, and it announces that role immediately: this is the western gate, the one that faced toward Lahore. You are standing at the point where the fort is approached through Chhatta Chowk, a covered street with arcaded apartments, so the entrance is not just a doorway but the start of a ceremonial passage.

The gate was built as part of Shah Jahan’s work on the Red Fort, in the years 1639–1648. Its name comes from Lahore, the city it led toward. A later addition changed its appearance and its reach: Aurangzeb provided a 10.5 high metre barbican in front of it, with the entrance to the north. The result is that the gate you see today is not only a fort entrance but also a layered Mughal threshold, shaped first by Shah Jahan and then by Aurangzeb.

Look closely at the structure itself. It rises in three stories, and each level is decorated with square, rectangular and cusped arched panels. On either side are semi-octagonal towers, and on top of them sit two open octagonal pavilions. The gate is faced almost entirely in red sandstone, while the pavilion roofs use white stone. Between the two pavilions is a screen of miniature chhatris with seven miniature marble domes, and around the wall run flame-shaped battlements. Those are the details to catch while you are here, because they tell you how much of the effect comes from surface, outline and repetition rather than from carving alone.

There is also a line of memory attached to the gate. Shah Jahan, while under house arrest, wrote to Aurangzeb and criticized the barbican, saying: "You have made a fort a bride, and set a veil on it." Since Indian Independence Day in 1947, the national flag has been raised here and the Prime Minister has made a speech from the ramparts at the gate. In the 1980s, the security of the area was increased by blocking the tower windows as a security measure against sniper attacks, and a lift was added to the gate.

If you want the clearest view of what matters architecturally, stay with the outer face and the pavilions above it. This is the threshold the fort makes you cross, and it still carries the weight of state ceremony.