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 gives you one of the clearest first impressions of Mughal ceremonial architecture here: a three-storey gateway faced in red sandstone, with semi-octagonal towers, two open octagonal pavilions, and a band of flame-shaped battlements running around the wall. Between the pavilions is a screen of miniature chhatris with seven miniature marble domes.

It stands on the western wall of the fort and takes its name from Lahore, because this was the route toward that city, now in present-day Pakistan. The secondary entrance is the Delhi Gate, but this is the one that matters most today. You can also see that the fort is approached through the covered street of Chhatta Chowk behind it, which makes the gate feel like the threshold to a larger ceremonial axis rather than just a doorway.

The gate was constructed under Shah Jahan as part of the new work at the Red Fort in the years 1639–1648. Shah Jahan’s chief architect, Ustad Ahmad Lahori, designed the fort’s gates in the ornate Shahjahani idiom. Later, Aurangzeb added the 10.5 high metre barbican in front of it, with the entrance facing north. That alteration changed the way the gateway is experienced, because the barbican now blocks a direct view of the gate from outside.

There is even a famous remark linked to that addition: Shah Jahan, while under house arrest, wrote to Aurangzeb and criticized the decision, saying, “You have made a fort a bride, and set a veil on it.” Whether you think of that as complaint or poetry, it captures the effect of the added screen.

What you see today is also shaped by modern security. In the 1980s, the tower windows were blocked as a security measure against sniper attacks, and a lift was added to the gate. Since Indian Independence Day in 1947, the national flag has been raised here and the Prime Minister has made a speech from the ramparts every year.

So as you stand here, look first at the sandstone skin, then up at the pavilions and chhatris, and finally across to the way the barbican controls your approach. This is not just an entrance; it is the point where the Red Fort is still publicly claimed.