Emperor Shah Jahan himself described the Taj in these words:

Should guilty seek asylum here,
Like one pardoned, he becomes free from sin.
Should a sinner make his way to this mansion,
All his past sins are to be washed away.
The sight of this mansion creates sorrowing sighs;
And the sun and the moon shed tears from their eyes.
In this world this edifice has been made;
To display thereby the creator’s glory.

 Architecture’s relationship to the wider world it serves continually evolves but always there is at its core an unchanging belief that the act of building is in and of itself a great and ennobling undertaking.

At Mintchy House we continue to believe in architecture as the most palpable of all the arts and the most public, the art of the here and now, the art of making and preserving fixed places that are the settings for the interaction of people and ideas over time.  We hold the act of building paramount: the logical manipulation of environmental closure in the service of particular functions and symbolic purposes. This is our overwhelming preoccupation; this is the quintessence of architecture as an art and as a profession.

To succeed at his or her art, the architect has to be a thinker and a maker, empowered by knowledge and a certain sense of humility.

Architecture constantly makes and remakes our world. There are many ways of making architecture with many more no doubt to come the human capacity for imaginative invention is limitless but at the core there are certain standards that always define quality. To thrive as art, architecture must take risks; but risks need not get in the way of quotidian necessity.

Architecture is construction, context and so much more: for those who chose to be architects, it is a culture, a commitment and a life long path to discovery.