Interestingly, its that once the Taj was completed, Shah Jahan had its designer blinded so he could never again produce something so beautiful. They tell the exact same story about the designer of St. Basil’s cathedral in Moscow. That makes it doubly likely to be true, right? from “Cloning the Taj Mahal,” NYTimes.com Ideas blog, 12 December, 2008
Architecture | Can you copyright an iconic building? That’s the issue raised by an expensively marbled clone of India’s Taj Majal built in Bangladesh by a wealthy filmmaker, who says he built it for Bangladeshis too poor to travel to see the real thing. Indian official: “You can’t just go out and copy historical monuments.” Bangladeshi: “Show me where it says that emulating a building like this can be illegal.” [Times of London]