This tomb for President Ahmed, is situated in the garden of a small old mosque next to Parliament House. Here too the design had to be sensitive to the existing building. In this case the concept of the open linear forms — almost like a line drawing in space — an ongoing experiment with Rahman, was carried to its fruition. First sketched and then conceived in cardboard cutout models, the proportions of this tomb and its jalis were finally refined in a full scale plywood mockup. To achieve the thin frame members in marble, an unusual engineering solution was devised. All the structural elements are made in thin steel around which were clamped two C sections of carved marble, fixed by internal pins.

This is the newest of Delhi’s ‘open to sky’ tombs with marble screens, that include those of Jahanara and Emperor Mohammed Shah ‘Rangila’ in the Nizamuddin Dargah and the tomb of Ghaziuddin outside Ajmere gate.

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