Knowledge of Mughal architecture during Akbar, his thought and policy comes from the writings of Abu ul-Fazl. Emperor Akbar is universally acknowledged and distinguished as the greatest and most accomplished of the Mughal rulers ever to have laid footsteps in India. Under Akbar, the Mughal polity and statecraft had reached its climaxing maturity; and under his guidance the Mughals had also changed from a `petty power` to a breathtaking dynastic state. From his time to the culmination of the Mughal Era, artistic yield on both an imperial and sub-imperial level was closely associated with notions of state polity, religion and kingship. Akbar made umpteen contributions in the field of literature, art and architecture.

The architectural expertise of this great emperor can be witnessed from the several special palaces and monuments built by him during his entire regime. Mughal architecture during Akbar represents that unique blending of Persian architecture with the Indian style, yet not distinctly likeable to his Timurid ancestors, as was seen in Babur and Humayun. The famous architectural groundings that belongs to Akbar are the fortified-palace of Agra, Fatehpur Sikri in Agra, Jahangiri Mahal, Palace in Allahabad, Fort in Ajmer, Jodha Bai Palace, House of Birbal and his own magnificent tomb. The main feature of Mughal architecture during Akbar`s era was the exquisite usage of carved patterns, together with the inlaid patterns with painted designs on the interior walls and ceilings.

Mughal architecture during Akbar, as was just the case with every other Mughal or Islamic ruler previously, had begun with Delhi and its expansions. Indeed it has always been Delhi and its charming surroundings that the Mughals decided upon to establish as their base. Delhi, the traditional capital of north Indian Islamic rulers, thus had served as Akbar`s capital too until 1565, when he commenced his considerable plan of Agra Fort. This was followed by the construction of other forts in strategically important locations, signalling the diminishing importance of Delhi, until its significant revival in the mid-17th century. In 1583, Akbar erected a fort at Allahabad, situated east of Agra in the fertile Gangetic plain, a response to widespread insurrections throughout eastern India two years earlier. Beside these, there exists his most admired palace at Fatehpur Sikri, the most renowned of his capitals, although not a fortified one.

In Ajmer, two Akbari-reminiscent palaces remain, each constructed in stone. One is a trabeated structure, today acknowledged as the Badshahi Mahal. Better known than Badshahi Mahal is a small palace, today employed as a museum. There, a nine-bayed pillared pavilion is enclosed within a fortified appearing quadrangle. In the Lahore Fort, Akbar`s structures were replaced by subsequent rulers and in the Allahabad fort, today still used as a major military headquarters, only one of the Akbari structures remains well-preserved. This is also a bavarian (pillared pavilion) situated in the centre of a courtyard. The first floor of this three-storied pillared structure bears a large central chamber, encircled by eight auxiliary ones and an encompassing veranda. Mughal architectures during Akbar, bearing such design had been used earlier at the Fatehpur Sikri palace too and appear to have been specifically intended for imperial use.

Abu ul-Fazl relates that more than 500 stone buildings were constructed in the Agra Fort`s interior. While that number may have been hyperbolized, all the same, very-few buildings remain to be viewed. The fort was commenced in 1565 and completed in eight years, under the direction of Qasim Khan Mir Barr o Bahr. Agra Fort was intended to replace an older brick fort, hence Akbar directed Qasim Khan to construct a stone fortification that would possess unparalleled strength. The plan of the buttressed and crenellated walls, 11 meters high, roughly resembles a semicircle approximately 2.5 km in circumference. According to contemporary sources adhering to Mughal architecture during Akbar, it is known that, thousands of workers, many of them stone masons, were employed on the project. The red sandstone veneer, inlaid with white marble detail, lends an aura of majesty to the massive Delhi Gate, Agra Fort`s main entrance. The Fort`s entire exterior, constructed with finer materials and crafted more scrupulously than any other Indian fort, including Humayun`s Din-Panah, imparts an overwhelming sense of the patron`s power and the authentic sway of Akbar and his Mughal architecture. It was the role of architecture to impress, according to traditional Islamic views of statecraft - and here Akbar succeeded immeasurably. That was Akbar`s primary intention, as his biographer, Abu ul-Fazl, makes clear.

Within the Agra Fort, the so-referred Jahangiri Mahal, is the most notable remaining Mughal architecture of Akbar`s time. Overlooking the river, this palace (the Mahal in Urdu) was probably one of a series that originally lined the waterfront. Palaces closest to the water in later periods were reserved for the king and his chief queens. This is probably the case here too. However, the use of particular rooms and courtyards remains elusive to historians still and indeed spaces that could serve multiple functions appear to have been archetypal in a Mughal Akbar`s palace architecture.

In plan and elevation the exterior of this Jahangiri Mahal closely resembles the so-referred Jodha Bai`s palace at Fatehpur Sikri, or what remains of the small bastioned appearing enclosure at Akbar`s Ajmer palace. The principal fabric of the exterior is intricately carved red sandstone, trimmed with white marble. The heavily carved surfaces recall the Khilji-inspired Qila-i Kuhna mosque or pre-Mughal monuments from Kanauj and Bari. The primary entrance of the edifice opens onto a large central courtyard, flanked on its north and south sides by columned halls, whose red sandstone-bracketed supports are even more elaborate versions of the sort of brackets visible on the Qila-i Kuhna mosque. The interior walls, too, are ornately carved. Herein, Abu ul-Fazl comments of the aura of Akbar`s Mughal architecture that the red sandstone, tapped in the ridge of Fatehpur Sikri, hence known as Sikri sandstone, can be chiselled so skilfully that it is indeed superior to wood! Indeed, the brackets of the Jahangiri Mahal possess wooden paradigms, but they had appeared earlier in stone on Raja Man Singh Tomar`s Gwalior palace, built at the turn of the 16th century. Both the layout and many of the motifs used on this earlier palace, much admired by the Mughals, appear instrumental in the design of this Agra palace and others built under Akbar`s auspices, to take Mughal architecture to unprecedented heights.

This fortified-palace was the most admirable achievements of Akbar`s period. It displays a creativity and spontaneity denoting the beginning of a new era in the Mughal architecture. Typical of several Islamic palaces in Central Asia, the Jahangiri Mahal`s interior is symmetrically arranged around a central courtyard; a second courtyard on the east overlooks the river. A number of ancillary chambers and passages lead off from the central courtyard. Among these on the north is a large chamber with a flat roof supported by serpentine brackets. The source for such brackets is usually cited as Gujarat, especially Hindu or Jain architecture there. But such brackets long had been used in the Sultanate architecture of Gujarat and Bengal as well as at the Gwalior palace.

On the roof of this multi-stoned Jahangiri Mahal building is a small rectangular pavilion with a veranda on three of its sides, whose exquisitely carved brackets in the shape of peacocks earlier had appeared on the Gwalior palace. The attention to all stories, not just the ground floor, underlines the extraordinary excellence of this palace. It was one of the few Akbari buildings in this fort that Shah Jahan maintained to his likings. The design of a conventional representation of a bird is repeated in the borders of the palace. This pattern is introduced in the Mughal architecture of Akbar`s period for the first time, contrary to the Quranic objection to living forms appearing in Islamic art. All the architectures of the Akbari period are remarkable for their animation which reflects the spirit of their glorious time, as in the case of the monumental gateway at Agra Fort.

Aspects of this palace, especially the carved geometric patterns and even its trabeated form, may have been drawn from the Timurid tradition, yet another somewhat weakness that is also noticed in Mughal architecture under Akbar. However, Jahangiri Mahal`s overall appearance reflects the form of domestic architecture, both Hindu and Muslim, popular across north India prior to Akbar`s time. For example, trabeated structures, the most common type in all Akbari palaces, were utilised for the palaces of the sultans of Chanden. And residential structures in fifteenth and early sixteenth-century paintings executed for both Hindu and Muslim patrons across north India were portrayed as flat-roofed and not arcuated. While Akbar`s trabeated palaces may bear Timurid origins, contemporary writers recognised their form as Indian. For instance, Abu ul-Fazl indicates a pan-Indian secular basis for Akbar`s buildings in the Agra Fort. He remarks that the Fort was built in the "fine styles of Bengal and Gujarat," commonly taken to designate that Akbar had established his palaces on Hindu buildings from influence of Bengal and Gujarat. Akbar`s Mughal architecture, however, was not based on any specific sectarian form. While some features of Akbar`s buildings may have been Bengali in origin or unambiguously Gujarati, most of these motifs are though found widely. Therefore, Abu ul-Fazl`s statement may be had more on a figurative level than a literal one. That is, the architecture of Bengal and Gujarat under Akbar during Mughal architecture, was considered the most exquisite of the age. This can be very much reflected from Babur`s enthusiasm for the edifices of Chanderi, built in the Gujarati style and Humayun`s love for the palaces of Gujarat and Bengal. Thus, "the fine styles of Bengal and Gujarat" is possibly a metaphor for that which was deemed the ultimate in architectural perfection. Moreover, as Bengal and Gujarat at the time that Abu ul-Fazl was writing, essentially marked the eastern and western boundaries of the Indian subcontinent, he might have been alluding to styles that found favour throughout north India and symbolically were brought together with the construction of Akbar`s palace-fort in Agra, which he terms "the center of Hindustan."

Fort of Ajmer was another major example of Mughal architecture constructed by Emperor Akbar. Although a small structure it is immensely strong in form and intention recalling in some respects a donjon, having the perimeter of thick double walls being planned in such a manner as to make it apparently impassable. Yet in the centre of this solidly built fortification there is an open courtyard containing a large pillared hall, a construction in two stories. The whole structure is surrounded by a double colonnade with wide bracket capitals. It has a chamber in the interior and there is a room in each of the angles, the entire structure having been obviously so designed for the accommodation of the emperor when on tour. This graceful little palace with its enclosing walls is noteworthy of the spirit of the Mughal dynasty.

Akbar and his Mughal architecture had, after ascension in Delhi, scouted to start the construction of the fortress in Allahabad in 1853, near the famed intersection of the Jamuna-Ganges Rivers. The Allahabad Fort is acknowledged as the largest construction built by Akbar during his entire regime. In its widest dimension, it measures almost 3000 feet across, which unfortunately, has been dismantled and shorn much of its architectural interest in modern times. Among the remains of this Akbar`s Mughal architecture`s former glory, one structure of significance identified as Zenana Palace, has been preserved and restored, which indeed explains the character of the whole. This Zenana Palace is in actuality a pavilion, constructed evidently for the royal quarters inside the fortress. The beauty of the design of this fortress lies in the arrangement of its pillars in the inner hall of the centre. These pillars have been designed in pairs, except at the corners of the building, when they are in groups of fours, so that from every point of view a wealthy and elegant perception is presented. Above this arcade rises a terraced roof contained within perforated ramparts surmounted by kiosks with lattice screens. This exceedingly well crafted architecture represents the magnificence and the growing wealth and power of Akbar`s period.

During Akbar`s reign, imperially sponsored architecture had incorporated much Timurid design concepts with forms, motifs and building techniques, long indigenous to Indian architecture. Many of the resultant buildings, for example, much of the palace in Fatehpur Sikri, are highly refined products of prevailing Indian tastes, although the arrangement and spatial arrangements owe much to Timurid concepts. Mughal architecture during Akbar, like Humayun, was little involved with religious architecture, with the exception of the great khanqah in Fatehpur Sikri. Akbar had built primarily forts and palaces, building types that reflects his concept of the Mughal state. The function of many parts of his palaces is often impossible to determine now, reflecting the `fluid` nature of court ceremony in Akbar`s reign. This, stands in contrast to palaces built under subsequent rulers. Akbar also continued to build char baghs, initially introduced to India by Babur. The tomb he built for his father, Humayun, was the first to be established in such a garden (referring to the char baghs). Such funereal settings, triggering visions of paradise, commences what will become a longstanding Mughal architectural concern.

Emperor Akbar had primarily constructed edifices in his capitals and also defensively at the major cities on the frontier of his domain, such as Allahabad. But Mughal architecture during Akbar was not confined to these places only; rather, it had also expanded to the hinterlands. There, though, the architecture was built not by the emperor, but by his nobles, whose taste most often echoed that of the centre, i.e., referring to the capital cities of Akbar. In this expanding Mughal empire, architecture increasingly served as a symbol of Mughal presence, which was very much noticed in all the four corners of the country, unto which the Mughal baadshah was momentous and influential enough to charm both Hindus and Muslims. As such the likes of - architecture of Nagaur during Akbar, architecture of Narnaul during Akbar, architecture of Jaunpur and Chunar during Akbar and architecture of eastern India during Akbar, had gained sublime importance and spirit.