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Computer
models of various structures at the site have added a new dimension
to our project. Created by VR Real Technologies, Bangalore in consultation
with the Project Directors, these models aid our perception of Vijayanagara’s
architecture. Some reproduce buildings as seen today and others show
the buildings as they might have once appeared. We have recreated the
wooden columns, brackets and beams and the tile-covered roofs with metallic
finials that may have existed before the conflagration of 1565. We have
also added the masonry towers and brackets that we could observe in
the early photographs, but which subsequently disappeared. Inevitably,
our reconstructions are partly hypothetical, especially those that show
columned structures on top of the hundred columned audience hall and
Great
Platform. As for the restored palaces with flat roofs
and pyramidal towers over the innermost chambers, these must be considered
interpretations of an incomplete architectural record. We can only hope
that more scientific excavation in the future will yield reliable data
on which such reconstructions may be corrected and refined.
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