An octagonal building made up of red sandstone, Sher Mandal is located inside the
Purana Quila in
Delhi. It was built by
Sher Shah and was intended to be his pleasure tower. After
Humayun recaptured Delhi in AD 1555, he refurbished the Sher Mandal into his library. It was here that Humayun fell to his death a year later.
A unique feature of this structure was that its white marble managed to lighten the impact of the red sandstone bulk that was so common in structures built during the reign of the Mughals. Another unique feature is the ‘chhaja’, a continuous sloping or horizontal overhang, which runs along the upper storey of the tower and an octagonal pavilion that surmounts it.
