"The mere fact of Fatehpur's 'instant' completion is, of course, prodigious but more impressive to us today are the quality, scale, and diversity of its buildings and the spaces they define. For here is no routine grid of mindless squares, but a series of pulsating urban spaces defined by polite structures. Yet Fatehpur is more successful as a series of vistas and specific spatial encounters than as an overall triumph of urbanism. Its parts are better than the whole: it lacks, for instance, an orienting spine.

"Fatehpur's fresh and innovative architecture, with its vast array of building types represents —like most Moghul building—a fusion of Indian and Islamic cultures. The underlying structure is generally of Hindu post-and-beams, in many cases roofed with Muslim vaults and domes. All is carried out here with cohesive and sympathetic scale: note the 'neighborhood' atmosphere."

— from G.E. Kidder Smith. Looking at Architecture. p82.