Study of Dutch mosque designs that shows that current designs do not oppose Dutch society but those versions of Islam they hold to be false.

Contemporary technical architectural drawings, in establishing a direct relationship between the drawing and its object, tend to privilege the visible physical world at the expense of the invisible intangible ideas and concepts, including that of the designer’s imagination. As a result, drawing may become a utilitarian tool for documentation, devoid of any meaningful value in terms of a kind of knowledge that could potentially link the visible and invisible. This book argues that design drawings should be recognized as intermediaries, mediating between the world of ideas and the world of things, spanning the intangible and tangible. The notion of the 'Imaginal' as an intermediary between the invisible and visible is discussed, showing how architectural drawings lend themselves to this notion by performing as creative agents contributing not only to the physical world but also penetrating the realm of concepts. The book argues that this 'in-between' quality to architectural drawing is essential and that it is critical to perceive drawings as subtle bodies that hold physical attributes (for example, form, proportion, color), highly evocative, yet with no matter. Focusing on Islamic geometric architectural drawings, both historical and contemporary, it draws on key philosophical and conceptual notions of imagination from the Islamic tradition as these relate to the creative act. In doing so, this book not only makes important insights into the design process and act of architectural representation, but more broadly it adds to debates on philosophies of the imagination, linking both Western and Islamic traditions.

Since human representation is forbidden in Islamic religious monuments, design & ornamentation reach unparalleled heights in Islamic tiles, mosaics, stucco, brickwork, & ceramics, enhanced by brilliant color. The author is a distinguished scholar of Islamic art & a professor at the University of Toulouse.

The two-volume Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture bridges the gap between monograph and survey text by providing a new level of access and interpretation to Islamic art. The more than 50 newly commissioned essays revisit canonical topics, and include original approaches and scholarship on neglected aspects of the field. This two-volume Companion showcases more than 50 specially commissioned essays and an introduction that survey Islamic art and architecture in all its traditional grandeur Essays are organized according to a new chronological-geographical paradigm that remaps the unprecedented expansion of the field and reflects the nuances of major artistic and political developments during the 1400-year span The Companion represents recent developments in the field, and encourages future horizons by commissioning innovative essays that provide fresh perspectives on canonical subjects, such as early Islamic art, sacred spaces, palaces, urbanism, ornament, arts of the book, and the portable arts while introducing others that have been previously neglected, including unexplored geographies and periods, transregional connectivities, talismans and magic, consumption and networks of portability, museums and collecting, and contemporary art worlds; the essays entail strong comparative and historiographic dimensions The volumes are accompanied by a map, and each subsection is preceded by a brief outline of the main cultural and historical developments during the period in question The volumes include periods and regions typically excluded from survey books including modern and contemporary art-architecture; China, Indonesia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Sicily, the New World (Americas)

This fascinating interdisciplinary study reveals connections between architecture, cosmology, and mysticism. Samer Akkach demonstrates how space ordering in premodern Islamic architecture reflects the transcendental and the sublime. The book features many new translations, a number from unpublished sources, and several illustrations. Referencing a wide range of mystical texts, and with a special focus on the works of the great Sufi master Ibn Arabi, Akkach introduces a notion of spatial sensibility that is shaped by religious conceptions of time and space. Religious beliefs about the cosmos, geography, the human body, and constructed forms are all underpinned by a consistent spatial sensibility anchored in medieval geocentrism. Within this geometrically defined and ordered universe, nothing stands in isolation or ambiguity; everything is interrelated and carefully positioned in an intricate hierarchy. Through detailed mapping of this intricate order, the book shows the significance of this mode of seeing the world for those who lived in the premodern Islamic era and how cosmological ideas became manifest in the buildings and spaces of their everyday lives. This is a highly original work that provides important insights on Islamic aesthetics and culture, on the history of architecture, and on the relationship of art and religion, creativity and spirituality.

Contemporary technical architectural drawings, in establishing a direct relationship between the drawing and its object, tend to privilege the visible physical world at the expense of the invisible intangible ideas and concepts, including that of the designer's imagination. As a result, drawing may become a utilitarian tool for documentation, devoid of any meaningful value in terms of a kind of knowledge that could potentially link the visible and invisible. This book argues that design drawings should be recognised as intermediaries, mediating between the world of ideas and the world of things, spanning the intangible and tangible. The notion of the Imaginal as an intermediary between the invisible and visible is discussed, showing how architectural drawings lend themselves to this notion by performing as creative agents contributing not only to the physical world but also penetrating the realm of concepts. The book argues that this 'in-between' quality to architectural drawing is essential and that it is critical to perceive drawings as subtle bodies that hold physical attributes (e.g. form, proportion, colour), highly evocative, yet with no matter.Focusing on Islamic geometric architectural drawings, both historical and contemporary, it draws on key philosophical and conceptual notions of imagination from the Islamic tradition as these relate to the creative act. In doing so, this book not only makes important insights into the design process and act of architectural representation, but more broadly it adds to debates on philosophies of the imagination, linking both Western and Islamic traditions.

This volume deals with the formative period of Islamic art (to c. 950), and the different approaches to studying it. Individual essays deal with architecture, ceramics, coins, textiles, and manuscripts, as well as with such broad questions as the supposed prohibition of images, and the relationships between sacred and secular art. An introductory essay sets each work in context; it is complemented by a bibliography for further reading.

Moving beyond reductive notions of identity, myths of authenticity, fetishized traditionalism, or the constructed opposition of tradition and modernity, The Arab City: Architectural and Representation critically engages contemporary architectural and urban production in the Middle East. Taking the "Arab City" and "Islamic Architecture" as sites of investigation rather than given categories, this book reframes the region's buildings, cities, and landscapes and broadens its architectural and urban canons. Arab cities are multifaceted places and sites of layered historical imaginaries; defined by regional and territorial economies, they bridge scales of production and political engagement. The essays collected here investigate cultural representation, the evolution of historical cities, contemporary architectural practices, emerging urban conditions, and responsive urban imaginaries in the Arab World. With contributions from Ashraf Abdalla, Senan Abdelqader, Nadia Abu ElÂ-Haj, Su'ad Amiry, Amale Andraos, Mohammed al-Asad, George Arbid, Mohamed Elshahed, Yasser Elsheshtawy, Rania Ghosn, Saba Innab, Adrian Lahoud, Lila Abu Lughod, Ziad Jamaleddine, Ahmed Kanna, Bernard Khoury, Laura Kurgan, Ali Mangera, Reinhold Martin, Timothy Mitchell, Magda Mostafa, Nasser Rabbat, Hashim Sarkis, Felicity Scott, Hala Warde, Mark Wasiuta, Eyal Weizman, Mabel O. Wilson, and Gwendolyn Wright.

This book brings together scholars from architectural studies, design, art history and other fields to challenge and expand concepts of Islamic architecture. Ranging from eighteenth-century Ottoman tents to Islamic motifs in 1960s Hawaii, this volume raises key questions about Islamic architecture and material, artistic and cultural mobility.

The architecture of the Islamic world is predominantly considered in terms of a dual division between 'tradition' and 'modernity' - a division which, Saeid Khaghani here argues, has shaped and limited the narrative applied to this architecture. Khaghani introduces and reconsiders the mosques of eighth- to fifteenth-century Iran in terms of poststructural theory and developments in historiography in order to develop a brand new dialectical framework. Using the examples of mosques such as the Friday Mosques in Isfahan and Yazd as well as the Imam mosque in Isfahan, Khaghani presents a new way of thinking about and discussing Islamic architecture, making this valuable reading for all interested in the study of the art, architecture and material culture of the Islamic world.