Islamic Architecture Through Western Eyes Volume 2

This volume, the second of three, offers an anthology of Western descriptions of Islamic religious buildings in Syria, Egypt and North Africa, mostly from the seventeenth to early twentieth centuries, taken from travel books and ambassadorial reports. (The third volume will deal with Islamic palaces around the Mediterranean.) As travel became easier and cheaper, thanks to better roads, steamships, hotels and railways, tourist numbers increased, museums accumulated eastern treasures, illustrated journals proliferated, and photography provided accurate data. All three deal with the impact of Western trade, taste and imports on the East, and examine the encroachment of westernised modernism.

An anthology of mainly 17th to early 20th-century Western published descriptions of Islamic religious buildings in Spain, Turkey, India and Persia, charting decoration, dilapidation and restoration, as well as the impact of Western trade, taste and imports on the East.

Profusely illustrated critical appraisal vividly describes the glories of world architecture, from Spain and Egypt to other areas of the Middle East.

This book seeks to energize the ongoing debate in academia and among practitioners on the meaning and understanding of Islamic architecture, and explores how the design profession can be employed to build in the spirit of Islam.

The products of a highly-developed architectural style even today bear witness to the greatness of Arabic culture. To the western eye, cities such as Jerusalem, Mecca, Baghdad or Cairo can seem utterly alien. It is not only the way of life that is unfamiliar, it is also the astoundingly varied architecture. This volume surveys more than six centuries of Islamic architecture, from the late 7th century to the mid-13th, placing mosques, Koran schools and palaces in their cultural, religious and political contexts. Distinctive features are its view of building as reflection of Moslem thinking, and its focus on the Arab world.With more than 200 colour photographs, numerous plans, chronological tables and an extensive glossary, this is a reference work which appeals to the expert and the travel-hungry reader alike.

This richly illustrated book provides an unsurpassed overview of Islamic art and architecture from the seventh to the thirteenth centuries, a time of the formation of a new artistic culture and its first, medieval, flowering in the vast area from the Atlantic to India. Inspired by Ettinghausen and Grabar’s original text, this book has been completely rewritten and updated to take into account recent information and methodological advances. The volume focuses special attention on the development of numerous regional centers of art in Spain, North Africa, Egypt, Syria, Anatolia, Iraq, and Yemen, as well as the western and northeastern provinces of Iran. It traces the cultural and artistic evolution of such centers in the seminal early Islamic period and examines the wealth of different ways of creating a beautiful environment. The book approaches the arts with new classifications of architecture and architectural decoration, the art of the object, and the art of the book. With many new illustrations, often in color, this volume broadens the picture of Islamic artistic production and discusses objects in a wide range of media, including textiles, ceramics, metal, and wood. The book incorporates extensive accounts of the cultural contexts of the arts and defines the originality of each period. A final chapter explores the impact of Islamic art on the creativity of non-Muslims within the Islamic realm and in areas surrounding the Muslim world.