Studies In Persian Art And Architecture

Contains all the major articles on Persian art and architecture published by O'Kane between 1976 and 1994

Historiography is the study of the methodology of writing history, the development of the discipline of history, and the changing interpretations of historical events in the works of individual historians. Exploring the historiography of Persian art and architecture requires a closer look at a diverse range of sources, including chronicles, historical accounts, travelogues, and material evidence coming from archaeological excavations. The Historiography of Persian Architecture highlights the political, cultural, and intellectual contexts that lie behind the written history of Persian architecture in the twentieth century, presenting a series of investigations on issues related to historiography. This book addresses the challenges, complexities, and contradictions regarding historical and geographical diversity of Persian architecture, including issues lacking in the 20th century historiography of Iran and neighbouring countries. This book not only illustrates different trends in Persian architecture but also clarifies changing notions of research in this field. Aiming to introduce new tools of analysis, the book offers fresh insights into the discipline, supported by historical documents, archaeological data, treatises, and visual materials. It brings together well-established and emerging scholars from a broad range of academic spheres, in order to question and challenge pre-existing historiographical frameworks, particularly through specific case studies. Overall, it provides a valuable contribution to the study of Persian architecture, simultaneously revisiting past literature and advancing new approaches. This book would be of interest to students and scholars of Middle East and Iranian Studies, as well as Architectural History, including Islamic architecture and historiography.

This lavishly illustrated volume - with many images previously unpublished in colour - collects 25 articles by Bernard O'Kane on a wide variety of topics pertaining to Persian architecture in its widest sense. His analyses range from historiography and tilework to the development of the domes of Iranian mosques. He covers the buildings of the major medieval dynasties - the Seljuqs, Ilkhanids and Timurids - as well as the formerly neglected monuments of the Chaghatai, Muzaffarid, Kartid and Jalayirid dynasties and Uzbek monuments in Afghanistan.

One of the most heated scholarly controversies of the early twentieth century, the Orient-or-Rome debate turned on whether art historians should trace the origin of all Western—and especially Gothic—architecture to Roman ingenuity or to the Indo-Germanic Geist. Focusing on the discourses around this debate, Talinn Grigor considers the Persian Revival movement in light of imperial strategies of power and identity in British India and in Qajar-Pahlavi Iran. The Persian Revival examines Europe’s discovery of ancient Iran, first in literature and then in art history. Tracing Western visual discourse about ancient Iran from 1699 on, Grigor parses the invention and use of a revivalist architectural style from the Afsharid and Zand successors to the Safavid throne and the rise of the Parsi industrialists as cosmopolitan subjects of British India. Drawing on a wide range of Persian revival narratives bound to architectural history, Grigor foregrounds the complexities and magnitude of artistic appropriations of Western art history in order to grapple with colonial ambivalence and imperial aspirations. She argues that while Western imperialism was instrumental in shaping high art as mercantile-bourgeois ethos, it was also a project that destabilized the hegemony of a Eurocentric historiography of taste. An important reconsideration of the Persian Revival, this book will be of vital interest to art and architectural historians and intellectual historians, particularly those working in the areas of international modernism, Iranian studies, and historiography.

This book focuses on the conservation and preservation of Persian architectural heritage, including the philosophy of conservation, practical experiences, and risk. Containing the results of research completed over the last several decades into a culture that has contributed much to human civilisation, the book will be useful not just as a scholarly reference for researchers and students, but also as a practical tool for practicing engineers.

Since the Shah went into exile and the Islamic Republic was established in 1979 in the wake of the Iranian Revolution, the very idea of monarchy in Iran has been contentious. Yet, as Persian Kingship and Architecture argues, the institution of kingship has historically played a pivotal role in articulating the abstract notion of 'Iran' since antiquity. These ideas surrounding kingship and nation have, in turn, served as a unifying cultural force despite shifting political and religious allegiances. Through analyses of palaces, mausolea, art, architectural decoration and urban design the authors show how architecture was appropriated by different rulers as an integral part of their strategies of legitimising power. They refer to a variety of examples, from the monuments of Persepolis under the Achamenids, the Sassanian palaces at Kish, the Safavid public squares of Isfahan, the Qajar palaces at Shiraz and to the modernisation and urban agendas of the Pahlavis. Drawing on archaeology, ancient, medieval, early and modern architectural history, both Islamic and secular, this book is indispensable for all those interested in Iranian studies and visual culture.

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.

Professor Hillenbrand has written extensively over the last 25 years on Islamic architecture from Spain to India and from the 7th to the 20th century. He has paid consistent attention to the architecture of Iran. This illustrated volume provides additional notes on studies in medieval Islamic architecture.