Paul Hanley
Islamic
Architecture and Design
One of
the most interesting subjects that arise in Bianca’s paper is the different
perception of architecture and design in Islamic compared to western society. .
Throughout the article Bianca mentions the holistic nature of Islamic society,
firstly noting the distinction between Christianity and Islam as he argues that
there has always existed a “duality of material and spiritual realms” in Christian
societies, with the Kings and Nobility representing the governmental side of
civilization, while the pope or head of the Church represented the spiritual
side. This is in contrast to the Islamic way of thinking, which emphasised the
integration and interaction of both the material and spiritual realms within a
universal social order. Another Islamic architectural Academic, Elaraby (1996)
says that the way of life in Islamic culture concerns both the spiritual and
the physical. That reason is because of the two key sources for Islamic
cultures is the holy Quaran – the
literal word of god, and the Sunna -
a set of traditions and practices created by the Prophet Muhammed. These two
sources contain many verses and references as to how human beings should relate
to their surrounding environment, a concept known as the ‘indivisible whole’
(Nasr, 1990). This concept focuses on the spatial environment and how its
purpose is to provide satisfaction of human needs, as in Islamic tradition
humans are the centre of all things and the highest of all creations. A great
deal of attention is paid to how the activities of inhabitants affects a larger
physical area than what a single person occupies, and the relationship of
Muslims to the physical environment is set out in a detailed way. This seems
almost perplexing as a westerner and only after being introduced to some basic
architectural theory have I ever considered my relation to physical space, let
alone gone about my life knowing how the physical environment around me can be
related to my culture or beliefs.
Figure 1 - A complex geometric mosaic
pattern known as a Girih
Actual Elements of Islamic
Design:
While
there are reoccurring elements in Islamic design that can be categorised into
forms, styles or materials that are used dominantly, it is really the
architectural ideology that drives the distinctness of built environment. For
example, domes, mosaics, courtyards, geometric patterns and calligraphy are
heavily featured but it’s the architectural qualities of unity, openness of
space, simplicity of form, simplicity of structural expression, scale, harmony,
compbatability, balance and privacy that define Islamic design (Ellarby, 1996)
Landscape
design is an important aspect of Islamic architecture. The use of water is
illustrative of how the surrounding physical environment is designed for the
satisfaction of people. Water-ways and fountains are designed with extreme
symmetry and serve the purpose of irrigation, noise abatement, reflecting the
colours of the geography and providing a soothing psychological benefit that
has long been known but has also recently been established by psychologists, as
humans have a predisposition for environments that contain evolutionary beneficial
features such as water, changes in elevation, or large trees, that would of
helped us survive in pre-civilised times (Ulrich, 1986).
Gardens
and the surrounding vegetation had a large role to play in Islamic design as it
provided climate control, enjoyment and relaxation, and provided food sources
as Bianca states that most Islamic cities “perpetuated semi-rural patterns of
living and production”(Bianca, 2000). Inspiration often came in the form of
nature as can be seen in the above photo of a Girih, which resembles the
perfect geometric pattern of a flower.
Figure 2 -Water as a design element at Al-Hambra Palace gardens
Granada, Spain
Bianca
(2000) argues that socio-economic changes created by the rapidly
technologically advancing industrial age bought radical transformation to
historic middle-eastern cities in a physical and an ideological way that broke
from the natural evolutionary process that had always been in place.
Physically, cities were being built extremely fast, but the ideological shift
was more important, as the holistic Islamic concept of life where spiritual,
material and social concerns were expressed and lived through the built fabric
no longer existed. Bianca describes the change as a fading of a “concentrated,
all-inclusive sense of presence” from the lives of these people. Here he says
that the present has been emptied of many of its essential qualities as people
only focus on the past and the future. Bianca argues that it is the informal
development patterns in historic cities that are regenerating the authentic and
homogenous cultural expressions of Islamic design. However, there are
architects and urban designers who subscribe to the “Neo-Islamic” school that
follows the holistic ideology of blending the life of the individual with
society and using modern technology and materials with the qualities of unity,
openness and balance, that is also contributing to preserving the cultural
expressions of Islam by bridging the gap between tradition and modernity as
Bianca was imploring for.
References:
Biana, S
2000 ‘The Impact of Western models of development on the contemporary
development patterns of historic Muslim cities’, in Urban Form in the Arab World: Past and Present, London: Thames and
Hudson, 2000, pp. 161-184
Ellaraby,
K.M.G 1996 ‘Neo-Islamic Architecture and Urban Design in the Middle East: From
Threshold to Adaptive design, Islamic
Architecture and Urbanism, Vol. 22, Issue 2, pp. 138-150
Nasr,
S.H 1990 ‘The contemporary Muslim and the architectural transformation of the
urban environment’, Alam Al-Binaa, vol.
110, pp. 1-14
Ulrich,
R 1986 ‘Human response to vegetation and landscapes’, Landscapes and Urban Planning, vol. 13, pp. 29-44
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