Islamic Architecture

Reading the Islamic City offers insights into the implications the practices of the Maliki school of Islamic law have for the inhabitants of the Islamic city, the madinah. The problematic term madinah fundamentally indicates a phenomenon of building, dwelling, and urban settlement patterns that evolved after the 7th century CE in the Maghrib (North Africa) and al-Andalusia (Spain).

The design principles necessary to create functional and dynamic contemporary mosques can be hard to grasp for those unfamiliar with the Islamic faith. Design Criteria for Mosques and Islamic Centers provides an easy-to-use and practical set of guidelines for mosque design, illustrated with 300 line drawings.

In the United States, the design and interpretation of

The aesthetic features of the American masjid can be codified under the rubrics of image, text, and form. These three features suggest an anachronistic language corresponding to the use of ornament, inscription, and architectural form.

The Maliki

The aim of this paper is to discuss the concept of order, space and form in the aesthetic language of two 16th century architects: Sinan Abd al-Mannan (d. 1588) and Andrea di Petro della Gondola aka Andrea Palladio (d. 1580). Sinan and Palladio were both engaged in a lasting search for an aesthetic language firmly grounded in order, space and form.

The meaning and interpretation of the inscriptions on a mosque in North America provide some insights into the concomitant qualities of belief, order, space, and form. Mosque inscriptions reveal the American

Arguably the false consciousness, which is reflected in much of architectural theory and praxis over the last two decades, was perhaps foretold in Raphael’s fresco The School of Athens. To situate The School of Athens, it is important to realize that architectural theory and praxis has been split between two extremes: mimeses and meaning, which in my view inherits from Pantheism and the Promethean myth.