The Image of Paradise and its models: Koranic gardens, Dome of Heaven, Celestial Dome; Muqarnas
Movable Architecture: tents, yurts, and camps.
Shadow and Shading devices; Trees; Tiles; Colors
Wind catchers and other cooling techniques
Orientation and the city scape: streets, openings, houses.
Water Architecture: fountains, sabils, qanat, shadirwan, waterwheel, aqueducts, Hammams
Andalusian Examples: Madinat al-Zahra, Alhambra, Generalife
Chahar Bagh symbolism: Representation of garden in painting
Timurid, Mughal, Ottoman, and Persian Gardens
Representation of garden in painting (Nasuh, Persian, Mughal, Qajar)
Architecture and Travel: Caravanserai (Ottoman chimneys), Grand Hotels
The Courtyard House: Hasan Fathy's notion on Courtyard houses.
Contemporary indulgences: Diplomats' section in Riyadh, Hollywood's representations, Summer villas in the Mediterranean.
The city scape: streets, openings, houses
A Brief Introduction to the History and Ecology of the Islamic World
Reading
- Ernst J.Grube, "What is Islamic Architecture?" in G. Michell ed. Architecture of the Islamic World: Its History and Social Meaning. 11-14
Environment, Climate, and Architecture in the Islamic World
Historical Precedents
Movable Architecture: Tents, the dwelling of the nomad.
Rural and Urban Settlements in Arabia
Early Islamic Settlements
Mecca, Medina: The house of the Prophet at Medina.
The first garrison towns of Islam: Kufa, Basra, Fustat, Qayrawan
Readings
- Ralph Knowles, Energy and Form: An Ecological Approach to Urban Growth (MIT Press, 1974), 5-15
- Paul Oliver, Dwellings: The House Across the World (Austin, 1987), 113-24
- Encyclopedia of Islam, 2d edition, articles on Basra, Kufa, and Kairawan
Umayyad Settlements
Paradisial environment? Ideal environment? Or symbolic environment?
Pre Islamic prototypes:
Byzantine, Greco-Roman, and Hellenistic prototypes.
Mesopotamian, Parthian, and Sassanian prototypes.
Levantine, Arabian, and South-Arabian influences.
The Image of Paradise and its models: Koranic gardens, Dome of Heaven
Readings
- Jere Bacharach, Marwanid Umayyad Building Activities: Speculation on Patronage," Muqarnas 13 (1996): 27-44.
- Klaus Brisch, "Observations on the Iconography of the Mosaics in the Great Mosque at Damascus," in, Content and Context of Visual Arts in the Islamic World.(Philadelphia, 1988) 13-20.
- Oleg Grabar, The Formation of Islamic Art. (New Haven, 1973), 1-44, 139-78.
- Oleg Grabar, "Umayyad Palaces Reconsidered," Ars Orientalis 23, (1993): 93-102.
- Oleg Grabar, et al. City in the Desert, Qasr al-Hayr East. (Cambridge, 1978), 148-73.
- Robert Hillenbrand, "La Dolce Vita in Early Islamic Syria: The Evidence of Later Umayyad Palaces," Art History 5, 1 (March 1982) 1-35.
Medieval Links
Fustat Houses
Residential medieval architecture: Mamluk Qa‘as: the spreading of the royal model.
Residences on the move: Caravansaries, the hostels of the great trading routes.
The Rab‘: A unique medieval urban residential types
Readings
- L. Ibrahim, "Residential Architecture in Mamluk Cairo," Muqarnas, 2 (1984) 47-59.
- Oleg Grabar "Palaces, Citadels and fortifications," and Eleanor Sims, "Trade and Travel: Markets and Caravanserais," in G. Michell, Architecture of the Islamic World.
- Hoag, chapter 9. Domestic Architecture of the Ayyubids and Mamluk
The Alhambra in Granada
The Islamic Versions of the Villa Urbana and Villa Rustica
Madinat al-Zahra
Granadine Villas
Readings
- James S. Ackerman, "The Villa as Paradigm," Perspecta. 22 (1985): 10-31.
- James Dickie, "The Islamic Garden in Spain," in: E. MacDougall, The Islamic Garden, 87-105.
- Oleg Grabar, The Alhambra, 25-132
- idem, "Granada: A Case Study of Arab Urbanism in Muslim Spain," in The Legacy of Muslim Spain, ed. S. K. Jayyusi (Leiden, 1992), 88-110.
- Nasser Rabbat, "The Palace of the Lions in Alhambra and the Role of Water in its Conception," AARP/Environmental Design 2 (1985): 64-73.
Water and The Islamic Garden
Water Architecture: fountains, sabils, qanat, shadirwan
Readings
- Saleh Lamei Mostafa, "The Cairene Sabil: Form and Meaning," Muqarnas 6 (1989): 33-42.
- Nasser Rabbat, "Shadirwan" in the Encyclopedia of Islam, 2d ed. 9: 175-76.
- Annemarie Schimmel, "The Celestial Garden," in Elizabeth MacDougall and Richard Ettingausen, eds., The Islamic Garden (Dumbarton Oaks, l976), 13-39.
- Yasser Tabbaa, "The Medieval Islamic Garden: Typology and Hydraulics," in John Dixon Hunt ed., Garden History: Issues, Approaches, Methods (Dumbarton Oak, 1992), 303-29.
- Yasser Tabbaa, "Towards an Interpretation of the Use of Water in Islamic Courtyards and courtyard Gardens," Journal of Garden History 7, 3 (1987): 197-220
Planned Royal Cities
Baghdad and Samarra as models
Cairo: royal residence of the Fatimid Caliphs
The Mughal Royal Palaces: Fatehpur Sikri
Isfahan: The Creation of the Safavid Capital
Readings
- Nezzar AlSayyad,. Cities and Caliphs, 133-58.
- Attilio Petruccioli, "The Geometry of Power: The City's Planning," in Brand and Lowry, Fatehpur-Sikri, 50-64.
- Ebba Koch, "Mughal Palace Gardens from Babur to Shahjahan (1526-1648)," Muqarnas 14 (1997): 143-65.
- Donald Wilber, Persian Gardens and Garden Pavilions, 39-5
The Chahar Bagh
Timurid, Mughal, Ottoman, and Persian Gardens
Symbolism: Representation of Garden in Painting
Readings
- James Dickie, (Yaqub Zaki) "The Mughal Garden: Gateway to Paradise," Muqarnas 3 (1985): 128-37.
- James Dickie, "Garden and Cemetery in Sinan's Istanbul," AARP/Environmental Design 12 (1987): 70-85.
- Lisa Golombek, "The Gardens of Timur: New Perspectives," Muqarnas 12 (1995): 137-47.
- Susan Jellicoe, "The Mughal Garden," in Ettinghausen and MacDougall, The Islamic Garden.
- Charles W. Moore, William J. Mitchell, William Turnbull, Jr., The poetics of Gardens (Cambridge, Mass. : 1988).
- Elizabeth Moynihan, Paradise as a Garden in Persia and Mughal India, New York: Braziller, 1979.
Traditional Houses
Courtyard Houses
Iranian Houses and Pavilions.
Ottoman Residences and Pavilions
Adobe Architecture:
Earth: Building Materials and their Environmental Properties
Readings
- Mousallam Sakka Amini, "Islamic and Japanese Traditional Houses and Their Social Meaning: A Comparative Interpretation." Islamic Quarterly 37, 4 (1993): 266-79.
- Tulay Artan, Architecture as a Theater of Life: Profile of the 18th Century Bosphorus. MIT, PhD (1988).
- William Curtis, "Type and Variation: Berber Collective Dwellings of the Northwestern Sahara," Muqarnas 1 (1982): 181-209.
- Ron Fuchs, "The Palestinian Arab House and the Islamic 'Primitive Hut'," Muqarnas 15 (1998): 157-77.
- Ronald Lewcock, The Old Walled City of San‘a’, 55-85.
- Guy T. Petherbridge, "The House and Society," in G. Michell, Architecture of the Islamic World, 193-204.
- Bernard Maury, André Raymond, Jacques Revault and Mona Zakariya. Palais et maisons du Caire: II époque ottoman (XVIe-XVIIIE siècles). Paris: CNRS, 1983.
- Fredrich Raguette, The Lebanese House during the 18th and 19th Centuries, chapters 2 and 4.
- Albert Szabo and Thomas J. Barfield, Afghanistan: An Atlas of Indigenous Domestic Architecture, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991.
Environmental Responsiveness in Traditional Architecture
Shadow and Shading devices
Wind catchers and other cooling techniques
Orientation and the city scape: streets, openings, houses.
The Interplay of History, Culture, and the Climate in Traditional Architecture (Heschong)
Readings
- Michael E. Bonine, "Aridity and Structure: Adaptations of Indigenous Housing in Central Iran," in Clark and Paylore, Desert Housing: Balancing Experience and Technology for Dwelling in Hot Arid Zones, 193-219.
- Coles and Jackson. A Windtower House in Dubai.
- Daniel Dunham, "The Courtyard House as a Temperature Regulator," The New Scientist (September 8, 1960): 663-66.
- Lisa Heschong, Thermal Delight in Architecture.
- David A. King, "Architecture and Astronomy: The Ventilators of Medieval Cairo and the Secrets," Journal of the American Oriental Society 104, 1 (1984): 97-133.
- Susan Roaf, "The Windcatchers of the Middle East," in Islamic Architecture and Urbanism, ed. Aydin Germen (Dammam, Saudi Arabia, 1980), 257-68.
Revival of the Vernacular
H. Fathy, W. Wassif, N. Khalili
Hasan Fathy's conceptualization of the courtyard house.
Readings
- Hassan Fathy, Architecture for the Poor.
- Besim S. Hakim, "The "Urf" and its role in diversifying the architecture of traditional Islamic cities," Journal of architectural and planning research. 11, 2 (1994): 108-127.
- Ronald Lewcock, "Working with the Past," in Theories and Principles of design in the Architecture of Islamic Societies (AKPIA, 1988), 87-96.
The Environmental Theme and Developing Countries
Contemporary examples: the environmental category in the Aga Khan Award for Architecture
Students presentations of examples chosen from the Aga Khan Award projects
Readings
- William Curtis, Modern Architecture since 1900, chapter 27: Modern Architecture and Developing Countries since 1960.
- Aga Khan Award for Architecture Publications and Monographs