College of Environmental Design
Department of Architecture, UC Berkeley
Architecture Slide Library
Architecture 170 - Fall 1996 - Dell Upton - November 7
I. THE INVENTION OF A LANDSCAPE. The interaction of local and international architectural ideas in Islam. Exs.: Masjid-i-Jami, Isfahan, Iran, 10C, 12C with constant enlargements. Note: iwans, a planning device probably derived from domestic architecture. (Isfahan, Masjid-i-Jami: Plan; Iwans). Quwwat ul-Islam mosque, Delhi, India, ca. 1200. (Quwwat ul-Islam: Axonometric plan; Exterior).
II. UNITY AND VARIETY IN ISLAMIC ARCHITECTURE: THE MAUSOLEUM. Mausoleum as a departure from early Islamic religious outlook that frowned on elaborate burial rites and veneration of saints. Mausolea as individual expressions vs. the ideal of umma/the Muslim community. Iran and central Asia as origin of the mausoleum in the 10C. Canopy tombs (ex.: Alaviyan tomb, Hamadan, Iran, 12C; Furuz Shah Tughluk tomb, Delhi, India, 1388). Note: outward-facing quality; decorative qualities (use of brick); longstanding western and Persian architectural imagery; localism feeding back into larger Islamic culture. Mausoleum of Ismail the Samanid, Bukhara, former USSR, c. 907. Note: brick canopy tomb, decoration, use of squinches. The muqarnas as a distinctive Islamic structural decorative feature. The local becomes the international: Qutb Minar, Delhi, ca. 1200; the Alhambra.
III. THE ISLAMIC CITY. [NB: most of our examples will be derived from Aleppo, Syria, and Damascus, Syria.] What is the Muslim city? The city as an imperial political center. The city as a religious community: the madrasa, a religious/legal academy (ex.: Mustansiriya madrasa, Baghdad, Iraq, founded 1233). Anti-corporate attitudes of Islam. The mosque and the citadel as signs of the empire. The city as a collection of individual quarters. The city as an economic entity. The caravanserai as sign of connection to the economic world. The suq (exs.: Aleppo and Damascus). The dismemberment of the classical city. Ex.: Damascus, where the Roman colonnaded street was transformed to the suq, and the orthogonal plan was obliterated. The city, the suburbs, and the citadel. (Damascus: Plan, old city eastern part; Plan, ancient city).
IV. THE EAST AFRICAN COAST. Islam as a "trade good" that is carried to other parts of the world by merchants. Trade with Arab merchants also stimulates indigenous architectural and urban development. Ex.: Gedi, Kenya, 13C-16C, rebuilt L16C: a city of earth-and-wood building with some monumental structures of coral stone. Islam comes to East Africa, first at Shanga, Kenya. Great Mosque, Kilwa/Kilwa Kisiwani, Tanzania, 11C(?)/13C. Note: plan of mosque, coral-stone structure, domed roof. Secular Islamic architecture at Kilwa: Husuni Kubwa, 13C, a citadel/palace/warehouse/slave depot. (Kilwa, Great Mosque: Plan; Aerial view; Interior vaults; Section drawing).
V. ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM IN THE AFRICAN INTERIOR. State-building and monumental architecture among pastoral peoples who begin to trade metals and other goods with the esat coast. Ex.: the Zimbabwe state, 13C-15C (ancestors of modern Shona people), with its villages, regional centers, and capital. The latter two distinguished by stone-walled elite enclosures (dzimbahwe; madzimbahwe, plural). Great Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe, occupied as early as 400 CE, with walls built after 13C. The trading and political capital of the Zimbabwe state for about 100 years. Note: Hill Ruin (West Enclosure, East Enclosure), Elliptical Building/Great Enclosure, valley homesteads, towers and monoliths. (Great Zimbabwe: Site Plan; Plan, stone walls; Plan, Ellliptical Building; Plan, Hill Ruin; Aerial view; Elliptical Building exterior reconstruction I; Elliptical Building exterior reconstruction II).