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This 2005 book looks at domestic life and the place of women in the Mughal court of the sixteenth century.
Western admirers have long seen the Islamic garden as an earthly reflection of the paradise said to await the faithful. However, such simplification, Ruggles contends, denies the sophistication and diversity of the art form. Islamic Gardens and Landscapes immerses the reader in the world of the architects of the great gardens of the Islamic world, from medieval Morocco to contemporary India. Just as Islamic culture is historically dense, sophisticated, and complex, so too is the history of its built landscapes. Islamic gardens began from the practical need to organize the surrounding space of human civilization, tame nature, enhance the earth's yield, and create a legible map on which to dis...
Provides a concise up-to-date introduction to and overview of black nationalism in American history
The Middle East is well-known for its historic gardens that have developed over more than two millenniums. The role of urban landscape projects in Middle Eastern cities has grown in prominence, with a gradual shift in emphasis from gardens for the private sphere to an increasingly public function. The contemporary landscape projects, either designed as public plazas or public parks, have played a significant role in transferring the modern Middle Eastern cities to a new era and also in transforming to a newly shaped social culture in which the public has a voice. This book considers what ties these projects to their historical context, and what regional and local elements and concepts have been used in their design.
When we walk into a gallery, we have a fairly good idea where the building begins and ends; and inside, while observing a painting, we are equally confident in distinguishing between the painting-proper and its frame and borders. Yet, things are often more complicated. A building defines an exterior space just as much as an interior, and what we perceive to be ornamental and marginal to a given painting may in fact be central to what it represents. In this volume, a simple question is presented: instead of dichotomous separations between inside and outside, or exterior and interior, what other relationships can we think of? The first book of its kind to grapple with this question, Inside/Outside Islamic Art and Architecture focuses on a wide spectrum of mediums and topics, including painted manuscripts, objects, architectural decoration, architecture and urban planning, and photography. Bringing together scholars with diverse methodologies-who work on a geographical span stretching from India to Spain and Nigeria, and across a temporal spectrum from the thirteenth to the twenty-first century-this original book also poses engaging questions about the boundaries of the field.
The book is constituted in four chapters, each of which addresses a specific aspect of the the physical realities of the Islamic city. The first chapter introduces issues that pertain to the dialectic relationship between buildings, cities, and civilizations and highlights the typological processes involved. The second chapter involves a typological analysis of the Islamic houses which formed the structure of many cities including Fez, Mostar, Aleppo, and Algiers--among others. Chapter 3 addresses the physical aspects of the building tissue in the Islamic city and the dialectic relations between the building tissue and the larger contextual fabric. In chapter 4, the city is analytically described as an urban organism; it also involves methods of interpretation while at the same time concluding with the fact that Islamic cities have unique character, especially in terms of its spontaneity and intentionality.
A city planner, an architect and a historian trace the urban development of this outstanding city and analyse its architecture in urban and historical contexts from its origins in the pre Islamic period to the situation today. The authors did extensive fieldwork in Bukhara and have published a number of books and many articles on Near Eastern and Persian architecture and urbanism.
This book unites new information and surprising results from the last fifteen years of garden research, at a remove from the clichés of Orientalism. Garden archaeology reveals the economic importance of Judean gardens in Roman times and the visual complexity of gardens created and transformed in Moorish Spain. More contemporary approaches unravel the cultural continuities, variations, and differences between gardens in the Middle East since Roman times and in the Islamic world.
Analyses contentious politics in Tripoli, Lebanon's Sunni city, and the relations between Islamist and sectarian groups in governing the city.