Islamic Architecture Through Western Eyes Volume 2 PDF Download

"Until they began their conquests, which rapidly engulfed half of the known world, the Arabs were totally innocent of any architectural tradition. Yet, from the middle of the seventh century for a period of nearly eight hundred years, the Muslims developed an architectural identity quite outside the influence of the Christian West, an identity related to Western forms only tangentially through the principles of late Roman and Hellenic styles as they were modified in Early Byzantine and Near Eastern designs. Nevertheless, Islamic architecture is as God-centered as the soaring structures of Gothic Europe. Its inventiveness was concentrated around two major programs, the mosque and the palace which, although frequently borrowing forms from each other, expressed fundamentally contradictory concepts. The first emphasized the infinite variety and oneness of God; the second glorified a human individual. In the case of palaces, however, architecture also emphasized the ruler as an intermediary between man and God. Furthermore, his gardens developed into symbolic portrayals of Paradise, thus providing a strong religious implication which also affected lesser domestic architecture. In line with its turbulent political history and its far flung conquests, the Islamic world adopted a variety of architectural styles - the development of new designs or modifications of older ones depending on the degree of isolation from other Islamic areas. In Spain and North Africa, the intricate and ethereal ornamentation led to the creation of an illusionistic and fantastic structure; in Granada, even the structure became ornament and a building seemed to become an airy substance hovering over earth rather than resting upon it. In contrast, the clear, concise, almost austere forms of Egypt developed an architecture that was patently logical, expansive and virile, while in Turkey the magnificent Ottoman mosques, both influenced by and reacting against the earlier Seljuk style, produced a monumentality integrated to an extent not even attempted by other Islamic variant styles. In introducing the major monuments of the Western Islamic world, Mr. Hoag points out their relationships to each other and to the political and social climate which produced and developed one of the most majestic architectures in the history of civilization." -- Book Jacket.