Gardens, Landscape, and Vision in the Palaces of Islamic Spain

Gardens, Landscape, and Vision in the Palaces of Islamic Spain PDF Author:
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 9780271042725
Category : Agriculture
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description

Gardens, Landscape, and Vision in the Palaces of Islamic Spain

Gardens, Landscape, and Vision in the Palaces of Islamic Spain PDF Author:
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 9780271042725
Category : Agriculture
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description


Islamic Gardens and Landscapes

Islamic Gardens and Landscapes PDF Author: D. Fairchild Ruggles
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812207289
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
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 distribute natural resources. Ruggles follows the evolution of these early farming efforts to their aristocratic apex in famous formal gardens of the Alhambra in Spain and the Taj Mahal in Agra. Whether in a humble city home or a royal courtyard, the garden has several defining characteristics, which Ruggles discusses. Most notable is an enclosed space divided into four equal parts surrounding a central design element. The traditional Islamic garden is inwardly focused, usually surrounded by buildings or in the form of a courtyard. Water provides a counterpoint to the portioned green sections. Ranging across poetry, court documents, agronomy manuals, and early garden representations, and richly illustrated with pictures and site plans, Islamic Gardens and Landscapes is a book of impressive scope sure to interest scholars and enthusiasts alike.

Fallen Glory

Fallen Glory PDF Author: James Crawford
Publisher: Picador USA
ISBN: 1250118298
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 658

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Book Description
James Crawford uncovers the biographies of 20 of the world’s most fascinating lost and ruined buildings, from the dawn of civilization to the cyber era. The lives of these iconic structures are packed with drama and intrigue, featuring war and religion, politics and art, love and betrayal, catastrophe and hope.

Sites Unseen

Sites Unseen PDF Author: Dianne Harris
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre
ISBN: 0822973200
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
Sites Unseen challenges conventions for viewing and interpreting the landscape, using visual theory to move beyond traditional practices of describing and classifying objects to explore notions of audience and context. While other fields, such as art history and geography, have engaged poststructuralist theory to consider vision and representation, the application of such inquiry to the natural or built environment has lagged behind. This book, by treating landscape as a spatial, psychological, and sensory encounter, aims to bridge this gap, opening a new dialogue for discussing the landscape outside the boundaries of current art criticism and theory. As the contributors reveal, the landscape is a widely adaptable medium that can be employed literally or metaphorically to convey personal or institutional ideologies. Walls, gates, churchyards, and arches become framing devices for a staged aesthetic experience or to suit a sociopolitical agenda. The optic stimulation of signs, symbols, bodies, and objects combines with physical acts of climbing and walking and sensory acts of touching, smelling, and hearing to evoke an overall "vision" of landscape.Sites Unseen considers a variety of different perspectives, including ancient Roman visions of landscape, the framing techniques of a Moghul palace, and a contemporary case study of Christo's The Gates, as examples of human attempts to shape our sensory, cognitive, and emotional experiences in the landscape.

Islam

Islam PDF Author:
Publisher: PediaPress
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 955

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Book Description


Islamic Palace Architecture in the Western Mediterranean

Islamic Palace Architecture in the Western Mediterranean PDF Author: Felix Arnold
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190624566
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
Palaces like the Aljafería and the Alhambra rank among the highest achievements of the Islamic world. In recent years archaeological work at Córdoba, Kairouan and many other sites has vastly increased our knowledge about the origin and development of Islamic palatial architecture, particularly in the Western Mediterranean region. This book offers a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of Islamic palace architecture in Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and southern Italy. The author, who has himself conducted archaeological field work at several prominent sites, presents all Islamic palaces known in the region in ground plans, sections and individual descriptions. The book traces the evolution of Islamic palace architecture in the region from the 8th to the 19th century and places them within the context of the history of Islamic culture. Palace architecture is a unique source of cultural history, offering insights into the way space was conceived and the way rulers used architecture to legitimize their power. The book discusses such topics as the influence of the architecture of the Middle East on the Islamic palaces of the western Mediterranean region, the role of Greek logic and scientific progress on the design of palaces, the impact of Islamic palaces on Norman and Gothic architecture and the role of Sufism on the palatial architecture of the late medieval period.

Rivers of Paradise

Rivers of Paradise PDF Author: Sheila Blair
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
For millennia the collection, distribution, and symbolism of water have played pivotal roles in the lands where Islam has flourished. This book is the first to address this important subject. A diverse spectrum of scholars covers a wide range of topics: from the revelation of Islam in the 7th century to today’s conservation and development issues, from watering oases in the Moroccan desert to the flooded plains of Bengal. Copiously illustrated with beautiful color photographs and newly drawn plans and maps, this book will provoke readers to appreciate and acknowledge the essential, if often invisible and transitory, roles that water played in the arts of the Islamic lands and beyond.

The Garden of the Eight Paradises

The Garden of the Eight Paradises PDF Author: Stephen Frederic Dale
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004137076
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 553

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Book Description
A critical biography of Zah?r al-Din Muhammad B?bur, the founder, in 1526, of the Timurid-Mughal Empire of India, offering

Diverging Paths?

Diverging Paths? PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004277870
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 455

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Book Description
Diverging Paths? investigates an important question, to which the answers must be very complex: “why did certain sorts of institutionalisation and institutional continuity characterise government and society in Christendom by the later Middle Ages, but not the Islamic world, whereas the reverse end-point might have been predicted from the early medieval situation?” This core question lies within classic historiographical debates, to which the essays in the volume, written by leading medievalists, make significant contributions. The papers, drawing on a wide range of evidence and methodologies, span the middle ages, chronologically and geographically. At the same time, the core question relates to matters of strong contemporary interest, notably the perceived characteristics of power exercised within Islamic Middle Eastern regimes. Contributors are Stuart Airlie, Gadi Algazi, Sandro Carocci, Simone Collavini, Emanuele Conte, Nadia El Cheikh, Maribel Fierro, John Hudson, Caroline Humfress, Michel Kaplan, Hugh Kennedy, Simon MacLean, Eduardo Manzano, Susana Naroztky, Annliese Nef, Vivien Prigent, Ana Rodríguez, Magnus Ryan and Bernard Stolte.

The Islamic Villa in Early Medieval Iberia

The Islamic Villa in Early Medieval Iberia PDF Author: GlaireD. Anderson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351543342
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Exploring the aristocratic villas and court culture of C?ba, during its 'golden age' under the reign of the Umayyad dynasty (r. 756-1031 AD), this study illuminates a key facet of the secular architecture of the court and its relationship to the well-known Umayyad luxury arts. Based on textual and archaeological evidence, it offers a detailed analysis of the estates' architecture and gardens within a synthetic socio-historical framework. Author Glaire Anderson focuses closely on the C?ban case study, synthesizing the archaeological evidence for the villas that has been unearthed from the 1980s up to 2009, with extant works of Andalusi art and architecture, as well as evidence from the Arabic texts. While the author brings her expertise on medieval Islamic architecture, art, and urbanism to the topic, the book contributes to wider art historical discourse as well: it is also a synthetic project that incorporates material and insights from experts in other fields (agricultural, economic, and social and political history). In this way, it offers a fuller picture of the topic and its relevance to Andalusi architecture and art, and to broader issues of architecture and social history in the caliphal lands and the Mediterranean. An important contribution of the book is that it illuminates the social history of the C?ban villas, drawing on the medieval Arabic texts to explain patterns of patronage among the court elite. An overarching theme of the book is that the C?ban estates fit within the larger historical constellation of Mediterranean villas and villa cultures, in contrast to long-standing art historical discourse that holds villas did not exist in the medieval period.