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- Volume 1, Issue 1, 2012
International Journal of Islamic Architecture - Volume 1, Issue 1, 2012
Volume 1, Issue 1, 2012
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The Missiri of Fréjus as Healing Memorial: Mosque Metaphors and the French Colonial Army (1928–64)
More LessThe Missiri, or Mosque, of Fréjus was constructed c.1928–30 for the Senegalese riflemen (tirailleurs sénégalais) of the French colonial troops based in the military camps of southern France. Although its appearance seemingly links it with sub-Saharan Islamic architecture, its purpose and uses remained secular. Officials at the camps hoped that the building would induce health and community spirit, while providing a memorial space for deceased soldiers. Through an analysis of the building's shape, function and surviving military documents, this study demonstrates that the Missiri is the material outcome of new ventures in French colonial humanism, ostensible religious tolerance, and the belief that moral rectitude can be expressed through architecture. Moreover, this mosque-like building represents a clear example of a structural form (the mosque) divorced from a particular function (Islamic ritual) and concerned instead with providing a site to commemorate the Senegalese riflemen's contributions to Greater France.
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Head Trips: An Intertextual Analysis of Later Architecture and Sculpture Under Saddam Hussein
More LessIn Iraq at the end of the twentieth century, Saddam Hussein commissioned many monuments imbued with formal and epigraphic references to distant structures and cities and to important historical figures. This intertextual networking of architecture, sculpture and personae was part of a concerted effort to bolster late Bacathist cultural-political discourses with powerful visual rhetoric. Some of the most indica-tive examples of this practice were produced in the last decade of his regime and were misidentified or destroyed shortly after the US invasion of 2003. The essay scrutinizes two sets of busts on palaces in Baghdad, and, after unravelling the meanings of their formal elements, uses these as comparative references to clarify the significance of other contemporary examples of Saddam's patronage and expand on others' analyses of earlier works as well. The examination of these monuments illustrates how Saddam sought to use cultural patronage as a means to create trans-temporal and trans-national narratives in order to stabilize his regime domestically and secure support from abroad. These conflations of historical and mythological references in sculpture and architecture could nevertheless prove susceptible to misinterpretation or be used for purposes unintended by the patron.
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Experiencing the Alhambra, An Illusive Site of Oriental Otherness
More LessTwo travellers, the French romantic poet and novelist Thophile Gautier (1811–72) and the Finnish naturalist painter Albert Edelfelt (1854–1905), both visited the Alhambra palace in Granada: Gautier in 1840, Edelfelt in 1881. Their accounts of the palace are strikingly similar, although forty years separate their travels; written several years later, Edelfelt's narrative is imbued with a romanticism related to Gautier's. The aim is to show that the ambiguity of Gautier's and Edelfelt's statements of the Alhambra is due to their romantic preconceptions. I will compare their experiences by analysing what they saw during their journeys and how it was expressed in their texts; Gautier published his Voyage en Espagne in 1843, while Edelfelt's impressions are recorded in his letters to his mother. The result is that the Alhambra represented a dream world, which in many senses did not live up to the visitors' expectations. While Gautier was in constant search for the authenticity of the place, Edelfelt was deeply touched by the magnificence that met him in a labyrinth of fabulous beauty. However, the preconceived mental image they both held resulted in an experience that in many ways fell short of the idea they had formed of it in advance.
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The Legacy of Ottoman Building in Nicosia: Hans as Spaces of Coexistence in Pre-conflict Cyprus
By Anita BakshiThe urban form of Nicosia has been heavily influenced by the conflict in Cyprus and the separation of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities since the late 1950s. The historic city centre, encircled within the sixteenth-century Venetian walls, is defined by an absence, the Buffer Zone, an inaccessible strip that divides it down the middle. This was once the city's main market area, its course laid out in the medieval period. Three centuries of Ottoman rule left an imprint on this urban fabric and resulted in the building of a large number of hans along these marketplace streets. As the Cyprus conflict remains unresolved, so do the divergent narratives, differing on each side of the border, regarding how this part of the city was lived in and used in the years prior to division. The nature of these streets, in terms of the degree of coexistence or separation that existed between the communities sharing them, is disputed. This article will look at material evidence and memories related to several of Nicosia's hans in order to provide an alternative narrative; looking to the material reality of these buildings, and the memories connected to them, to discuss the nature of coexistence in pre-conflict Cyprus in the 1940s and 1950s.
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Msheireb Heart of Doha: An Alternative Approach to Urbanism in the Gulf Region
Authors: Rosanna Law and Kevin UnderwoodThe objective of this article is to highlight some of the challenges faced by emerging Gulf nation states in modernizing their cities. The Msheireb Heart of Doha Masterplan is used as an exemplar project to offer an alternative approach in urban planning and regeneration in the region. The article describes how the challenges of land ownership, privatization, climate, social diversity and cultural relevance are dealt with in the masterplan, which seeks to create a modern Qatari homeland that is rooted in its local traditions and heritage. Towards the end of the article, reflections and evaluations are examined to prompt further thoughts and discussions.
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Book Reviews
Authors: Esra Akcan, Michael Stanton, Dijana Alić, Mona Damluji, Anthony D. King and Chad EliasSTREETS OF MEMORY: LANDSCAPE, TOLERANCE, AND NATIONAL IDENTITY IN ISTANBUL, AMY MILLS, (2010) Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, xii + 288 pp., ISBN 9780820335735, $64.95 (cloth)/ISBN 9780820335742, $24.95 (paper)
ORIENTING ÍSTANBUL: CULTURA CAPITAL OF EUROPE?, DENÍZ GÖKTÜRK, LEVENT SOYSAL AND ÍPEK TÜRELÍ (EDS), (2010) London and New York: Routledge, xv + 336 pp., ISBN 9780415580106, $160 (cloth)/ISBN 9780415580113, $62.95 (paper)
LESSONS IN POST-WAR RECONSTRUCTION: CASE STUDIES FROM LEBANON IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE 2006 WAR, HOWAYDA AL-HARITHY (ED.), (2010) London and New York: Routledge, 218 pp., ISBN 9780415571050, $110 (cloth)
VIOLENCE TAKING PLACE: THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE KOSOVO CONFLICT, ANDREW HERSCHER, (2010) Stanford: Stanford University Press, 198 pp., 39 b/w illus., ISBN 9780804769358, $21.95 (paper)
BAGHDAD ARTS DECO: ARCHITECTURAL BRICKWORK, 1920–1950, CAECILIA PIERI, (2010) Cairo and New York: American University of Cairo Press, 166 pp., 219 illus., ISBN 9789774163562, $39.95 (cloth)
THE COURTYARD HOUSE: FROM CULTURAL REFERENCE TO UNIVERSAL RELEVANCE, NASSER O. RABBAT (ED.), (2010) Farnham, Surrey and Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 260 pp., 120 b/w illus., ISBN 9780754638438, $109 (cloth). Published in association with the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture
MEMORIALS AND MARTYRS IN MODERN LEBANON, LUCIA VOLK, (2010) Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 272 pp., 23 b/w illus., 1 map, ISBN 9780253355232, $24.95 (paper)
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EXHIBITION REVIEWS
Authors: Kristoffer Damgaard and Yasir Sakr'BAYT AL-AQQAD - A HOUSE IN DAMASCUS', THE DAVID COLLECTION, COPENHAGEN, UNTIL AUGUST 7, 2011
'OUT OF PLACE', DARAT AL-FUNUN – THE KHALID SHOMAN FOUNDATION, AMMAN, JUNE 7–SEPTEMBER 29, 2011
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CONFERENCE PRECIS
Authors: Peter Christensen, Mrinalini Rajagopalan, Sinem Arcak and Simon O'Meara'"MIDDLE EASTERN" ARCHITECTURE IN CONTEXT', PANEL CONVENED AT THE SOCIETY OF ARCHITECTURAL HISTORIANS (SAH) 64TH ANNUAL MEETING, NEW ORLEANS, APRIL 14, 2011
'UNWRAPPING GIFTS OF THE SULTAN', LOS ANGELES COUNTY MUSEUM OF ART (LACMA), JUNE 10–12, 2011 A symposium in conjunction with the exhibition 'Gifts of the Sultan: the Arts of Giving at the Islamic Courts' at LACMA from June 5 to September 5, 2011; at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston from October 23, 2011 to January 15, 2012; and at the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar in Spring 2012
'"GOD IS BEAUTIFUL, HE LOVES BEAUTY": THE OBJECT IN ISLAMIC ART AND CULTURE', FOURTH BIENNIAL HAMAD BIN KHALIFA SYMPOSIUM ON ISLAMIC ART, MUSEUM OF ISLAMIC ART, DOHA, QATAR, OCTOBER 29–31, 2011
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