Middle Eastern

Architecture in the Emirates

Construction fever in the Gulf

The small emirates and states located on the Gulf, at the eastern edge of the Saudi Arabian peninsula, are building new cities in the desert at an astonishing rate, from Bahrain to Doha, and south to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Comprised of Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah, and Umm al-Quwain, the UAE is an oil-and-gas-rich region that has experienced an unparalleled architectural boom in recent years. With a dizzying array of ultra-modern towers popping up throughout the area, it's no surprise that the Gulf region has attracted many of the world's most prominent architects, including Tadao Ando, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, and Jean Nouvel, who are all designing groundbreaking projects for the ambitious Cultural District project on Saadiyat Island off the coast of Abu Dhabi. With these and many more remarkable, large-scale projects recently built or in progress, the Gulf emirates are perhaps today's top architectural hotspot.

Architects featured: AEDAS, Tadao Ando, Asymptote, Atkins, Behnisch Architects, Frank O. Gehry, Gensler, Zaha Hadid, HOK Sports, Kazuhiro Kojima, KPF, Greg Lynn, Jean Nouvel, OMA/Porsche Design, Oosterhuis NL, Carlos Ott, I.M. Pei, RNL, Hadi Simaan, SOM, Pei Zhu

TASCHEN's new architecture series brings a unique perspective to world architecture, highlighting architectural trends by country. Each book features 15 to 20 architects--from the firmly established to the up-and-coming--with the focus on how they have contributed to very recent architecture in the chosen nation. Entries include contact information and short biographies in addition to copiously illustrated descriptions of the architects' or firms' most significant recent projects. Crossing the globe from country to country, this new series celebrates the richly hued architectural personality of each nation or region featured.

The Alhambra (Wonders of the World)

Read the Bldg Blog interview with Mary Beard about the Wonders of the World series (Part I and Part II)

The Alhambra has long been a byword for exotic and melancholy beauty. In his absorbing new book, Robert Irwin, Arabist and novelist, examines its history and allure.

The Alhambra is the only Muslim palace to have survived since the Middle Ages. Built by a threatened dynasty of Muslim Spain, it was preserved as a monument to the triumph of Christianity. Every day thousands of tourists enter this magnificent site to be awestruck by its towers and courts, its fountained gardens, its honeycombed ceilings and intricate tile work. It is a complex full of mysteries--even its purpose is unclear. Its sophisticated ornamentation is not indiscriminate but full of hidden meaning. Its most impressive buildings were designed not by architects, but by philosophers and poets. The Alhambra, which resembles a fairy-tale palace, was constructed by slave labor in an era of economic decline, plague, and political violence. Its sumptuously appointed halls have lain witness to murder and mayhem. Yet its influence on art and on literature--including Orientalist painting and the architecture of cinemas, Washington Irving and Jorge Luis Borges--has been lasting and significant. As our guide to this architectural masterpiece, Robert Irwin allows us to fully understand the impact of the Alhambra.

Syria: A Historical And Architectural Guide

revised & updated edition

With a wealth of historical splendors matched by few other countries, Syria has remained almost undiscovered by mass tourism. As a result, little has been spoiled, much is unknown, and there is much to discover.

It is a land of immense antiquity, boasting cities and archaeological remains that are among the oldest in the world. Hittites, Hurrians and Hebrews, Aramaeans, Assyrians and Arabs, Egyptians, Canaanites, Persians, Nabateans, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Crusaders, Turks and French have all come, leaving behind some of the most spectacular monuments that can be seen anywhere. Today, entire deserted cities such as Palmyra or Resafeh, immense castles like Crac des Chevaliers and a bewildering array of palaces, mosques, temples, theatres, churches and other ruins strewn across the country provides Syria with one of the richest and most diverse heritages in the world.

Syria's timeless monuments overawe the visitor. But they can enchant as well: to lose oneself in the back-streets and bazaars of old Damascus and Aleppo - still perhaps the most wholly satisfying traditional cities of the Arab world today - or to experience the sheer enchantment of the utterly haunting Dead Cities - probably the greatest concentration of ruins in the entire Mediterranean - is to experience travel at its very best. Most of all, the visitor to Syria meets with the characteristic courtesy and hospitality to outsiders that makes travel in the Arab world such a pleasure. Syria is still 'the best kept secret'.

The new completely revised and updated edition of this book is to keep pace both with the rapid increase in travel to Syria and the new material which has appeared on Syria itself.

With lucid and informative text, this book reconsiders the history and heritage of Syria and surveys the major sites, making a strong case for reassessing its importance in our perception of the growth of civilization out of the Middle East. With its many site plans and maps, readable text and 96 color plates, it makes available the immensely wealthy history, archaeology and architecture of Syria to the general reader and the interested traveler.

Splendors of Islam: Architecture, Decoration and Design

This magnificent book is the key to understanding one of the world's most important architectural traditions, one that spawned major masterpieces throughout the near east, and particularly in Persia, India, Turkey, North Africa, Southern Russia, and Spain. As human representation is forbidden in Islamic religious monuments, design and ornamentation reach unparalleled heights of expression through mosaics, stucco, brickwood, and ceramic. Brilliant colors are used everywhere to enhance design.

This monumental study is a close collaboration between Dominique Clevenot, a distinguished scholar of art, and Gerald de George, a renowned photographer. Together, they visited and photographed hundreds of monuments, selecting their most noteworthy features. Unlike other books, which divide the subject geographically or chronically, the authors have approached this complicated topic from four different and interconnected angles: the history of Islamic architecture, materials and techniques, ornamental design, and the aesthetics of ornamentation.

Each of these topics is presented through a number of outstanding examples and comparable monuments from all over the Islamic world. Travelers overwhelmed by the Taj Mahal or the Alhambra will gain greater understanding. Architects and designers will find endless inspiration and ideas. Historians will be illuminated. Anyone interested in the vast world of Islam will find new knowledge in this magnificent full-color publication.

Damascus: Hidden Treasures of the Old City

Damascus, reputed to be the world's oldest continually inhabited city, has enjoyed a history of immense grandeur, enormous political and mercantile power, and great cultural and artistic achievement. In addition to some of Islam's most magnificent architecture, such as the Umayyad Mosque, the city boasts a heritage of fairy-tale palaces and sumptuous private houses. Sadly, many of them are in urgent need of restoration. Brigid Keenan and Tim Beddow have set out to record these priceless architectural gems and to reveal them to the world at large. They were given unprecedented access to the inner, "hidden" city, which has resulted in a book that will be of immense importance to all concerned with the heritage of architecture in the Islamic world. The text first sets the historical scene, describing the growth and fortunes of Damascus through the ages. It continues with an account of its architecture and way of life, and concludes with descriptions of individual houses and of the people who built and lived in them. The superb photographs include façades, courtyards, alleyways, and fountains, and the breathtaking interiors that often lie behind the unassuming walls of the old town, with exquisite details in stone, wood, paint, marble, plaster, glass, and mother-of-pearl. The whole forms a convincing and elegiac plea for the preservation of the heart of this historic ancient capital. 214 illustrations, 171 in color.

Constantinople: Istanbul's Historical Heritage

Byzantium - Constantinople - Istanbul: founded as a Greek settlement on the Bosporus, the city's history is replete with significant political and cultural developments. The Hagia Sophia stems from the early Christian era, the Middle Ages bequeathed us churches and monasteries rich in mosiacs as well as illuminated manuscripts and icons; and the cultural Renaissance in 1453 brought magnificent palaces and mosques, calligraphic treasures, and book and miniature paintings inspired by Persian and Arabic forms.

Islamic Architecture: Form, Function, and Meaning

This beautifully conceived and produced survey of Islamic architecture explores the glorious world of the caravansarai, mausoleum, palace, and mosque. Focusing on the multifaceted relation of architecture to society, Robert Hillenbrand covers public architecture in the Middle East and North Africa from the medieval period to 1700. Extensive photographs and ground plans -- among which are hundreds of newly executed three-dimensional drawings that provide an accurate and vivid depiction of the structure -- are presented with an emphasis on the way the specific details of the building fulfilled their function.

Included are chapters on religious and secular architecture and the architecture of tombs. Each building is discussed in terms of function, the links between particular forms and specific uses, the role of special types of buildings in the Islamic order, and the expressions of different sociocultural groups in architectural terms. Here the student or historian of Islamic architecture will find an astonishing resource, including Maghribi palaces, Anatolian madrasas, Indian minarets, Fatimid mausolea, and Safavid mosques, each rendered in lavish illustrations and explained with incomparable precision.

Islamic Art & Architecture: The System of Geometric Design

Issam El-Said pinpoints the rules of composition that form the basis of the geometric concepts of Islamic art. He then shows how intricate patterns are based on these basic principles. Fully illustrated in three colors to show the development of the patterns, this book offers an insight into how craftsmen and designers in the Muslim world achieved monumental feats of artistic expression using the simplest of tools. Chapter I presents graphical analyses of numerous complex patterns, to reveal the numerical rationale behind them. In Chapter II, the author analyses the system of measure used in ancient Egypt, before the use of numbers for calculating measurements. He shows how measuring cords and a geometric method based on a grid-pattern originating from the circle were employed by master craftsmen in the design of Islamic art and architecture. The book offers an insight into how craftsmen and designers in the Muslim world have achieved monumental feats of artistic expression with harmony and precision, using the simplest of tools such as a ruler, a string and templates, together with a system of measure that is both simple and sophisticated.

Architecture of the Islamic World: Its History and Social Meaning

The Persian Garden: Ecohoes of Paradise

For more than three thousand years, the Persian garden has been a focus of Iran's national imagination, influencing its art, literature, and even religion. The Persian garden's inspirational role has, however, extended far beyond the land of its origin; its precepts have exerted a profound influence on garden design around the world. The Persian Garden: Echoes of Paradise chronicles the history of the Persian garden, from the magnificent sanctuaries and hunting parks of fifth-century b.c. Persepolis to the magical nightingale gardens of nineteenth-century Tehran. All were seen as a kind of earthly paradise (the English word paradise has its roots in the old Persian word pairi-daeza meaning a walled space). To an astonishing extent, that vision seems justified.

This book was meticulously researched and created over a period of six years in, Paris, Tehran and Washington by photographer, Mehdi Khansari and architect Minouch Yavari, together with the renowned Persian architect and architectural historian Reza Moghtader. It explains the philosophy behind Persian garden design and offers an authoritative account of its developmentintroducing new historical material in the process. This extraordinary story is enhanced by vivid descriptions of Persian gardens as seen through the eyes of travelers to Iran during the past five hundred years. Over 240 illustrations in full color, complement the text. They include magnificent color photographs, old plates and engravings, as well as exquisite architectural renderings and plans of the sites and the gardens. A selection of the finest Persian garden-carpets, textiles, miniature paintings, stone reliefs, painted tiles, pottery, and poetry, augment the reader's experience of an ancient art form that for centuries has sought to meld the physical and the spiritual.