‘Islamic architecture’ and the profession

Abstract

The term ‘Islamic architecture’ often evokes domed and sumptuously decorated monuments, preferably with minarets and lots of arches. Reductive and exotic, these images are nonetheless quite popular both in the West and in the Islamic world. Even the specialized literature on Islamic architecture, erudite and extensive as it is, still falls for a similar, though less fantastic, kind of historicism. Most surveys of Islamic architecture begin with the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, built in 692, and end with the Taj Mahal in Agra, completed in 1654, as the first and last instances of an architectural tradition comprised mostly of mosques, shrines, palaces, and castles, with its best creative days behind it. So pervasive was this restrictive historical construct that Islamic architecture had a very hard time making the transition into the modern world of design. Even today, with many architects around the world using the vocabulary of Islamic architecture in their design mainly in response to passionate requests from their clients, the notion of ‘Islamic architecture’ sits uneasily within both the practice of design and the field of architectural history, where its name, scope, and claim to specificity are constantly questioned. [First paragraph] ©2014