Controversies in the Interpretations of Islamic Architecture and Geometric Ornament

• Published in: In medias res (Zagreb, Online) Vol. 12; no. 23; pp. 3827 - 3846
• Main Author: Senad Nanić
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Center for Philosophy of Media and Media Research 01.09.2023
• Subjects: islamic architecture; islamic geometric pattern; muqarnas; ribbed vaults
• ISSN: 1848-6304
• DOI: 10.46640/imr.12.23.4

Controversies over the influence of Islamic on Western architecture arose in the absence of documentary proof. The literature indicates possible influences, referring to the source of the gothic pointed arch and ribbed vaults, Renaissance double domes and formalist quadruple gardens, and pointing, on the other hand, to structural differences. Islamic scientific geometric and practical manuscripts of the 10th and 11th centuries, as translated into Latin, have been considered likely influential on respective later fundamental works in Europe. The literature tends to attribute the origin of the ribbed vault and multiple dome structures in Islamic architecture to light temporary large tent structures. Controversies over the meaning of geometric patterns arose in opposition to the 19th century orientalist view of Islamic geometric ornamentation as merely decorative. The literature locates its meaning in essentialist symbolism, using the Platonic geometric understanding of generating multiplicity from one, and in the Islamic theological tradition of God’s absolute transcendence above any anthropomorphic and figurative presentation, including the position of mathematical and logical proofs in arriving at certainty. Bulatov (1988) and Necipoğlu (1995) regard the absence of an independent theory of architecture in Islam as expected, pointing out that architecture in Islam has never risen to a level of a liberal art as in the Renaissance, but was developed in theoretical and geometric aspects as the art of construction, including the concept of beauty and its perception, as a component of the practical sciences in philosophical and scientific works, analogous to the syllogism in logic, the stanza in poetry and the rate in metrics.