MIT, Department of Architecture
Time: Tuesdays 2-5, 5-216
Instructor: Nasser Rabbat (nasser@mit.edu)
Units: 3-0-9, H-Level Grad Credit
Prerequisite: Consent of instructor, open to advanced undergraduates
Required Texts: Oleg Grabar, The Formation of Islamic Art (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1973, 1987 2d ed.); Robert Irwin, Islamic Art in Context: Art, Architecture and the Literary World.
(Upper Saddle River, NJ; New York: Prentice-Hall; H.N. Abrams, 1997); Yasser
Tabbaa, The Transformation of Islamic Art
during the Sunni Revival (
Background Text: Marshall G.S. Hodgson,
The venture of Islam: Conscience and
History in a World Civilization 3 vols. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
1974).
This seminar presents a critical review of literature on Islamic architecture in the last two centuries and analyzes its historical and theoretical frameworks. It challenges the tacit assumptions and biases of standard studies of Islamic architecture and addresses historiographic and critical questions concerning how knowledge of a field is defined, produced, and reproduced.
The seminar focuses on a number of issues that have emerged recently both in academe and in the architectural profession. First is the relationship between architecture and culture, a crucial query that has become one of the most debated issues in architectural and art historical circles. Second is the definition of Islamic architecture, a discursive category embraced by a devout audience but skeptically accepted by academics, which has never had a forum where it can be scholarly and critically examined without proscribed historical or ideological limits. This is especially true in the case of its presumed temporal boundaries: the polemical discontinuity from late antique to Islamic architecture, and the forced rupture between modern architecture in the Islamic world and its historical genealogy. The course aims to rectify the situation by expanding its purview to include both moments. But it definitely does not aim to essentialize Islamic architecture. Instead it emphasizes the cultural diversity within the Islamic context which produced the various architectural traditions that dot the historical and geographic map of the Islamic world.
The course includes weekly reading and writing assignments and requires active participation in discussions. During the second half of the term, we will have a number of visiting scholars presenting their research and engaging in discussions with the class. A research paper is to be first presented in class and then submitted at the end of the term. Topics are limited to in-depth studies of texts, representations, and scholarly traditions. They can either be chosen from the enclosed list or should be decided in consultation with the instructor by the end of the third week of the semester. A short abstract and preliminary bibliography should be submitted by the fourth week. Required texts are available at the Coop and area bookshops. All readings will be available on reserve in Rotch/Stellar Site.
Week 1 : Historical and Methodological Framework of the Field:
The study of Islamic architecture: a critical review
Historiographic issues concerning sources, periodization, scholarship, agency, cultural framework, etc.
Week
2: Where Does the Field Stand: Reviewing A Recent Study:
Required
Robert Irwin, Islamic art in context: art, architecture, and the literary world, 11-144, 241-57.
Week 3: Where Does the Field Stand: Reviews:
Required
Robert
Hillenbrand, "Studying Islamic Architecture: Challenges and
Perspectives." Architectural History
46 (2003): 1-18
Sheila S.
Blair and Jonathan M. Bloom, "The Mirage of Islamic Art: Reflections on
the Study of an Unwieldy Field," The
Art Bulletin 85, 1 (March 2003): 152-84.
Sibel Bozdogan (unpublished) Thoughts on S. Blair and J. Bloom’s “The Mirage of Islamic Art: Reflections on the Study of an Unwieldy Field."
Oleg
Grabar, "Islamic Art and Archaeology," in L. Binder, ed. The Study of the
Week 4: Early Surveyors and Interpreters:
Three case studies Louis Massignon,
Ernest Diez, and K.A.C. Creswell.
Required
Stephen
Vernoit, "Islamic Art and Architecture: An Overview of Scholarship and
Collecting, c. 1850-c. 1950," in Vernoit, ed., Discovering Islamic art: scholars, collectors and collections
1850-1950 (
K.A.C. Creswell
K.A.C.
Creswell, "The Origin of the Cruciform Plan of Cairene Madrasas," in The Muslim Architecture of Egypt 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959), 2:
104-34.
J.M.
Rogers, "Architectural History as Literature: Creswell's Reading and
Methods," Muqarnas 8 (1991):
45-54.
Louis Massignon:
Louis Massignon,
"Les méthodes de réalisation artistique des peuples de l'Islam,"
Robert Irwin, "Louis Massignon and the esoteric interpretation of Islamic art," in S.Vernoit, ed. Discovering Islamic art: scholars, collectors and collections, 1850-1950, 163-170
Ernest Diez
Ernest Diez, "A Stylistic Analysis of Islamic Art," Ars Islamica (1936-37-38), 3/2: 201-12; 4/1:185-89; 5/1: 36-45.
Gulru Necipoglu, The Topkapi scroll : geometry and ornament
in Islamic architecture :
Week 4: The Historical
Method and the Study of Islamic Architecture (1):
Historical Framework and the Question of
Boundaries
Required
Oleg Grabar, The
Formation of Islamic Art, 1-131, 195-213.
Week
5: Islamic Architecture and the Universalist Approach:
Religious/Spiritual Interpretations
The Essentialist Traditionalism : Sayyed Hussein Nasr and disciples
Required
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, "The principle of Unity and the Sacred Architecture of Islam" Islamic Art and Spirituality (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987), 37-63.
Nader Ardalan and Laleh Bakhtiyar, The Sense of Unity: The Sufi Tardition in Persian Architecture (
Juan Eduardo Campo, The
Other Sides of
Gulru Necipoglu, The Topkapi scroll : geometry and ornament in Islamic architecture, 73-83, "Recent Studies on Geometric Ornament."
Week 6: Iconography and Islamic Architecture
The cultural specificity of iconography
The
validity of iconography
Required
Titus Burckhardt, "The foundations of Islamic
Art," In, Sacred Art in East and
West: Its Principles and Methods. (
Oleg Grabar, "The Iconography of Islamic Architecture,"
In, Content and Context of Visual Arts in
the Islamic World. (
R. Stephen Humphreys, "The Expressive Intent of the
Mamluk Architecture in
Erica C. Dodd, "The Image of the Word (Notes on the Religious Iconography of Islam)," Berytus 18 (1969) 35-62.
Paul Crossley, "Medieval architecture and meaning: the limits of iconography," Burlington Magazine 130, 1019 (Feb 1988): 116-21.
Week 7: The
Historical Method and the Study of Islamic Architecture (2):
Historical Interpretation:
Required
Yasser Tabbaa, The Transformation of Islamic Art during the
Sunni Revival (
Week 8: Islamic Architecture and Cultural Interpretation:
Status of Islamic Architecture in Architectural History.
Is there a "pure" Islamic architecture and a "derivative" one?
Authoritative/reconstructive texts of the field
Required
Oleg Grabar, "Reflections on the Study of Islamic Art," Muqarnas 1(1983): 1-14.
Oleg Grabar, "What Should One Know about Islamic Art?" RES43 (Spring 2003): 5-11.
Ernest J. Grube,
"What is Islamic Architecture," in: ed. G. Michell, Architecture of the Islamic World: Its
History and Social Meaning (
Jean-Charles Depaule, "Improbables detachements: l'architecture et les arts dans la culture islamique," Cahiers du Musee National d'Art Moderne 39 (Spring1992): 26-41.
Terry Allen, Five Essays in Islamic Architecture (Sebastopol, California: Solipsist Press, 1988), 63-110.
Nasser Rabbat "The Dialogic Dimension in Umayyad Art," RES 43 (Spring 2003): 78-94.
Week 9: Current Research: Glaire D.
Interpreting the
'palaces' of Umayyad Cordoba
Required
Glaire D.
D.F. Ruggles,
"Palaces of
Week 10: Current Research: Heghnar
Watenpaugh:
Waqf as a source for the History of Islamic Architecture
Required
Heghnar Watenpaugh,
The Image of an Ottoman City: Imperial Architecture and Urban Practice in
Aleppo in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (
Miriam Hoexter, "Waqf
Studies in the Twentieth Century: The State of the Art," Journal of the Economic and Social History
of the Orient 41 (1998): 474-95.
Jihane Tate, "L'ordre de la
description dans les waqfiyya," Les
cahiers de la recherche architecturale 20/21 (1987): 22-25
Leonor Fernandes, "The
Foundation of Baybars al-Jashankir: Its Waqf, History and Architecture," Muqarnas 4 (1987): 21-42.
Week 11: Current Research: Sibel Bozdogan:
Re-framing the Ottoman
Heritage: Ideology and Architectural Historiography in Early Republican
Required
Sibel Bozdogan Modernism and
Franz Fanon The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Constance Farrington (New York: Grove Press, 1963), “On National Culture,” 167-99.
Mehmet Agaoglu, "Remarks on the Character of Islamic Art." The Art Bulletin 36, 3 (September 1954): 175-202.
G. Baydar Nalbantoglu, "The Birth of An Aesthetic Disocurse in Ottoman Architecture," METU Journal of the Faculty of Architecture 8, 2 (1988): 115-22.
Week 12: Student Presentations:
Some Suggested Research Topics:
1. Islamic architecture in the writing of Richard Ettinghausen.
2. Islamic architecture in the writing of Robert Hillenbrand.
3. Islamic architecture in the writing of K. A. C. Creswell.
4. Islamic architecture in the writing of the French school.
5. Islamic architecture in the writing of the German school.
6. Islamic architecture in the writing of Spanish school.
7. Islamic architecture in the writing of the Russian school.
8.
European scholars and the nationalist question:
K.A.C. Creswell in
9. Nationalism and Islamism in Turkish art historical scholarship.
10. Nationalism and Islamism in Arabic art historical scholarship.
11. Nationalism and Islamism in Iranian art historical scholarship.
12. Nationalism and Islamism in Pakistani/Bangladeshi art historical scholarship
13. The writing of the Traditionalist school: Henri Corbin, Titus Burkhardt, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, and Nader Ardalan, etc.
14. Writing on the reconstruction of history in recent Nationalist architecture.
15. European
travelers and illustrators in
16. European
travelers and illustrators in
17. European
travelers and illustrators in
18. European
travelers and illustrators in
19. European
travelers and illustrators in
20. European
travelers and illustrators in
21. Chinoiserie,
Turkerie, and the fascination with Oriental fashion in
22. The
fascination with the
23. The fascination with the Taj Mahal.
24. Status of Oriental architecture in the nineteenth-century study of architecture.
25. The role of the Aga Khan cultural enterprise in defining Islamic architecture.
26. The
influence of Islamic art and architecture in post-reconquista
27. Colonial
architecture and scholarship in French
28. Representations of the Islamic city in various Orientalist and Nationalist schools.
29. Current Status of the Field: Context, Methods, Critical Theory, etc.