Mosques
Subtitle: splendors of Islam
By: foreword by Prince Amyn Aga Khan ; preface by Leyla Uluhanli ; general editor, Jai Imbrey
Publisher: Rizzoli
Published: 2017
Language: eng
Number of pages: 304
ISBN-13: 9780847860357
Subjects: Mosques; Islamic architecture
Description: One of the most important and authoritative books to celebrate mosque architecture and Islamic design, featuring many newly commissioned photographs. Mosques reflect some of the greatest architectural  achievements - their spiritual purpose gives them a profound and often mystical beauty. This visually striking volume illustrates the development of basic mosque strucutral and decorative elements with over sixty examples. Venerated mosques such as the Great Mosque of Córdoba, the Imam Mosque of Isfahan, and Instanbul's Süleymaniye Mosque, as well as Doha's innovative Abu al-Qabib Mosque, are featured in magnificent detail. Mosques: Splendors of Islam showcases mosques from Europe, the Indian subcontinent, North America, North Africa and the sub-Sahara, the Middle East, and Russia and the Caucasus. It spans from their earliest origins in Mecca and Medina to contemporary masterpieces, highlighting major stylistic transformations as illustrated in the mosques of some of Islam's great dynasties - the Umayyads, the Abbasids, the Mamluks, the Ottomans, the Safavids, and the Mughals. The inclusion of dynamic new structures provides an insight into the vitality of current mosque design. Original and archival photographs offer exterior and interior views as well as images of adjacent gardens and fountains that grace these sanctuaries. Essays by prominent architecture and design authorities also address such topics as the iconographic and decorative elements of the mosque. Descriptions of their calligraphy and tilework, as well as furnishings and illumination, enhance this volume. -- from dust jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (page 298) and index.
Table of contents: title: pt. 1, Realm of the mosque : Approaching the mosque : beginnings and evolution / by Renata Holod ; Elements of the mosque : form and adornment / by Fatima Quraishi and Matthew Saba; title: pt. 2, Regional expressions : Mosque beginnings, the Arab world / by Mohammed Hamdouni Alami ; The rise of mosques in North Africa and Spain / by Heather Ecker, Regional mosque architecture of the Trans-Saharan trade : the great mosque of Djenné / by Heather Ecker ; The flowering of mosque architecture in Anatolia and in the Ottoman Empire / by Walter B. Denny ; The splendid mosques of Iran and Central Asia / by Sussan Babaie ; The majestic mosques of India and Pakistan / by George Michell. Birth and rebirth : mosques of Russia and the Caucasus / by Angela Wheeler ; Contemporary expressions, modern metamorphoses / by Philip Jodidio.