#getty tomb

[conformi]

Frank Stella painting "Getty Tomb" in his studio, 1959, photo by Hollis Frampton VS Seven Osirian Doorways, Temple of Osiris Hek-Djet, Karnak | Luxor, Egypt, Twenty-third Dynasty of Egypt

[ilovemesomevincentprice]

Vincent Price signing autographs at Tomb of Ligeia movie premiere (1964)

Footage courtesy of Getty images

[archinform]

Getty Tomb, Graceland Cemetery

Carrie Eliza Getty Tomb

Graceland Cemetery, Chicago IL

1890

Louis H. Sullivan, architect

by Roger Jones, August 2024

My photos from 8-3-2024:

Henry Harrison Getty commissioned this tomb for his late wife, Carrie Eliza Anderson Getty, in 1890. He engaged the firm of Adler and Sullivan for its design, admiring both Louis Sullivan's local buildings and his design for the tomb of Martin Ryerson, Getty's partner, of 1889. One source indicates that Getty was also on the board of the Adler & Sullivan-designed Auditorium Building. Both the Getty and Ryerson tombs, as well as Sullivan's grave, are located in Graceland Cemetery, Chicago.

The structure faces east on a small triangle of land bounded by cemetery roads. It is the only structure on a plot, located in the northwest part of the cemetery.

The Getty tomb is only of only three mausoleums designed by Sullivan between 1889 and 1892, the third being the Wainwright tomb in Bellefontaine Cemetery, St. Louis.

From the HABS report:

The construction is of blocks of grey Bedford limestone, with bronze gates and inner door. The rectangular block of the monument rests on a stylobate of four single stones, and the lower half of the wall is of smooth ashlar masonry. The upper half of the wall has an over-all incised pattern of octagonal panels enclosing eight-pointed stars, and above this is an enriched cornice with three scallops constituting the roof. On the front and two sides are large arches springing from the ashlar base to cover the door and the side lunettes.

A further description:

The quiet elegance of this tomb celebrates life amidst the cemetery's somber environment of death. An architectural writer once described it as being "as near perfection as mortals are allowed to approach." Its beauty is achieved through a combination of simple geometric shapes and rich delicately proportioned ornamentation.

Yale University Library, Digital Collections

Architect Frank Lloyd Wright remarked of the structure that it was "entirely Sullivan's own, a piece of sculpture, a statue, a great poem addressed to human sensibilities as such. Outside the realm of music, what finer requiem?"

Notes the HABS report:

The design for the Getty Tomb received much praise from abroad. In 1900, at a time when Sullivan's commissions were very few, a plaster cast of the tomb doorway was being shown at the Paris Exposition.

There is a poem by Marge Piercy, visiting a dead man on a summer day, about Sullivan and his Getty tomb.

Frank Stella's work entitled Getty Tomb is a comment on the immense darkness and sorrow of death.

Frank Stella, Getty Tomb, 1967. Lithograph. Whitney Museum of American Art

Interred in the mausoleum:

Carrie Eliza Anderson Getty

1843 - 20 February 1890

Henry Harrison Getty

20 September 1836 - 28 March 1919

Alice Eliza Getty

15 October 1858 - 12 June 1946

Left: Henry Harrison Getty

Right: Alice Eliza Getty

I have yet to discover a photograph of Carrie Eliza Anderson Getty.

Alice Eliza Getty, about whom the most information is available, seems to have lived a rather fascinating life. She was a musician, composer, author, and art historian. She was the daughter of Henry H. Getty [1], a rich businessman who made his money in lumber. After the death of Alice's mother Carrie Eliza [2] in 1890, her father Henry retired from business and traveled widely in Europe and Asia with his daughter, along the way establishing an Asian art collection. He and Alice lived in Paris, Henry dying there in 1919. Alice continued to live in Paris until 1939, and spent her last five years in New York. Illustrations in her book The Gods of Northern Buddhism (published 1914 and 1928) came from the collection of her father. At some point, she lived in a Buddhist monastery in Japan. Alice is one of the pioneers of the Western study of South Asian art. [3]

Photograph from National Register of Historic Places Inventory - Nomination Form

The tomb's ornamental cast bronze gates and inner door were executed by the Yale and Towne Mfg. Company. The bronze door reportedly took an artisan and assistant a year to create and weighs 1,100 pounds. Plaster casts were made of the inner door, and exhibited in Paris at the Exposition Universelle of 1900 (winning Sullivan an award), and at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Image: Chicago Architectural Photographing Co. [Chicago]. Archival image collection, Art Institute of Chicago.

Data: Findagrave.com

The plaster cast of the door. Source: Building 51 Museum

Details of Historic American Buildings Survey drawings.

Grave of Louis Henri Sullivan, Graceland Cemetery.

NOTES:

[1] Below is a biographical sketch of Getty from the Book of Chicagoans (1905), p. 231: "Getty, Henry Harrison, capitalist; Batavia, N.Y., 1836; s. Adams Getty; removed with parents in 1848 to Waukegan, Ill.; ed. public schools of Batavia, N.Y., and Waukegan, HI.; m. I864, Carrie E. Anderson, of Muskegon, Mich.; 1 daughter. On leaving school in 1856, went to Muskegon, Michigan, and was engaged in general store, 1856-9; entered employ of Ryerson and Morris, saw-mills, Muskegon, 1879, and soon became supt. and foreman of the mill; bought interest in firm, 1865, which became Ryerson, Hills & Co.; in 1867 bought an interest in the Chicago business of Martin Ryerson & Co., and removed to this city to take charge of the yards; retired from business in 1892. Clubs: Chicago, Union League. Office: 204 Dearborn St."

HABS No. ILL-1045, Getty Tomb

[2] Carrie Eliza Anderson was born in Skein, Skien kommune, Telemark fylke, Norway in 1843, and was living in Muskegon, Michigan by the time she was 18. Her husband was Henry Harrison Getty, born in Batavia, New York. They were married in Muskegon, Michigan on November 9, 1864. She died February 24, 1890 (aged 46–47), in Cook County, Illinois.

Findagrave.com

[3] ...Alice Getty, an only child, was born in Muskegon, Michigan, near the miles of pine-forests owned by her "lumberman" father. The family travelled extensively.... Her father...announced his intention of retiring when he was fifty in order to travel and to collect Far Eastern art....At that time [1890] Miss Getty's mother had died, and she became her father's companion in his collection-travels in Europe and Asia. The Gettys, with the ever-increasing collection, eventually settled in Paris. The largest and most important part of the collection consisted of images of deities of the Hindu Buddhist Pantheon, but Mr. Getty did not limit his field. His beautiful musical instruments were presented to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York by his daughter; she also gave his collection of Persian shawls and a fine stone Maitreya to the Art Institute in Chicago. Miss Getty's extensive acquaintance with the scholars who were later to become her friends and colleagues now began. Among her most intimate friends later on were the great Sanskritist, the late Mr. Sylvain Levi, the late Mr. Joseph Hackin of the Musee Guimet, and the late M. Paul Pelliot. European scholars recognised her abilities immediately. But until about 1907, her own great interest had always been music. She wanted to compose and for some years she studied harmony and composition with Vincent D'Indy. She wrote the music for various French poems and several of these songs had been successfully published, when her father's suggestion that she write a catalogue of his collection of Buddhist deities, changed her entire life. She put the songs aside, temporarily, as she thought, but research in Asiatic art claimed her thereafter, and she never returned to music again. She must have been naturally a scholar. The catalogue was undertaken in the most professional manner. She worked with deliberation and with meticulous care. At that time there was a dearth of material on Buddhist iconography; and during the six unhurried years when Miss Getty was working on the catalogue, she and her father made three journeys to India and the Far East. In I914, the Oxford Clarendon Press published "The Gods of Northern Buddhism", which at once took the place which it still holds as the authoritative book on the subject. During the first World War Miss Getty gave all her time to working for the blinded soldiers. She had a Braille printing-press installed in her apartment and superintended the printing of many books. For her admirable work she was afterward decorated by the French government.

Alice Getty. Author: Florance Waterbury Source: Artibus Asiae , 1946, Vol. 9, No. 4 (1946), pp. 346-348.

Links:

Photographs of the mausoleum by James Caulfield, including views of the interior, are here:

A video tour of the tomb interior can be viewed here [notice the creepy death mask of Henry H. Getty above the door, presumably put there by Alice]:

[blueiscoool]

The Getty Museum Returns 2,500-Year-Old Bronze Kline to Turkey

The Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the J. Paul Getty Museum announced today that the bronze kline, dating back to approximately 530 BC, was returned to the Republic of Turkey.

The work was purchased by the Museum in 1982 from a Swiss art dealer who presented false evidence that it had been in European collections since the 1920s. Investigations conducted by the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the J. Paul Getty Museum revealed that this claim was false and that the work had been obtained from a tomb near Manisa in the early 1980s through illegal excavations and taken out of the country illegally.

As a result of scientific research, the pieces of linen stuck to the kline were matched with other pieces left in the tomb, including pieces of wood and bronze plates found by Turkish archaeologists during excavations at the site, and remains of marble and ceramic vessels, which helped date the tomb.

The piece called a divan or a kline was a piece of furniture that was used to rest and eat during the day. The returned piece is considered to be a very rare example of this type of furniture that has survived to the present day, as seen in the depictions on other pieces of art such as archaeological wall paintings and pots and pans with painted pictures. The metal divan, which consists of cast bronze legs and rails on an iron frame, perforated copper sheets riveted together and wrapped around iron rail cores, is understood to have been made by taking the example of divans commonly produced from wood at the time, with its lathed legs, protruding tenons at the corners and a latticed surface that once supported cushions.

[scarletwitchie2]

LONDON - MAY 27: Angelina and Billy Bob Thornton attends the party for the premiere of the film "Tomb Raider" at the "Sugar Reef" Club on May 27, 2001 in London. (Photo by Dave Hogan/Getty Images)

[badarchitecturesucks]

FRANK STELLA, Stella painting Getty Tomb in his New York studio, 1958–1962 (from the Black Paintings series 1958-1960). Photography by Hollis Frampton. / National Gallery of Art

via: scandinaviancollectors

[worldsandemanations]

Getty tomb's bronze gates and inner-door completed in 1890. Adler & Sullivan, architects. period image by Ralph Cleveland

[vulturesouls]

[Mosque inside Asaf-ud Dawlah's Emambara or Tomb, Now Used as a Hospital, Lucknow], 1858

Photo by Felice Beato (English, born Italy, 1832 - 1909)

Getty Museum

[themuseumwithoutwalls]

MWW Artwork of the Day (11/20/23) Caspar David Friedrich (German, 1774–1840) Walk at Dusk (Man Contemplating a Megalith)(c. 1830-35) Oil on canvas, 33.3 x 43.7 cm. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

His head bowed, a man walks alone in the silvery, cold moonlit night while contemplating a megalithic tomb and its implicit message of death. It is winter, and all around him nature is dying. Leafless trees loom behind like specters, but a grove of verdant oaks rises through the mist in the background with the promise of life. The waxing moon, high in the sky, also acts as a counterbalance to death, symbolizing Christ and the promise of rebirth for the artist Caspar David Friedrich. Friedrich was part of the German Romantic movement; his deeply personal and introspective vision addressed Christian themes through analogies based on the cycles of nature.

[ifreakingloveroyals]

28 June 2018 | Prince William, Duke of Cambridge during a visit to the Church of St Mary Magdalene to pay his respects at the tomb of his great-grandmother Princess Alice of Battenberg during his official tour of Jordan, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories in Jerusalem, Israel. (c) Arthur Edwards - Pool/Getty Images

[moonlitmistyforest]

Caspar David Friedrich - A Walk at Dusk, c. 1830-35 oil on canvas, 33.7 × 43.2 cm Getty Museum

His head bowed, a man walks alone in the silvery, cold moonlit night while contemplating a megalithic tomb and its implicit message of death. It is winter, and all around him nature is dying. Leafless trees loom behind like specters, but a grove of verdant oaks rises through the mist in the background with the promise of life. The waxing moon, high in the sky, also acts as a counterbalance to death, symbolizing Christ and the promise of rebirth for the artist Caspar David Friedrich.

Friedrich was part of the German Romantic movement; his deeply personal and introspective vision addressed Christian themes through analogies based on the cycles of nature. A Walk at Dusk was among a small group of works Friedrich completed before he suffered a debilitating stroke in 1835. The painting embodies both the melancholy he experienced during this period and the consolation he found in the Christian faith. via

[sheltiechicago]

Taj Mahal — India

One of the seven wonders of the modern world, the Taj Mahal, complete with a domed central tomb and surrounding minarets, never fails to impress with its imposing yet sublime design.

Located on the southern bank of the Yamuna River in Agra, the mausoleum was built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan to house his beloved late wife Mumtaz Mahal — a true monument to love!

Getty Images

[xtruss]

This Lunar New Year Is the Year of the Dragon: Why the Beast Is a Big Deal in Chinese Culture

— By Chad De Guzman | Wednesday February 6, 2024 | Time Magazine

A traditional Chinese New Year dragon dance is performed in Liverpool’s Chinatown in January 2023.Getty Images

The last time China’s birth rates peaked was in 2012: that year, for every 1,000 people, there were 15 live births, a far cry from 2023’s 6.39. It was a statistical anomaly, considering the country’s ongoing state of demographic decline, which has proven extremely difficult to reverse. But 2024 may just see another baby boom for China, for the same reason as 12 years ago: it’s a Year of the Dragon.

Dragons are a big deal in Chinese culture. Whereas in the West dragons are often depicted as winged, fire-breathing monsters, the Chinese dragon, or the loong, is a symbol of strength and magnanimity. The mythical being is so revered that it snagged a spot as the only fictional creature in the Chinese Zodiac’s divine roster. And the imagery pervades society today—whether in boats, dances, or the stars.

International discourse about China’s economy or politics also often references the country as a “red dragon,” which critics have said subconsciously panders to Orientalism and fears of communism. But many Chinese proudly embrace the connection: China’s President Xi Jinping told former President Donald Trump in 2017 that the Chinese people are black-haired, yellow-skinned “descendants of the dragon.”

That’s why, in Years of the Dragon (which happen every 12 years), spikes in births tend to occur in China (as well as other countries with large Chinese populations, such as Singapore), as many aspiring parents try to time their pregnancies to result in a child born with the beast’s positive superstitious associations.

A Symbol of Prosperity

Where the Chinese dragon first came from is still debated by historians and archaeologists. But one of the most ancient images of the loong was unearthed in a tomb in 1987 in Puyang, Henan: a two-meter-long statue dating back to the Neolithic civilization of Yangshao Culture some 5,000–7,500 years ago. Meanwhile, Hongshan Culture’s Jade Dragon—a C-shaped carving with a snout, mane, and thin eyes—could be traced back to Inner Mongolia five millennia back.

Marco Meccarelli, an art historian at the University of Macerata in Italy, writes that there are four reliable theories for how the loong came to be: first, a deified snake whose anatomy is a collage of other worldly animals (based upon how, as ancient Chinese tribes merged, so did the animal totems that represent them); second, a callback to the Chinese alligator; third, a reference to thunder and a harbinger of rain; and lastly, as a by-product of nature worship.

Most of these theories point to the dragon’s supposed influence on water, because they are believed to be gods of the element, and thus, agricultural numen for a bountiful harvest. Some academics have said that across regions, ancient Chinese groups continued to enrich the dragon image with features of animals most familiar to them—for example, those living near the Liaohe River in northeast China integrated the hog into the dragon image, while people in central China added the cow, and up north where Shanxi is now, earlier residents mixed the dragon’s features with those of the snake.

A Symbol of Power

Nothing cemented the Chinese dragon’s might better than when it became a symbol of the empire. The mythical Yellow Emperor, a legendary sovereign, is said to have been fetched by a Chinese dragon to head to the afterlife. The loong are also said to have literally fathered emperors, or at least that’s what Liu Bang, the first emperor of the Han dynasty (202-195 B.C.), made his subjects believe: that he was born after his mother consorted with a Chinese dragon.

“The dragon totem and its corresponding clout were employed as a political tool for wielding power in imperial China,” Xiaohuan Zhao, associate professor of Chinese literary and theater Studies at the University of Sydney, tells TIME.

From then on, the loong was a recurrent theme across dynasties. The seat of the emperor was called the Dragon Throne, and every emperor was called “the true Dragon as the Son of Heaven.” D. C. Zhang, a researcher in the Institute of Oriental Studies at the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava, tells TIME that later dynasties even prohibited commoners from using any Chinese dragon motif on their clothes if they weren’t part of the imperial family.

The Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) created the first iteration of a Chinese national flag featuring a dragon with a red pearl, which was to be hung on Navy ships. But as the Qing Dynasty weakened after several notable military losses, including the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) and Boxer Rebellion of 1900, caricatures of the dragon began to be used as a form to protest against the government for its weakness, says Zhang. But with the dynasty’s fall after the establishment of the Republic of China (ROC)—which would then become Taiwan—in 1912, Zhang says the pursuit of a national emblem was temporarily cast aside.

During the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), there had been renewed calls to find a unifying symbol to boost morale, and the dragon was among several animals considered. But when Mao Zedong established the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, the quest for a unifying symbol for the Chinese was forgotten again, as the country pivoted priorities toward rapid industrial development.

A Symbol of Unity

Outside China, the dragon motif may have quickly caught on, but inside it, the dragon was not as influential until the 1980s, says Zhang. In 1978, Taiwanese musician Hou Dejian composed a song entitled “Heirs of the Dragon” as a means to express frustration over the U.S.’s decision to recognize the PRC as China’s legitimate government and sever diplomatic ties with the ROC (Taiwan). Lee Chien-fu, a Taiwanese student at the time, released a cover of the song in 1980 that grew immensely popular on the island.

Despite being a song decrying Taiwan’s disappointment, the song managed to cross the strait and also resonated with citizens of the mainland. Zhang says “China was becoming stronger” and its government tried to co-opt “Heirs of the Dragon” as it needed an emblem for unification and prosperity “which would be apolitical and would be inclusive to all Chinese nations even for those living abroad.” Hou, who had since moved to China, sang the song in a Chinese state variety show to usher in the Year of the Dragon in 1988.

But the song’s popularity also led it to be used against the Chinese leadership. Dissidents turned “Heirs of the Dragon” back into a protest anthem before the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, according to the South China Morning Post, with Hou even changing some of the lyrics according to Zhang. Hou was deported back to Taiwan in 1990, but his music stayed with the ethnically Chinese and the Chinese diaspora, Zhang says.

The song as well as China’s overt efforts to create a national symbol that transcends borders, Zhang says, play a large part in the lasting cultural significance of the loong. And the dragon’s historic regality has certainly helped boost the mythos, symbolism, and popular sentimental attachment for Chinese people today, says University of Sydney’s Zhao. “The basic characteristics, features, beliefs and practices associated with dragon totem and clout remain largely unchanged,” he says. “It’s very much a living tradition.”

[huitrecliff]

secret of the anchorite

Water is the element of young and beautiful death, of blooming death

She owes her “radiance” to her apparent “detachment”; she owes her freshness to a state of androgyny

(between the containing and the losing) (between the processing and losing yourself)

Shortly after the Resurrection, Mary Magdalene weeps in the olive garden near the empty tomb;

they intended to marry, but he began coughing up blood.

The goat has female breasts, and thus its only human characteristics are those of maternity and toil...There is no "secret" at all.

Soto-Rincón, Carlos A., et al. “The Poor Insane Ophelia: Reconsidering Ophelia Syndrome.” Arquivos de Neuro-Psiquiatria, vol. 77, no. 11, 2019, pp. 828–31, https://doi.org/10.1590/0004-282x20190105.

Warburg, Aby. The Renewal of Pagan Antiquity : Contributions to the Cultural History of the European Renaissance. Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1999.

Monaco, Silvia, et al. “‘Dreams Drawer’: Analysis of Dreams During Lockdown in the Italian Population.” Dreaming (New York, N.Y.), vol. 32, no. 2, 2022, pp. 111–23, https://doi.org/10.1037/drm0000205.

Pastoureau, Michel, and Jody Gladding. Green : the History of a Color. Translated by Jody Gladding, Princeton University Press, 2014.

 Mahoney, Dennis, and Terence Chorba. “Romanticism, Mycobacterium, and the Myth of the Muse.” Emerging Infectious Diseases, vol. 25, no. 3, 2019, pp. 617–18, https://doi.org/10.3201/eid2503.AC2503.

Spence, Lewis. An Encyclopedia of the Occult : a Compendium of Information on the Occult Sciences, Occult Personalities, Psychic Science, Magic, Spiritism and Mysticism. Bracken Books, 1988.

[blueiscoool]

What's Hidden Inside the Ancient Maya Pyramids?

What did the ancient Maya place inside these monumental structures?

The ancient Maya constructed hundreds of pyramids throughout Mesoamerica, from about 1000 B.C. to A.D. 1500, placing a wide variety of artifacts inside of them.

But what exactly did they put inside of them?

It turns out that, like the pyramids of ancient Egypt, those built by the Maya contained rich treasures and burials. But they also often contained something weirder — smaller pyramids inside the larger ones, experts said.

For example, the pyramid of "El Castillo," at the site of Chichén Itzá in the Yucatán Peninsula, contains a pyramid within a pyramid within a pyramid, like a Russian nesting doll.  

"The ancient inhabitants of the Yucatán Peninsula, when they arrived at a previously inhabited and abandoned site, did not destroy the old structures," Andrés Tejero-Andrade, a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) who has studied and written about El Castillo, said in an email. "Rather a new one was built on top of those already present, and so on," he said, noting that this is why El Castillo has this nesting doll structure.

This practice was not unique to El Castillo; other Maya and non-Maya pyramids have this arrangement, Denisse Lorenia Argote Espino, a researcher at Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), said in an email.

Espino noted that building a pyramid on top of another pyramid "was a common practice in pre-Hispanic [before the Spanish arrived] times" and that "the main structures in long settlements [sites that were inhabited for a long time] usually have several constructive phases."

Still, such pyramid stacks aren't the most common things archaeologists find in Maya pyramids. While some Maya temples were used for rituals, others served as tombs for rulers or other elite individuals.

These burials contained artifacts such as jade masks (for the deceased), jade beads, obsidian blades and stingray spines, which were a symbol of self-sacrifice for the ancient Maya, according to Michael Coe's book "The Maya (opens in new tab)" (Thames & Hudson, 2011).

Stingray spines were associated with self-sacrifice because sometimes they were placed "through ears, cheeks, lips, tongue, and the penis, the blood being spattered on paper used to [anoint] idols," Coe wrote in his book.

The ancient Maya prized objects made of jade. One of the most famous examples is a jaguar throne found in the El Castillo pyramid.

"The Classic Maya esteemed jadeite not only for its preciousness and beauty but also as stone of great symbolic import," wrote Karl Taube, an anthropology professor at the University of California, Riverside, in a 2005 article published in the journal Ancient Mesoamerica (opens in new tab). For example, the Maya associated jade with maize, rulership and the wind itself, Taube wrote. "Jade was an important component of funerary rites and the ritual conjuring of gods and ancestors," he added.

More Maya artifacts

Maya pyramids contained many other remarkable artifacts. For instance, a pyramid at the site of San Bartolo, in northern Guatemala, contains a fragment of what may be the earliest Maya calendar ever found, dating back more than 2,200 years.

A pyramid at Copan, in Honduras, has a massive inscription containing more than 2,000 Maya glyphs inscribed on its staircase. The inscription tells the history of Copan's rulers, according to a 2006 Getty Conservation Institute report (opens in new tab). The Maya used a writing system that is sometimes called "Mayan hieroglyphic." This writing system has glyphs that represent sounds which form words that scholars can read and translate.

By Owen Jarus.

[ahb-writes]

10 Random Entries from the Dictionary of Islamic Architecture

The following entries were pulled from the Dictionary of Islamic Architecture (1995).

Funduq (structure type)

Coral (construction material)

Kufa (city)

Songhay (people)

Süleymaniye (named building complex)

Squinch (architectural facet)

Aghlabid (people, lineage)

al-Aqsa Mosque (building)

Arasta (structure type)

Hassan Fathy (person, architect)

❯ ❯ Funduq (structure type)

North African term for a small, urban shop complex. A typical funduq is a square two-story structure built around a central courtyard with shops on one floor and store rooms on the other. Equivalent to a khan in the Middle East.

Text source: Peterson (1995) Dictionary of Islamic Architecture, page 91.

Photo source: (1) Barbara J. Anello-Adnani; (2) Islamic Architectural Heritage

❯ ❯ Coral (construction material)

Coral is used as a building material for coastal settlements throughout the Indian Ocean, Arabian/Persian Gulf and the Red Sea.

Two main types of coral stone are used for construction: fossil coral quarried from the coastal foreshore, and reef coral which is cut live from the sea bed. Fossil corals are more suitable for loadbearing walls whilst reef corals such as porites are more suitable for architectural features such as door-jambs or mihrab niches. Fossil corals are mostly from an order of coral known as Rugosa, which is now extinct. When quarried this coral forms rough uneven blocks known as coral rag. Although this can be cut into rough blocks, it cannot be dressed to a smooth finish and therefore has to be used in conjunction with another material to produce an even surface.

Living coral from the reef is easier to cut and dress to a smooth finish, although it does require hardening by exposure to the air. The preferred type of reef coral for building is porites because of its compact vascular structure which means it is both strong and easy to carve. However, this is not the only type used and, at the eleventh-century site of Ras al-Hadd in Oman, at least seven different types were noted. In the Maldives and Bahrain, platy corals such as oxypora and montipora are used for partitions.

The origins of coral-building are not well understood although it is generally believed that the technique originated on the coasts of the Red Sea. The earliest example was discovered at the site of al-Rih, in the Sudan, where a Hellenistic cornice made of coral was found reused in an Islamic tomb. From the Red Sea, the technique spread to the East African coast of the Indian Ocean where it was established as the primary building material for monumental buildings. In the Arabian/Persian Gulf, there is another tradition of coral stone construction although the antiquity of this tradition is in doubt as suitable coral has only grown in the area within the last 1,000 years. At the present time, the use of coral stone extends over large areas of the Indian Ocean and includes the coastline of India (Gujarat), the Maldives and Sri Lanka. The origins of coral-building in these areas has not been investigated, although it generally seems to be associated with Islamic traders.

See also: Bahrain; East Africa; Maldives; Qatar; Saudi Arabia; Sudan; United Arab Emirates.

Text source: Peterson (1995) Dictionary of Islamic Architecture, pages 54-55.

Photo source: Getty

❯ ❯ Kufa (city)

Southern Iraqi city founded in the early Islamic period.

Kufa is located on the west bank of the Eurphrates near the Shi'a shrine city of Najaf. Like Baghdad, Kufa was a purely Islamic foundation, although it stood close to the Lakhimid capital of al-Hira.

After the battle of Ctesiphon and the capture of al-Mad'ain (Ctesiphon and Seleucia) the Arab armies settled in the old Sassanian capital. Soon afterwards, the armies moved to Kufa because of its pleasanter climate and strategic location on the west bank of the Euphrates (i.e., easy access to Syria and the Hijaz). In 645, Ali transferred the seat of government to Kufa. The assassination of Ali in the Great Mosque of the city in 645 brought an end to the city's role as capital.

The original city had no walls and was simply surrounded by a ditch. The principal monuments in Kufa are the Great Mosque and the Dar al-Imara, or Governor's Palace. The Great Mosque consists of a number of different phases from the early Islamic period to the present day. The first mosque on the site was laid out by a man who threw spears to each of the cardinal points to delineate a square two-spear throws long. The area was enclosed by a ditch and the only permanent architectural feature was a marble colonnade 20m long. The columns were taken from the nearby city of al-Hira. In 670 CE, the mosque was expanded and covered with a flat roof resting on stone columns. The mosque visible today has a beautiful golden dome and contains the tombs of the two saints Muslim ibn Aqeel and Hani ibn Arwa. The golden dome and tilework date to the Saffavid period (seventeenth and eighteenth centuries), although the outer wall of the mosque which is supported by twenty-eight semi-circular buttress towers probably originates in the early Islamic period.

To the south of the Great Mosque is the Dar al-Imara, which was excavated by the Iraqi Antiquities Authority. The palace is enclosed by a square enclosure 170m per side with walls 4m wide supported by twenty semi-circular buttress towers and four round corner buttresses. In the center of the palace there is a square (domed?) chamber approached by a vaulted hall which was probably the throne room.

See also: Dar al-Imara; Iraq.

Further reading: (1) S. Ahmad, 'Survey of the Kufa area' (in Arabic), Sumer 21:229-252, 1965. (2) M. A. Mustafa, 'Dar al Imara at Kufa', Sumer 21:229-252, 1965. (3) M. A. Mustafa, 'Preliminary report on the excavations in Kufa during the third season', Sumer 19:36-65, 1963.

Text source: Peterson (1995) Dictionary of Islamic Architecture, page 156.

Photo source: (1) Taghrib News; (2) Narjes Ahmed/Wikimedia Commons.

❯ ❯ Songhay (people)

The people who inhabit the banks of the Niger river between Gao and Dendi in West Africa. The Songhay people were the ruling population of the empire of Gao during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Some of them were Muslim before the eleventh century but some have remained pagan to the present day. Little is known of early Songhay architecture, although ancestor-worship seems to have been expressed through earthen burial mounds. Elements of this tradition seem to have been incorporated in Islamic monuments where prominent people are buried within solid earth pyramid-like constructions, the most famous of which is the tomb of Askiya Muhammad at Gao.

See also: Gao; West Africa.

Text source: Peterson (1995) Dictionary of Islamic Architecture, page 262.

Photo source: (1) Reuters/Joe Penney; (2) Reuters/Joe Penney; (3) Islamic Architectural Heritage.

❯ ❯ Süleymaniye (named building complex)

Ottoman mosque complex in Istanbul built for Suleyman the Magnificent between 1550 and 1557.

The complex consisted of a hospital, medical school, hospice, soup kitchen, primary school, four madrassas (colleges), shops and coffee houses in addition to the mosque itself. The complex is built on an artificial platform on top of a hill that overlooks the Bosphorus; to the east the ground slopes away rapidly. The mosque precinct contains three main areas, the mosque itself in the center, a courtyard to the north and a tomb garden to the south which contains the tomb of Suleyman and his wife. The mosque is covered with a large central dome (25m diameter) with two large semidomes of equal radius, one above the north entrance and one above the mihrab. The central area is flanked by side aisles covered by small domes of alternating size. Like that of its predecessor, the Sehzade Cami, the central dome rests on four huge central piers placed in a square. The whole building is illuminated with more than a hundred windows and grilles, many of which are filled with stained glass made by the celebrated Ottoman glass-maker Ibrahim Sarhos. Outside at each corner of the courtyard are four minarets with balconies supported on muqarnas corbels. This is the first Ottoman building in Istanbul to have four minarets, although previously the Üc Serefeli in Edirne also had four. The sides of the building are enlivened with several entrances (three on each side), approached by steps and two-tier arcaded galleries placed between the outer corner buttresses.

The tomb garden behind the mosque contains a large cemetery which has grown up around the tombs of Suleyman and Roxelane. Both tombs are octagonal structures in the traditional Ottoman fashion, although Suleyman's tomb unusually faces east instead of north. Roxelane's tomb is smaller and placed to one side of Suleyman's tomb which stands in the middle of the garden. The interiors of both tombs are decorated with Iznik tiles, although Roxelane's tomb is significantly less grand. Suleyman's tomb is surrounded by a colonnaded veranda with a porch on the east side. This arrangement is echoed internally where Suleyman's sarcophagus is surrounded by a circular colonnade.

The arrangement of the complex outside the mosque precinct consists of an L-shaped arrangement of buildings on the north-west side and a smaller group to the east. The eastern complex is built on a steep hill so the madrassas are stepped into the hillside. On the north-west corner of the complex is the tomb of the architect Sinan.

See also: Istanbul; Ottomans; Sinan.

Text source: Peterson (1995) Dictionary of Islamic Architecture, page 268-269.

Photo source: (1) CamelKW/Flicker; (2) Kevser Salih/Getty; (3) Izzet Keribar/Getty.

❯ ❯ Squinch (architectural facet)

Small arch in the corner of a building that converts a square space to an octagonal area, which may then be covered with a dome.

Text source: Peterson (1995) Dictionary of Islamic Architecture, page 267.

Photo source: (1) Dig Magazine; (2) José Carlos Palacios Gonzalo/Rana Munir Alkadi; (3) José Carlos Palacios Gonzalo/Rana Munir Alkadi.

❯ ❯ Aghlabid (people, lineage)

Dynasty which ruled the north African province of Ilfriqiyya during the ninth century.

Although nominally under Abbasid control, the Aghlabids were able to exercise a great deal of independence. Militarily their great achievement was the conquest of Byzantine Sicily.

The Aghlabids were great patrons of architecture, and much of their work has survived. Their work demonstrates a mixture of Byzantine and Abbasid building styles. One of the most important projects was the rebuilding of the Great Mosque of Qairawan and the addition of the huge three-tiered minaret/tower. The Aghlabids were also responsible for major irrigation and water supply systems, the most famous example of which are the huge circular cisterns of Qairawan. Much of their effort was also directed towards the development of the coastal towns as bases from which to launch the conquest of Sicily. The military nature of Aghlabid rule is further reflected in the large number of ribats, or fortified monasteries, which they constructed.

See also: Tunisia.

Further reading: A. Lezine, Architecture de L'Ilfriqiyya: Recherche sur les monuments aghlabides, Paris 1966.

Text source: Peterson (1995) Dictionary of Islamic Architecture, pages 6-7.

Photo source: (1) Richard Mortel/Flicker; (2) Alberto Biscaro/Masterfile.

❯ ❯ al-Aqsa Mosque (building)

The principal mosque of Jerusalem which forms part of the sacred enclosure (haram) with the Dome of the Rock at the center.

The Aqsa Mosque is located on the southern part of the Haram al-Sharif on an axis with the south door of the Dome of the Rock. In the time of Umar, a mosque is known to have been built on the site although it appears to have been a semipermanent structure made out of re-used material, hastily put together to form a covered prayer area with a shed roof. During the reign of al-Walid the mosque was rebuilt with its present alignment.

Only a small part of al-Walid's mosque survives, but this indicates that the aisles all ran perpendicular to the qibla wall (as they do today). This arrangement is unusual and recalls the arrangement of Byzantine churches, such as the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

The earthquake of 748 severely damaged the mosque, which was subsequently rebuilt by the Abbasid caliphs al-Mansur (759) and al-Mahdi (775). The mosque of al-Mahdi had a raised central aisle leading to the mihrab in front of which he built a wooden dome; either side of the central aisle were seven side-aisles. An earthquake of 1033 destroyed the mosque and it was once again rebuilt by the Fatimid caliph al-Zahir in 1035. This mosque had a total of seven aisles, a central aisle with three aisles on either side.

See also: Damascus Great Mosque; Dome of the Rock; Jerusalem; Medina; Palestine; Umayyads.

Further reading: R. W. Hamilton, The Structural History of the Aqsa Mosque. A Record of Archaeological Gleanings from the Repairs of 1938-42, Government of Palestine, Jerusalem 1949.

Text source: Peterson (1995) Dictionary of Islamic Architecture, pages 22-24.

Photo source: (1) Niels M. Knudsen/Flicker; (2) Sam Rohn/Flicker.

❯ ❯ Arasta (structure type)

Turkish term for a street or row of shops whose income is devoted to a charitable endowment or waqf (equivalent to a European shopping arcade).

Arastas are found in most of the regions of the former Ottoman Empire and usually form part of a commercial or religious complex which may include a han (or khan), a mosque and bath house. Many arastas were probably made of wood but these have largely disappeared leaving only those made of more permanent materials. Arastas are often covered over with a barrel vault and have a row of shops either side of a central street, but they can also be open to the sky. Important examples of arastas include the Misir Carsi in Istanbul, the arasta associated with the Selimiye mosque in Edirne and the arastas at the Sokollu complex· at Luleburgaz and the Selim I complex at Payas both designed by Sinan.

See also: Ottomans.

Further reading: M. Cezar, Typical Commercial Buildings of the Ottoman Classical Period and the Ottoman Construction System, Istanbul 1983.

Text source: Peterson (1995) Dictionary of Islamic Architecture, page 24.

Photo source: (1) Banu/Flicker; (2) Alda Cravo Al-Saude/Flicker.

❯ ❯ Hassan Fathy (person, architect)

Egyptian architect noted for his use of traditional materials to build modern Islamic structures.

Born in 1900, the son of a wealthy landowner, Hassan Fathy was brought up in Cairo, Alexandria and Europe. He studied architecture at the University of Cairo whence he graduated in 1926. In 1927, on his first visit to one of the family estates, he was shocked by the terrible living conditions of the poor and resolved to find a way to house the poor reasonably. He also conceived a love for the Egyptian countryside, which was to motivate him for the rest of his life. He realized that imported western material and technology was too expensive and inappropriate for rural housing in Egypt. Instead, Fathy thought that mud brick, the traditional building material of Egypt, should be used in modem constructions. Although he realized that traditional designs were sometimes too cramped and dark for modern housing, Fathy argued that this was not the fault of the material.

In 1937 Fathy held exhibitions of his work at Mansoura and Cairo, which resulted in several commissions from wealthy patrons. However, these buildings were quite expensive and relied on timber for their flat roofs. With the outbreak of the Second World War and the resulting shortage of timber, he had to find a new method of roofing his houses. On a visit to Upper Egypt, Fathy noticed that the Nubian villages were roofed with mud brick vaults produced without wooden centering. The method used was to lean the bricks against an end wall so that all the bricks leant against each other. Fathy employed the local Nubian builders and undertook several projects using these workers. The most important of these projects was the Nasr House in Fayyum and the tourist rest-house at Safaga.

In 1946 Fathy was approached by the Department of Antiquities who wanted to move the people of Gurna in western Luxor out of the ruins of ancient Thebes where they had been living. The Gurnis had been living in the ancient Necropolis for several generations and some lived in the tombs themselves. Nevertheless, the Department of Antiquities issued a decree stating that they wanted the 7,000 people moved to a new settlement, which was to be designed by Fathy. The settlement was to contain homes for 1,000 families and include public buildings like a mosque, a covered market, schools and a theatre. The houses were built around courtyards and arranged in neighborhood groups which had access to the main streets. Although built with traditional materials, Fathy made use of earth scientists and structural and mechanical engineers to improve his designs and ensure that they worked. Part of the project was to involve the future inhabitants in the construction, both as a cost-saving measure and so that they were not alienated from their new housing.

However, the project faced considerable difficulties in implementation through the opposition of some of the Gurni Sheikhs and the slow-moving bureaucracy of the Egyptian Antiquities Department.

In addition there was general suspicion of a project, which involved traditional materials at a time when Modernism was seen as the only way to build. In the end, only one-fifth of the project was completed and some parts of the village like the khan and the craft center remain unused. Nevertheless, the mosque is well used and maintained and the Department of Antiquities has restored the theatre, belatedly realizing the value of Fathy's work. Despite the difficulties New Gurna showed the potential of mud-brick architecture and the value of training people in traditional techniques.

Other important projects carried out by Fathy in the 1950s were at Lu'luat aI-Sahara in the Nile Delta and the village schools project. At Lu'lat al-Sahara, houses were built in pairs, together with a mosque and a school. The village schools project involved Fathy in designing a school, which was to be the prototype for village schools throughout Egypt. The design consisted of domed rooms opening onto courtyards with ventilation shafts to cool the interior during the summer. Unfortunately, only two of the schools were built, one at Fares and the other at Edfu.

In 1957, Fathy left Egypt for several years to work for an architectural firm in Athens, specializing in the Middle East, and during this time he designed a traditional housing scheme in Iraq. In the early 1960s, Fathy returned to Egypt where he undertook two further major projects, a training center in the Nile Valley and a new town in the Kharga oasis. Unfortunately the training center was subsequently destroyed because of its bad location and the town known as New Bariz was abandoned because of the 1967 war.

In the 1970, Fathy began writing books about his work, which were highly successful in universities throughout the world where the appeal of Modernism was wearing off. He showed that it was possible to design and build desirable residences and functional buildings, which respected the traditional values of a culture and were also cheap. Since the 1970s, Fathy's work in Egypt was concentrated on private houses and commissions. These buildings were constructed with increasingly sophisticated designs based on harmonic units of measurement derived from the dimensions of the human body. Probably the most important recent commission was for a Muslim community in New Mexico known as Dar al-Salam and built in 1981.

Further reading: (1) H. Fathy, The Arab House in the Urban Setting: Past, Present and Future, Fourth Arab Carreras Lecture, University of Essex, November 1970. London 1972. (2) H. Fathy, Architecture for the Poor, Chicago and London 1973. (3) H. Fathy, Natural Energy and Vernacular Architecture, Chicago 1985. (4) G. Leick, 'Hassan Fathy, architect for the poor', Egyptian Bulletin May 1988: 4-8. (5) J. M Richards, I. Serageldin and D. Rastorfer, Hassan Fathy, London 1985. (6) A. Schkifer, 'Hassan Fathy: A voyage to New Mexico', Arts and the Islamic World 1(1): 1982/3.

Text source: Peterson (1995) Dictionary of Islamic Architecture, pages 84-86.

Photo source: (1) Green Prophet; (2) Green Prophet; (3) Marc Rykaert/Wikimedia Commons.