~العمارة الاسلامية

Architecture. The diversity in architecture has spread along thousands of years. Since people know how to create and build building. Yet today, I want to talk about Islamic architecture.

History

To make it simple, I can say that the main reason of Islamic architecture in the early times especially when Islam started to spread around Arabic region is all about building places for worshipping - mosque or musolla. They just use simple layout and design based on things around them – the rocks and the dates’ fronds and the woods and the trunks. e.g: Quba mosque.

(Quba mosque nowadays)

Then when Islam spread more and Muslim armies conquered a huge expanse of land, they also needed places to stay and to pray. So they built homes and mosques based on the model of the Prophet's house or adapted existing buildings for their own use.

And then, from these buildings, the vocabulary of Islamic architecture is derived and used for buildings of lesser importance such as public baths, fountains, anddomestic architecture.

Styles

• Persian architecture
• Moorish architecture
• Turkistan architecture
• Ottoman Turkish architecture
• Fatimid architecture
• Mamluk architecture
• Indo-Islamic (Mughal) architecture
• Sino-Islamic architecture
• Afro-Islamic architecture

·

First, the Persian Architecture

Fundamental principles

Underlying characteristics

Iranian architecture is based on several fundamental characteristics. These are:

• درون‌گرایی: Introversion (?)
• نیارش: structure(?)
• پیمون: homogeneous proportions(?)
• مردم‌واری: anthropomorphism (?)
• جفت و پادجفت: symmetry and anti-symmetry (?)
• پرهیز از بیهودگی: Minimalism (?)

(well, actually I don’t really understand about these things. May be one day I’ll search da info bout them and xplain them to you)

Categorization of styles

Overall, the traditional architecture of the Iranian lands throughout the ages can be categorized into the seven following classes or styles ("sabk"):

Pre-islamic:

• Pre-Parsi style
• Parsi style
• Parthian style

Islamic:

• Khorasani style
• Razi style
• Azahari style
  
• Isfahani style
  

Materials

Available building materials dictate major forms in traditional Iranian architecture. Heavy clays, readily available at various places throughout the plateau(a relatively flat highland), have encouraged the development of the most primitive of all building techniques, molded mud, compressed as solidly as possible, and allowed to dry. This technique used in Iran from ancient times has never been completely abandoned. The abundance of heavy plastic earth, in conjunction with a tenacious lime mortar, also facilitated the development of the brick.

(Hmm I think the material[mud] is not suitable for nowadays. Earthquakes are very likely to happen now.)

Geometry

Iranian architecture makes use of abundant symbolic geometry, using pure forms such as the circle and square, and plans are based on often symmetrical layouts featuring rectangular courtyards and halls.

*actually for this post, I made lot of copy n paste from wiki..but have deleted the complicated info*

that's all for now

p/s: for other styles of Islamic architecture, I’ll give the info in other post.