Jonathan Morrison
How Islamic structures influenced iconic western buildings
The complex geometry found in the East has inspired the creators of some of the world’s most beautiful constructions, producing spaces that transport the soul
Architecture relies on cross-pollination — few arts synthesise quite as many ideas, cultures, tastes, styles and techniques. What’s surprising is just how much of what we consider to be quintessentially western — not least in our cathedrals and grand civic buildings — comes from the East, carried back by merchants and crusaders, then travellers, historians and aristocratic admirers.
From the elaborate domes of St Mark’s Basilica in Venice to the gothic and neo-gothic turrets that we have come to consider our northern European vernacular, the influence of Islamic craft on our buildings is writ large. Belltowers owe much to square minarets, such as the one at the Great Mosque of Aleppo in Syria, while pointed and trefoil arches are derived from the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Even ribbed vaults were first seen in Europe at the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba in Spain, then the capital of an emirate. As Sir Christopher Wren wrote in the 1700s: “Modern gothic . . . is distinguished by the lightness of its work, by the excessive boldness of its elevations . . . it can only be attributed to the Moors; or what is the same thing, to the Arabians or Saracens.”
A new book on the subject, Islamic Architecture: A World History by Eric Broug, highlights not only how widespread its influence is, from the colourful Marinid buildings of Morocco to the vast azure-and-gold-tiled Friday Mosque of Isfahan, in Iran, but how contemporary architects are still taking inspiration from it. Consider, for example, the flamingo-pink Dimaukom Mosque of Maguindanao in the Philippines, the Taman Sari underground mosque in Indonesia and the Tomb and Mausoleum of Sheikh Sidi Aissa in Melika, Algeria, which may have helped to inspire Le Corbusier’s chapel at Ronchamp, France. There is even space in the book to include the Arab Room at Cardiff Castle — one of four British entries, alongside the Mubarak Mosque in Tilford, Surrey, the Cambridge Central Mosque and the Edinburgh Central Mosque — although this is more an Arabian Nights-inspired flight of fancy by a rich aristocrat than anything truly authentic. But with its oversized muqarnas ceiling covered in gold leaf it’s certainly impressive, and testifies to the Orientalism that was all the rage in the upper echelons of society at the time, and permeates to this day.
The King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (Hufton+Crow)
The author’s broad-brush approach to the buildings he has included makes for informative and fascinating reading and imagery. “I wanted to cast the net wide — there’s a synagogue in Prague [the Spanish Synagogue] and a mosque in China [Xi’an] that looks like a Buddhist temple – and include them according to their visual impact, so you get small and surprising entries as well as the great historic places like the Alhambra [in Spain] that it would be impossible to ignore,” Broug says. “The real story is how much variety there is and how idiosyncratic they can be – ‘Islamic’ is just the least bad term for a global architectural story. And it’s easy to think it stopped in about 1600, when of course it continues to the present day.”
The Louvre Abu Dhabi (Alamy)
If anything, Islamic architecture is enjoying something of a renaissance, driven partly by migration and partly by the oil wealth of the Gulf states. This sometimes trickles through quite literally. The King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for instance, has an astonishing perforated roof that provides ventilation and shade while referencing traditional structures and resembling the bridge of some Star Trek spacecraft. A similar but altogether vaster roof, weighing 7,500 tonnes and based on the interlocking fronds of palm trees, provides a sheltering mesh over the Louvre Abu Dhabi, which opened in 2017 to establish the capital of the UAE as a notable player on the world’s cultural stage. Designed by the Frenchman Jean Nouvel and dedicated to art rather than to religion, you could argue that this is straining the concept of Islamic architecture, but it is another stunning entry in a book that is more a smorgasbord for the eyes than any sort of concentrated academic treatise.
Broug is on safer ground when dealing with the boom in mosque-building. There are only about 200 purpose-built mosques in the UK out of an estimated total of 1,500 (the rest are converted homes or other structures), whereas more than 2,000 have been built in France in the past 30 years and there has been a 30 per cent increase in the US since 2010. Again, what is notable is the range in terms of styles and size: there’s the enormous but conservative Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi (completed in 2007), which welcomes 40,000 worshippers; the Crystal Mosque of Kuala Terengganu in Malaysia (2008), made of steel, glass and crystal and which offers wi-fi for reading the Quran online and streaming sermons; the neo-brutalist Sancaklar Mosque in Istanbul (2012), which could be a Blade Runner 2049 film set; and the Haji Habib Mosque in Ethiopia (2007), built in a ramshackle fashion with wood brought by passing nomads. No style fits all.
The Tomb and Mausoleum of Sheikh Sidi Aissa in Melika, Algeria (Alamy)
Some contemporary designs are fine examples of the best modern architecture has to offer, not least because Islamic practitioners never lost sight of the need for beauty in buildings (one of the fundamental qualities, along with strength and utility, that the Roman author Vitruvius argued they must possess). In fact, the pursuit of beauty in architecture is seen as a reflection of the divine order and is intended to inspire awe, uplift the spirit and create a serene atmosphere. No wonder there is such an emphasis on intricacy, with geometric patterns, calligraphy, and decorative elements such as arabesques creating stunning edifices that act as a powerful physical manifestation of devotion and religious identity.
Yet this can often take surprising forms: the Yardmasters Building in Melbourne, Australia (2009), squeezed between railway tracks and with a cast concrete shell of star-shaped patterns, is more in tune with its gritty industrial environment than might be expected, while the Grand Mosque of West Sumatra, in Indonesia (2014), riffs on Sumatran weaving traditions and a tale of the Prophet Muhammad. Then there’s the Cologne Central Mosque (2017), the largest in Germany, which has glass walls to emphasise openness (having encountered substantial right-wing opposition to its construction).
The Taman Sari underground mosque in Indonesia (Alamy)
Julia Barfield, who designed the London Eye, was surprised by the freedom she was given to create the Cambridge Central Mosque (2019), which is Europe’s first eco-friendly mosque and combines ultra-modern cross-laminated timber with a ceiling inspired by the fan vault in King’s College Chapel (itself derived from the Levant). It also features raised brickwork spelling Arabic words including “Allah”.
“There are certain elements that all mosques have — such as the mihrab, indicating the direction of Mecca, the minbar [a pulpit] and the qibla wall [facing Mecca] — but actually there’s very little that’s prescribed,” Barfield says. “Typically they take on the vernacular of time and place, and we didn’t want something that was pastiche but something that was contemporary. We achieved that with the tree-like columns and timber ceiling, as the importance of nature is an Islamic principle but also something that gives it a universal quality. The idea was to learn from the past — these great cross-cultural links stretching between the Byzantine and Ottoman and European — while building for the future. Simultaneously we wanted something that was completely British.”
The Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba in Spain (Alamy)
She did have one difficulty to overcome. It was not her gender (in fact, there’s a whole chapter in the book about female contributors to Islamic architecture, although it’s mostly as noble patrons). Nor was it funding, with the 5,000-strong local community stepping up. Instead, it was where to put the parking and whether there would be enough of it. “To be worried about parking seems very British,” she says. “That’s when we knew we’d succeeded.”
Islamic Architecture: A World History by Eric Broug is published by Thames & Hudson
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