Arabic [perfect harmony] Calligraphy Space – [Architecture]

Arabic calligraphy, is the artistic practice of handwriting, or calligraphy, and by extension, of bookmaking

Architecture, is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction.

introduction

for an Arab (person) it is pictorial, formal element, referencing a multitude of issues—religious, social, political and personal. within architecture or art it’s a way move, between ,in ,out and beyond.

First

arabic_calligraphy_butdoesitfloat_17a_905

Second

Arabic calligraphy in all its aesthetic and linguistic complexity is little understood in the West and often regarded as an art form belonging to the classic Islamic arts and, therefore, to the past. In fact, it plays an important role in contemporary Arab  art. For centuries, the written word has been at the center of Islamic visual culture— a legacy that persists even today.

And Third

calligraphic architecture from wael mashini on Vimeo.

Deriving architecture designs from the curvature of Arabic calligraphy.

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The Clash of Ignorance

by Edward Said

Samuel Huntington’s article “The Clash of Civilizations?” appeared in the Summer 1993 issue of Foreign Affairs, where it immediately attracted a surprising amount of attention and reaction. Because the article was intended to supply Americans with an original thesis about “a new phase” in world politics after the end of the cold war, Huntington’s terms of argument seemed compellingly large, bold, even visionary. He very clearly had his eye on rivals in the policy-making ranks, theorists such as Francis Fukuyama and his “end of history” ideas, as well as the legions who had celebrated the onset of globalism, tribalism and the dissipation of the state. But they, he allowed, had understood only some aspects of this new period. He was about to announce the “crucial, indeed a central, aspect” of what “global politics is likely to be in the coming years.

This is the full Edward Said’s lecture on Samuel Huntington’s essay and book on the “Clash of Civilizations,” at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (1996)

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The Persian Carpet Phenomenon

Thoughts about Orientalism and Architecture

In Orient, Orientalism is a subject of many mixed feeling and variable viewpoints, viewpoints that spread from being considered “The Cultural Side of Western Colonization” till being made “The Most Neutral and Reliable Sources for Understanding Oriental Cultures”. And many of those who take these two points or any in between do so from their own political, social and cultural stands (ex. Liberals against Conservatives) something is not restricted to Orientalism but also to Politic, Economic, Sociology or any subject where West is involved, beside all and just to justify their points they pragmatically switch between them (sometimes West is a good source and sometimes it is not); examples are many from silly as “modern western haircuts are bad and suits are good”, till extremist: “some Islamist Jihadist movements do forbid all western products like democracy or even refrigerators but allow all kinds of western weapons”.

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Dreamy, lazy, hazy: orientalism at Tate Britain

Chris Wiegand, guardian.co.uk
 
Damascus (1861) by Edward Lear

Damascus (1861) by Edward Lear, The Orientalist Museum, Qatar

 

A crowd is forming outside some formidably solid doors in a shady corner of the Topkapi palace in Istanbul. For centuries, westerners have been enticed and inspired by what happened on the other side - and a group of European artists made their careers with their own fantasies of what life was like there. Today, the doors are open to hordes of tourists who have come to explore the sultan’s private harem a crowd for themselves. Continue reading

Orientalism

Introduction:

In the 19th century, a fad for the Orient appeared. The artists were inspired by its luxury, its mystery and of course, the supernatural that surrounded this part of the world. But this new craze for Orientalism was also the reflection of several historical events such as:
-the Egyptian campaign (1798-1799)
-the Greek war for Independence (1821-1829)
-the conquest of Algiers by the French (1830)
-the opening of the Suez Canal (1869)
-the progressive dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire because of rivalries and of colonial ambitions.

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