Patricia Blessing - Böcker

This book is a study of Islamic architecture in Anatolia following the Mongol conquest in 1243. Complex shifts in rule, movements of population, and cultural transformations took place that affected architecture on multiple levels. Beginning with the Mongol conquest of Anatolia, and ending with the demise of the Ilkhanid Empire, centered in Iran, in the 1330s, this book considers how the integration of Anatolia into the Mongol world system transformed architecture and patronage in the region. Traditionally, this period has been studied within the larger narrative of a progression from Seljuk to Ottoman rule and architecture, in a historiography that privileges Turkish national identity. Once Anatolia is studied within the framework of the Mongol Empire, however, the region no longer appears as an isolated case; rather it is integrated into a broader context beyond the modern borders of Turkey, Iran, and the Caucasus republics. The monuments built during this period served a number of purposes: mosques were places of prayer and congregation, madrasas were used to teach Islamic law and theology, and caravanserais secured trade routes for merchants and travelers. This study analyzes architecture on multiple, overlapping levels, based on a detailed observation of the monuments. The layers of information extracted from the monuments themselves, from written sources in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, and from historical photographs, shape an image of Islamic architecture in medieval Anatolia that reflects the complexities of this frontier region. New patrons emerged, craftsmen migrated between neighboring regions, and the use of locally available materials fostered the transformation of designs in ways that are closely tied to specific places. Starting from these sources, this book untangles the intertwined narratives of architecture, history, and religion to provide a broader understanding of frontier culture in the medieval Middle East, with its complex interaction of local, regional, and trans-regional identities.

This study considers the textiles made, traded, and exchanged across Eurasia from late antiquity to the late Middle Ages with special attention to the socio-political and cultural aspects of this universal medium. It presents a wide range of textiles used in both domestic and religious settings, as dress and furnishings, and for elite and ordinary owners. The introduction presents historiographical background to the study of textiles and explains the conditions of their survival in archaeological contexts and museums. A section on the materials and techniques used to produce textiles if followed by those outlining textile production, industry, and trade across Eurasia. Further sections examine the uses for dress and furnishing textiles and the appearance of imported fabrics in European contexts, addressing textiles' functions and uses in medieval societies. Lastly, a concluding section on textile aesthetics connects fabrics to their broader visual and material context.

This book investigates the interconnections between textile and architecture via a variety of case studies from the Middle Ages through the twentieth century and from diverse geographic contexts. Among the oldest human technologies, building and weaving have intertwined histories. Textile structures go back to Palaeolithic times and are still in use today and textile furnishings have long been used in interiors. Beyond its use as a material, textile has offered a captivating model and metaphor for architecture through its ability to enclose, tie together, weave, communicate, and adorn. Recently, architects have shown a renewed interest in the textile medium due to the use of computer-aided design, digital fabrication, and innovative materials and engineering. The essays edited and compiled here, work across disciplines to provide new insights into the enduring relationship between textiles and architecture. The contributors critically explore the spatial and material qualities of textiles as well as cultural and political significance of textile artifacts, patterns, and metaphors in architecture. Textile in Architecture is organized into three sections: “Ritual Spaces,” which examines the role of textiles in the formation and performance of socio-political, religious, and civic rituals; “Public and Private Interiors” explores how textiles transformed interiors corresponding to changing aesthetics, cultural values, and material practices; and “Materiality and Material Translations,” which considers textile as metaphor and model in the materiality of built environment. Including cases from Morocco, Samoa, France, India, the UK, Spain, the Ancient Andes and the Ottoman Empire, this is essential reading for any student or researcher interested in textiles in architecture through the ages.

This book investigates the interconnections between textile and architecture via a variety of case studies from the Middle Ages through the twentieth century and from diverse geographic contexts. Among the oldest human technologies, building and weaving have intertwined histories. Textile structures go back to Palaeolithic times and are still in use today and textile furnishings have long been used in interiors. Beyond its use as a material, textile has offered a captivating model and metaphor for architecture through its ability to enclose, tie together, weave, communicate, and adorn. Recently, architects have shown a renewed interest in the textile medium due to the use of computer-aided design, digital fabrication, and innovative materials and engineering. The essays edited and compiled here, work across disciplines to provide new insights into the enduring relationship between textiles and architecture. The contributors critically explore the spatial and material qualities of textiles as well as cultural and political significance of textile artifacts, patterns, and metaphors in architecture. Textile in Architecture is organized into three sections: “Ritual Spaces,” which examines the role of textiles in the formation and performance of socio-political, religious, and civic rituals; “Public and Private Interiors” explores how textiles transformed interiors corresponding to changing aesthetics, cultural values, and material practices; and “Materiality and Material Translations,” which considers textile as metaphor and model in the materiality of built environment. Including cases from Morocco, Samoa, France, India, the UK, Spain, the Ancient Andes and the Ottoman Empire, this is essential reading for any student or researcher interested in textiles in architecture through the ages.

In this book, Patricia Blessing explores the emergence of Ottoman architecture in the fifteenth century and its connection with broader geographical contexts. Analyzing how transregional exchange shaped building practices, she examines how workers from Anatolia, the Mediterranean, the Balkans, and Iran and Central Asia participated in key construction projects. She also demonstrates how drawn, scalable models on paper served as templates for architectural decorations and supplemented collaborations that involved the mobility of workers. Blessing reveals how the creation of centralized workshops led to the emergence of a clearly defined imperial Ottoman style by 1500, when the flexibility and experimentation of the preceding century was levelled. Her book radically transforms our understanding of Ottoman architecture by exposing the diverse and fluid nature of its formative period. It also provides the reader with an understanding of design, planning, and construction processes of a major empire of the Islamic world.

This book is a study of Islamic architecture in Anatolia following the Mongol conquest in 1243. Complex shifts in rule, movements of population, and cultural transformations took place that affected architecture on multiple levels. Beginning with the Mongol conquest of Anatolia, and ending with the demise of the Ilkhanid Empire, centered in Iran, in the 1330s, this book considers how the integration of Anatolia into the Mongol world system transformed architecture and patronage in the region. Traditionally, this period has been studied within the larger narrative of a progression from Seljuk to Ottoman rule and architecture, in a historiography that privileges Turkish national identity. Once Anatolia is studied within the framework of the Mongol Empire, however, the region no longer appears as an isolated case; rather it is integrated into a broader context beyond the modern borders of Turkey, Iran, and the Caucasus republics. The monuments built during this period served a number of purposes: mosques were places of prayer and congregation, madrasas were used to teach Islamic law and theology, and caravanserais secured trade routes for merchants and travelers. This study analyzes architecture on multiple, overlapping levels, based on a detailed observation of the monuments. The layers of information extracted from the monuments themselves, from written sources in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, and from historical photographs, shape an image of Islamic architecture in medieval Anatolia that reflects the complexities of this frontier region. New patrons emerged, craftsmen migrated between neighboring regions, and the use of locally available materials fostered the transformation of designs in ways that are closely tied to specific places. Starting from these sources, this book untangles the intertwined narratives of architecture, history, and religion to provide a broader understanding of frontier culture in the medieval Middle East, with its complex interaction of local, regional, and trans-regional identities.

Anatolia was home to a large number of polities in the medieval period. Given its location at the geographical and chronological juncture between Byzantines and the Ottomans, its story tends to be read through the Seljuk experience. This obscures the multiple experiences and spaces of Anatolia under the Byzantine empire, Turko-Muslim dynasties contemporary to the Seljuks, the Mongol Ilkhanids, and the various beyliks of eastern and western Anatolia. This book looks beyond political structures and towards a reconsideration of the interactions between the rural and the urban; an analysis of the relationships between architecture, culture and power; and an examination of the region’s multiple geographies. In order to expand historiographical perspectives it draws on a wide variety of sources (architectural, artistic, documentary and literary), including texts composed in several languages (Arabic, Armenian, Byzantine Greek, Persian and Turkish). Original in its coverage of this period from the perspective of multiple polities, religions and languages, this volume is also the first to truly embrace the cultural complexity that was inherent in the reality of daily life in medieval Anatolia and surrounding regions.

Anatolia was home to a large number of polities in the medieval period. Given its location at the geographical and chronological juncture between Byzantines and the Ottomans, its story tends to be read through the Seljuk experience. This obscures the multiple experiences and spaces of Anatolia under the Byzantine empire, Turko-Muslim dynasties contemporary to the Seljuks, the Mongol Ilkhanids, and the various beyliks of eastern and western Anatolia. This book looks beyond political structures and towards a reconsideration of the interactions between the rural and the urban; an analysis of the relationships between architecture, culture and power; and an examination of the region’s multiple geographies. In order to expand historiographical perspectives it draws on a wide variety of sources (architectural, artistic, documentary and literary), including texts composed in several languages (Arabic, Armenian, Byzantine Greek, Persian and Turkish). Original in its coverage of this period from the perspective of multiple polities, religions and languages, this volume is also the first to truly embrace the cultural complexity that was inherent in the reality of daily life in medieval Anatolia and surrounding regions.