Reviews of Habibi Funk 031, Kayatibu, and The Good Ones
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Stealing from the Saracens
Revelatory account of how Islamic architecture shaped Europe
IT'S A STEAL: Christopher Wren used the Saracen 'vaulting' method in his design for the dome of St Paul's Cathedral
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Stealing from the Saracens
by Diana Darke
(Hurst and Company, £25)
WITH this book, Diana Darke will surely alter the way many look at the great European cathedrals of Notre Dame in Paris, Canterbury, Cologne or Burgos.
In highlighting that the elementary design features and construction methods of their spectacular architecture were “borrowed” lock, stock and barrel from Islam at the time of the Crusades, Darke opens our eyes to evidence of a colossal cultural cross-fertilisation.
Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, albeit with the proviso that it is accompanied by an acknowledgement of provenance. Yet recognition of this wholesale architectural borrowing in the West seems conspicuously absent in more recent times.
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HENRY BELL is provoked by a book that looks toward, but does not fully explore the question of who gets to imagine the shapes of cities to come
WILL PODMORE is enthralled by the convincing case that guilds of Islamic craftsmen were responsible for the European gothic style
ANGUS REID wrestles with a detailed analysis of the competing religious alliances behind the ascendancy of conservative nationalism in today’s Turkey
Despite its anti-socialist bias, JOHN GREEN recommends a new survey of British architecture that seeks to educate and provoke