Category Archives: Architecture

Leaves from an old Bible Atlas #7

Archaeology and Antiquities, Architecture, Bible and Holy Land, Israel, Palestine, Photography, Travel


Hurlbutt’s Atlas, p. 137


Hurlbutt’s Atlas, p. 133

The Christian fascination with the Holy Land as a window into interpretation of the Bible has a long and indeed fascinating history of its own. Here I continue the thread on Jesse Lyman Hurlbutt’s A Bible Atlas (New York: Rand McNally & Company, 1947, first published in 1882). As might be expected, a large part of the atlas is devoted to Jerusalem. Here are two century old pictures, one of the Dome of the Rock and the other a view of the Garden of Gethsemane looking toward an uncluttered landscape beneath the old city walls of Jerusalem.

Selma and the Madrasa

Archaeology and Antiquities, Architecture, Scholars, Yemen


Selma Al-Radi at work at the Amiriya Madrasa; photo by Qais al-Awqati

In addition to the obituary previously posted, the New York Times has recently published this account of Dr. Selma Al-Radi.

Selma Al-Radi, Restored Historic Madrasa, Dies at 71

By MARGALIT FOX, The New York Times, October 14, 2010

On certain dark nights, as a Yemeni legend tells it, Sultan Amir ibn Abd Al-Wahhab would command his servants to set lanterns in the windows of the Amiriya Madrasa, the ornate palace complex he had commissioned at Rada, in southern Yemen. Then, with his daughter by his side, he would ride into the hills above town, to behold his vast edifice ablaze with light.

The sultan was a historical figure, the last ruler of the Tahirid Dynasty, which flourished in Yemen from the mid-15th to early 16th centuries. The Amiriya Madrasa, erected in 1504 and named for him, was then and is now again one of the great treasures of Islamic art and architecture.

Solidly built of limestone and brick, the Amiriya seemed destined to endure as the sultan’s monumental legacy. But after he was killed in battle in 1517, the complex was left to decay. The more puritanical rulers who followed him deemed its lavishness a distraction from the sober business of prayer.

That the Amiriya today stands resplendent after five centuries of neglect is due almost entirely to the efforts of one woman, the Iraqi-born archaeologist Selma Al-Radi, who was for many years a research associate at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts. Continue reading Selma and the Madrasa →

and where is the city of the future?

Architecture, Development, Environment, United Arab Emirates


Take a look at the picture above. This is the recently operationalized city of Masdar, one that seems to come right off the drawing boards of 2001: A Space Odyssey or at least Star Wars. Imagine a city with zero carbon emissions. Imagine a perfectly planned city from top to bottom, fueled by solar power and clean as the pure desert sand. This one happens to have been built on the desert sand, only a short commute by a carbon-emitting vehicle from the city of Abu Dhabi. Forget the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World; here is Futurama out of the Arabian Nights.

Today’s New York Times has a lengthy article about the architectural feat, designed by Foster & Partners. All it takes is money (lots of money) and visionary architects. In this Disney on Sand there are even battery-powered pod vehicles, which operate underground out of sight and take people from place to place without drivers. The author of the article, Nicolai Ouroussouf, mixes praise with a dose of populist realism and rightly so: Continue reading and where is the city of the future? →

Ibn al-Mujâwir and the al-Huthi Rebellion

Architecture, Food and Drink, Huthis, Saudi Arabia, Travel, Yemen


Traditional buildings in Sa‘da, Yemen

Over the past few years a major civil war has been simmering, at times brewing over into neighboring Saudi Arabia, in the north of Yemen. It has been called the al-Huthi rebellion and much of the fighting took place around the historic town of Sa‘da, the main entry of the Zaydi imams in the 10th century C.E. The exquisite travel text of Ibn al-Mujâwir, penned and quilled in the early 13th century, has a brief account of the overall region. Here is what Ibn al-Mujâwir, as ably translated by G. Rex Smith, said:

A description of these areas. The [previous] informant, [al-Kirmani], informed me as follows: All these areas [are made up of] settlements similar in size to one another to a greater or lesser degree. Each settlement has its own people. Every Arab tribal group and even bedouin section is [represented] in a settlement. As a result of their behaving badly [towards others], no one can settle with them, either on a temporary or a permanent basis.

A stronghold of stone and plaster has been built in every settlement and everyone living in the settlement has a store in the stronghold in which he keeps all his possessions, taking only from it what he needs on a daily basis. the inhabitants of the settlement surround the stronghold on all four sides. Each settlement is ruled over by an old shaykh of some power, clever and intelligent. When he gives a ruling, no one else shares in, nor opposes, what he advises them to do and what judgement he gives. There is no other authority ruling over all those in these areas and they pay no tax, nor do they hand over any levy at all, except whatever one wishes. thus they are constantly fighting, one getting the better of another’s wealth and the relatives of Zayd taking the wealth of ‘Amr. They do this all the time.

Their crops are wheat and barley; their trees are vines, pomegranates and almonds. All [kinds] of fruits and choice things are to be found among them. Their food is ghee and honey and they [bask] in their God[-given] ease and security. They are tribes who go back to Qahtân and others in their family trees.

Quoted by Ibn al-Mujâwir in his early 13th century travel text, translated by G. Rex Smith, A Traveler in Thirteenth-Century Arabia: Ibn al-Mujâwir’s Târîkh al-Mustabsir (London: The Hakluyt Society, 2008), p. 65.

Karim Ben Khelifa in Yemen

Architecture, Journalism and Media, Plants, Sanaa, Yemen


The newly built presidential mosque, which cost an estimated $60 million; photography by Karim Ben Khelifa

Much of the reporting on recent events in Yemen is pathetic. A rare exception is the work of photojournalist Karim Ben Khelifa, who is currently on assignment in Yemen. Thus far he has posted two sets of photographs, one on the Wall Street Journal, and the other for the New York Times. Check out these websites for superb photographs, two of which I reprint here with the permission of the photographer.


Qât market in Sanaa, Yemen; photography by Karim Ben Khelifa

Church of the Nativity

Archaeology and Antiquities, Architecture, Art


Fresco from the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem

The Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem

In 1099 a detachment of Crusaders commanded by Tancredi took possession of Bethlehem. The night of Christmas 1100 Baldwin, brother of Godefroy de Bouillon, was crowned the first king of Jerusalem in the Basilica of the Nativity, the only early Christian church in Palestine still intact on the arrival of the Crusaders. Subsequently, the Crusaders, after having fortified the sanctuary together with the surrounding monasteries, added a bell tower to the front, restored the double side entry to the Grotto under the presbytery of the basilica and built the Augustinian convent with the cloisters to its north. Between 1165 and 1169 the walls were decorated with mosaics, thanks to the collaboration between King Amalric of Jerusalem and Emperor Manuel Comnenus of Constantinople. The authors of the project were Ephraim a monk, painter and mosaicist assisted by Deacon Basilius. From the descriptions of the pilgrims we are able to determine the entire mosaic decorative cycle. The Nativity decorated the apsidiole of the Grotto, the Tree of Jesse, father of King David and progenitor of Jesus, the inner wall of the facade. On the walls a procession of Angels facing toward the Grotto at the top was followed, at the centre, by texts in Greek and Latin of the Councils in designs of the cities in which they were held, and by busts of the Ancestors of Jesus at the bottom. Scenes of the Gospel decorated the walls of the trilobate transept. Remnants of the Unbelief of St. Thomas, the Ascension, the Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and a lone figure from the scene of the Transfiguration. Still in the crusade period the shafts of the columns were decorated with encaustic paintings from the Old and New Testaments and with Saints from the east and the west identified by texts in Greek and Latin.

Source: Holy Land of the Crusaders