Читать книгу 1000 Monuments of Genius - Christopher E.M. Pearson - Страница 5

1. The Great Sphinx, Giza, c. 2530 BCE (Egypt)

It may seem curious that monumental architecture was first developed in a land that was so poor in such building resources as timber and stone. But from the 4th millennium BCE a series of diverse and warring civilisations residing in the ‘Fertile Crescent’ between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers succeeded in inventing both writing and urban society, including mankind’s first essays in architectural building on a monumental scale. That these Mesopotamian cultures were able to accomplish this using only sun-dried mud bricks is remarkable, and is perhaps a testament to the extreme degree of social control wielded by their rulers. The exact sequence of peoples who inhabited and fought over this region over many hundreds of years constitutes a notoriously complex historical patchwork, yet archaeology has revealed a recognisable consistency among them, especially in regard to architectural and urbanistic form.

The monumental architecture of the ancient Sumerians, who established a series of city-states near the Tigris-Euphrates delta, was largely religious in nature. The Mesopotamian temple soon came to assume a standardised arrangement, consisting of a taller central chamber (cella) flanked by lower spaces. As the older mud temples crumbled and were replaced by new ones on the same foundations, these shrines came to be set on tall hills, and these, ultimately, took on the form of stepped pyramids, or ziggurats – the real-life inspiration, in fact, for the Biblical Tower of Babel. Lifting the holy sanctuary as close to the sky as possible, the profile of ziggurats was further meant to recall that of a mountain, a vertical axis by which the supernatural realm could be accessed. After the Akkadian conquests of the mid-3rd millennium BCE, we find early (though limited) use of the round arch, the dome and the vault. Perhaps just as importantly, there also appear the first aesthetic impulses in monumental building: the external appearance of temples, whose simple, load-bearing masonry construction meant that they were necessarily massive, cubic and closed, came to be modulated by the addition of evenly spaced pilasters or decorative buttresses, thus creating a sculptural sense of strength and an attractively regular patterning of light and shade in the strong sunlight. In societies ruled by god-kings, in which little distinction was made between secular and religious powers, temples came to form larger precincts with royal palaces and administrative buildings. Much of this architecture was defensive in function and appearance, though often clad with fired or glazed terra-cotta tiles for both aesthetic and practical reasons. Individual domestic buildings, such as those comprising the city of Ur on the Euphrates, were again inwardly focused, and consisted of an inner courtyard surrounded by smaller rooms, thus serving as a prototype for Middle Eastern and Mediterranean houses for millennia to come.

From the 9th through the 7th centuries BCE the warlike Assyrians built palaces of immense size at their successive capital cities of Nimrud, Khorsabad and Nineveh. The fortified citadel of Khorsabad, erected during the 8th century BCE by Sennacherib, consisted of some 25 acres of palaces, courtyards, temple chambers and a tall ziggurat. Technically, the Assyrians made no great strides beyond their Sumerian predecessors, but their temples became increasingly large, lavish and colourful. The last great surge of monumental building in Mesopotamia took place after the fall of the Assyrians, with the erection of Nebuchadnezzar’s great city of Babylon in the 7th century BCE. Its palaces and temples, their external walls decorated by glazed terracotta tiles of animals and mythological beasts, were arranged along a great processional way. In the following century the accomplishments of the Assyrians would come to be rivaled by those of the neighbouring Persians, as epitomised by the great royal palace at Persepolis, built atop a broad terrace of native rock. Every element of architecture and relief sculpture here served to glorify the ruler, and the great audience chamber (apadana, or hypostyle hall) and nearby throne hall were notable for their numerous tall stone columns set in grid formation, some topped with addorsed bulls’ heads.

While the Sumerian culture was rising, further to the west the pharaohs were consolidating their power in Upper and Lower Egypt. Here an architecture of extraordinary monumentality and stability emerged, founding a tradition that was to last almost three thousand years. Though favouring structurally conservative techniques, the Egyptians created the world’s first large-scale buildings in finely carved stone, and developed stonemasonry to a peak of skill that has rarely been surpassed. It has nevertheless been demonstrated that Egyptian honorific architecture was to a large extent modelled on the forms and building materials of their much more modest domestic constructions of mud, timber and papyrus, and traces and reminiscences of these older techniques can be discovered in many temple structures. Most monumental buildings were religious and/or funerary in character, beginning with the great pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara and the unprecedentedly colossal Old Kingdom pyramids at the edge of the desert at Giza, both dating from the mid-3rd millennium BCE. There was a relative lull in monumental construction during the Middle Kingdom period (1991–1650 BCE), but from the beginning of the New Kingdom (1570 BCE) the freestanding temple again came to the fore and assumed a standardised typology, rarely departed from afterwards: as at Luxor, a central axis leads through a monumental gateway (pylon), a forecourt and a columned hall towards a smaller sanctuary in which the cult image was kept, inaccessible to all but a handful of upper-caste individuals. Egyptian tombs, like the pyramids, were inevitably associated with nearby temples. One of the most notable temple-tombs is that of Queen Hatshepsut in the 18th Dynasty, which was partly set on ramped terraces and partly cut into a stone cliff. Cult temples, which usually took shape gradually over many centuries, were places of holy dread, for they were seen as the literal dwelling place of the Egyptian deities. In all cases the desire of Egyptian architecture was to evoke a sense of religious mystery and awe, an effect heightened by the necessarily thick walls and dark interiors. A secondary aim, as in the Pyramids, was to foil tomb robbers through the inclusion of internal portcullises, false chambers and corridors and the like, though such strategies almost always proved ineffective and virtually all Egyptian funerary architecture has long since been looted. The Egyptians apparently felt little need to expand their interior spaces, and large enclosed areas were only made possible, as in the great hypostyle hall at Karnak, by the insertion of a closely-spaced forest of thick columns to support the roof. Externally, walls were often battered (canted inwards) so as to give a greater effect of strength, and could be covered with large areas of intricately incised hieroglyphics and low-relief scenes, thus leaving us a vivid record of the beliefs and everyday life of Egyptians of all classes. With only a little exaggeration one might say that down through the millennia Egyptian architecture was to remain essentially unchanged, mirroring – if not a lack of intellectual curiosity or desire for innovation – the underlying stability of social life and religious belief. The Egyptians built for eternity, and their architecture is correspondingly massive, stable and timeless.

Until recently the study of the historical architecture of sub-Saharan Africa was largely the province of the anthropologist rather than the architectural historian. This is because few of the building traditions of the continent’s innumerable ethno-linguistic groups matched Western notions of monumentality. Even by this rather limited definition of architecture, however, sub-Saharan Africa has produced some remarkable but still lesser-known architectural masterpieces. In early times we find traces of skilled stonemasonry being practised in Ghana, by the Kush civilisation in Sudan, and in the Ethiopian kingdom of Aksum. In the medieval period the spread of Islam produced major monuments throughout East and West Africa, most notably the Great Mosque of Djenné in Mali. And in southern Africa, the curvilinear stone walls of Great Zimbabwe make up the largest medieval city of sub-Saharan Africa. The Royal palaces at Abomey, Benin (1625–1900) constitute one of the most historic sites in West Africa; built over many years as part of the capital of the ancient kingdom of Dahomey, the elaborately decorated edifices record the history and religion of their builders. Although such international bodies as UNESCO have taken up the cause in recent years, it has to be said that much remains to be done in the archaeological investigation, scholarly study, and popularisation of African achievement in architecture, and historical preservation has now become a pressing need at many sites.

Moving once again to the east, we encounter in the Arabian Peninsula the birthplace of the Islamic religion, which began its remarkable expansion through the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Europe from the 7th century. As a largely tribal and nomadic people, the first Muslims had few real architectural traditions of their own, but took over local building forms and techniques in every country they conquered. The Muslim house of worship, or mosque, can be found in its most essential form as early as 622, when the Prophet’s own mosque was built in Medina. Here, based around an extensive colonnaded courtyard with a central fountain for ritual cleansing, we find the basic elements of Islamic typology: the large prayer room, the mihrab (prayer niche indicating the direction of Mecca), the minbar (elevated stand), the muhajar (balustrade), the pulpit, the midha (purification room) and one or more minarets (tall towers from which the call to prayer is made, a feature originally derived from converted church towers in Syria).

Islam’s first great ruling dynasty, the Umayyads, were based in Damascus, and oversaw the creation of some of the most enduring monuments of Islam, including the Dome of the Rock (technically a sanctuary or shrine rather than a mosque) and the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, as well as the Great Umayyad Mosque at Damascus, which incorporated a Classical temple that had since been converted into a church. Typically Islamic building features, such as the horseshoe arch and barrel-vaulted masonry tunnels, as well as a love of rich ornamentation, emerged here. At about the same time, the Tulunids in Cairo initiated a great program of mosque-building in that city, and by the 9th century monumental mosques were being erected across North Africa. The Seljuks in Persia introduced several innovations in mosque design at the start of the second millennium, notably the incorporation of a huge iwan (giant arch) on each side of the courtyard, a feature taken from the earlier Sassanian culture. The extraordinarily beautiful mosques at Isfahan, Iran, built from the 11th century, exemplify the Islamic genius for colourful and geometrically complex tilework. In the meantime the last of the Umayyads, expelled from the east, had taken up residence in Spain, and the Great Mosque of Córdoba, with its famous forest of arcaded columns, was built and rebuilt from the 8th century. In conquered Constantinople, now renamed Istanbul, the Muslims took the church of the Hagia Sophia as the pre-eminent prototype for new mosque design, and the 16th-century structures of the architect Sinan, which draw clear lessons from Byzantium, are among the most masterful and attractive of all mosques. In terms of domestic architecture, the Alhambra palace in Granada, Spain, bears eloquent witness to the high level of Muslim architecture and taste in the last century and a half before their expulsion. Another important Muslim typology, dating back at least to the 12th century, is the madrasa, or religious school, consisting of a large central courtyard surrounded by the students’ rooms. Recent study of traditional Islamic architecture, as carried out by Hassan Fathy and others, has revealed a wealth of practical knowledge regarding ventilation, heat regulation, economy and social aptitude, factors which can only become increasingly relevant in an energy-conscious future. And as particularly seen in Saudi Arabia and the wealthy states of the Persian Gulf, Islamic architecture continues to grow and evolve, even to the extent that Western architects (like the American firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill) have been hired to take charge of religious buildings, and modern aesthetics and construction techniques have comfortably found their place in mosques of ever-increasing scale, comfort and sophistication.

2. Pyramid of Djoser, Saqqara, c. 2750 BCE and later (Egypt)

3. Funerary Temple of Mentuhotep, Deir el-Bahri, c. 2061–2010 BCE (Egypt)

4. Great Pyramids of Giza, Giza, c. 2600 BCE and later (Egypt)

Khufu, like his successors, was concerned to supervise the construction of his own funerary monument during his lifetime. Each pyramid was originally connected to a temple on the banks of the Nile, where the body of the dead ruler would be held before burial. In the long and labour-intensive construction process, blocks of rough stone were unloaded from arriving boats, shaped on the riverbank, then hauled up huge temporary ramps to add a new layer of masonry to the rising structure. With their angles aligned to the cardinal directions, the pyramids betray a geometrical precision that confirms the Egyptian mastery of calculation. Weighing more than 5 million tons and comprising some 2 million stone blocks, the Great Pyramid of Khufu is the largest of all Egyptian pyramids, and the only surviving ‘Wonder’ of the ancient world; it was, in fact, the tallest building on earth for a period of almost 4000 years. The pyramids’ present appearance is very dilapidated: they would originally have had a veneer of smooth limestone, and the Great Pyramid had sheets of gold covering its summit. Ironically, no trace of Khufu’s mummy was ever found in the Great Pyramid, and only one image of him is known to exist.

5. Great Ziggurat, Ur, c. 2100 BCE (Iraq)

6. Great Temple of Amun, Karnak, c. 1550 BCE and later (Egypt)

7. Funerary Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, Deir el-Bahri, c. 1473–1458 BCE (Egypt)

This great tomb-temple dedicated to the sun god Amun dates from the 18th dynasty, the first of Egypt’s New Kingdom, but it continues an older Middle Kingdom tradition of rock-cut tombs. The general typology of Hatshepsut’s monument was borrowed from the earlier and smaller temple-tomb of Mentuhotep, which is immediately adjacent. The visible part of the temple consists of three superimposed terraces fronted by rows of square piers; backed by fluted round columns, these are often interpreted as predecessors of the Doric Order that would later be developed by the Greeks. Accessed by ramps, the terraces were once irrigated and the site of lush plantings of scented trees. The temple is partly carved into the rocky cliff behind. As with earlier rock-cut tombs, the actual grave of the Queen was located on the far side of the mountains, in the Valley of the Kings; this step was taken as part of the never-ending battle against grave robbers. This is one of the few ancient monuments for which we have the name of a specific builder: its design is sometimes attributed to Senmut, a courtier, and also to Hatshepsut herself, making her history’s first known woman architect.

8. Temple of Ramses II, Abu Simbel, begun c. 1280 BCE (Egypt)

9. Temple of Amun, Luxor, Thebes, c. 1408–1300 BCE (Egypt)

10. Temple of Isis, Philae, 500–164 BCE (Egypt)

11. Temple of Horus, Edfu, 237–57 BCE (Egypt)

12. Palace complex at Persepolis, 6th-5th century BCE (Iran)

13. Ishtar Gate, Babylon (now in the Pergamon Museum, Berlin), c. 600 BCE (Iraq)

Rising from the banks of the Euphrates and covering some 10 square kilometres, Babylon was the capital of a sprawling empire. The city was extensively rebuilt in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II, who is mentioned in the Bible. This fortified gateway, some 12 metres high, is constructed of mud bricks. It has a veneer of fired and glazed ceramics featuring many bas-relief images of stylised lions, bulls and mythological creatures; the latter, with their scaly bodies, snake heads, scorpion tails, front legs of a cat and rear legs of a bird, are associated with the god Marduk, to whom the city’s great ziggurat temple – likely the inspiration for the Tower of Babel – was dedicated. Named for the Babylonian goddess of love and war, the Ishtar Gate originally guarded the entrance to the main processional way of Babylon, some 800 metres long, which ran past the famous Hanging Gardens. Babylon was later conquered and largely destroyed by the Persians. The Ishtar Gate was discovered during German archaeological campaigns from 1899–1917 and reconstructed in Berlin. Partly restored under the regime of Saddam Hussein, the site of Babylon in modern-day Iraq has since been damaged once again under the American occupation.

14. Gymnasium, Cyrene, 5th century BCE and later (Libya)

15. The Treasury, Petra, c. 60 BCE (Jordan)

16. City of Timgad, founded c. 10 °CE (Algeria)

17. Temple of Bel, Palmyra, 32 CE (Syria)

18. Temple of Bacchus, Baalbek, c. 15 °CE (Lebanon)

19. Temple of Jupiter Heliopolitan, Baalbek, c. 20 °CE (Lebanon)

20. City of Leptis Magna, 2nd-4th century CE (Libya)

21. City of Sabratha, 2nd-4th century CE (Libya)

22. Palace of Ctesiphon, near Baghdad, c. 6th century (Iraq)

23. Nubian pyramids at Meroë, Meroë, 300 BCE-30 °CE (Sudan)

24. Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, begun c. 325 with many later rebuildings (Israel)

This famous church, the ultimate goal of Crusader zeal, has been many times destroyed and rebuilt. Since it is supposed to have been erected on the actual site of Jesus’ Passion and Resurrection, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is of central importance to Christianity: among several other holy areas which are reputed to be contained within its walls is the Hill of Calvary, where the Crucifixion took place, as well as the rock-cut tomb of Christ. In its original form, a large rotunda covered the latter site, a feature that was often imitated in later European churches. The location of the building is said to have been determined by the Empress Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine, who came to the Holy Land and miraculously discovered the True Cross lying discarded in a pile of rubbish. The present building is a patchwork of different styles and historical periods, and the control of every square centimetre is fought over by a variety of Christian sects. For this reason, the keys to the Church have long been held by a prominent Muslim family of Jerusalem.

25. Khirbat al-Mafjar palace complex, Jericho, 8th century (Palestine)

26. Qasr Amra desert castle, c. 711–715 (Jordan)

27. St. Catherine’s Monastery, Mount Sinai, 527–565 and later (Egypt)

28. Arg-é Bam (Bam citadel), before the 2003 earthquake, Bam, 5th century BCE-1850 (Iran)

29. Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem, c. 687–692 (Israel)

Often incorrectly called a mosque, this very early Muslim shrine was erected by the rulers of the Umayyad Caliphate atop the rock from which Mohammed is said to have ascended to heaven. Its location is in fact one of the most fiercely disputed pieces of territory in the world, for it sits atop the rocky bluff, Mount Moriah, where Abraham is said to have offered his son Isaac to God, and where the great Jewish temple was erected by Solomon and later rebuilt by Herod, only to be destroyed by the Romans. The centralised form of the Dome of the Rock was inspired by early Christian churches, perhaps the rotunda of the nearby Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Its octagonal plan, generated by geometrical means, is covered by a double-shelled wooden dome set on a tall drum. The interior, with its rich mosaic decoration, has a double ambulatory to allow easy circulation for pilgrims. The shrine was re-covered in multicoloured tiles in the 17th century, and its resplendent gold leaf-covered dome stands as a familiar landmark in the troubled cityscape of Jerusalem.

30. Al-Masjid al-Haram, Mecca, 7th century with later rebuildings (Saudi Arabia)

31. Great Mosque, Córdoba, begun in 785–786 (Spain)

The Mezquita of Córdoba is one of the oldest mosques in existence, and bears eloquent witness to the early Islamic presence on the Iberian Peninsula. It was one of the first buildings erected in Spain by the Umayyad dynasty, which had been uprooted from its former stronghold in Damascus. Built over a 7th-century Visigothic church, the mosque was begun by Emir Abd ar-Rahman I. It was originally connected to the Caliph’s palace by a raised walkway. At the time of its construction, this was the second-largest mosque in the world. Fronted by an open courtyard, the huge prayer hall is supported by a forest of columns in various stones, many taken from older Roman buildings. These support polychromatic double arches, which are horseshoe-shaped below and semicircular above; this was a structural innovation that helped to carry the high ceiling. Elsewhere in the building are complex vaulted and ribbed domes, likely showing the influence of Persian architecture. The mosque has an unorthodox orientation, with the mihrab facing south. After the Spanish reconquest of Córdoba in 1236, the mosque was turned into a Catholic church.

32. Ummayad Mosque, Damascus, 706–715 (Syria)

33. Mosque of Al Mutawakkil (Great Mosque of Samarra), Samarra, 847–851 (Iraq)

34. Al Azhar Mosque, Cairo, 970–972 (Egypt)

35. Mosque of Uqba, Kairouan, 670 (Tunisia)

36. Al Hakim Mosque, Cairo, 990–1013 (Egypt)

37. Kutubiya Mosque, Marrakesh, 1158 and later (Morocco)

38. Friday Mosque, Isfahan, rebuilt after 1121–1122 (Iran)

39. Al-Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem, rebuilt 1033 (Israel)

40. Krak des chevaliers, Qalaat al Hosn, c. 1100–1200 (Syria)

Greatest of the Crusader fortresses in the Holy Land, Krak des chevaliers, or the “fortress of the knights,” served as the headquarters of the Knights Hospitaller. T. E. Lawrence found it to be “perhaps the best preserved and most wholly admirable castle in the world.” One of several such strongholds that formed a huge defensive ring around the territory that had been conquered and controlled by the Crusaders, Krak des chevaliers was erected on top of an older Muslim fortress on a hill overlooking the main route to the Mediterranean. The Hospitallers greatly expanded the original fortress to reflect the latest French ideas on fortification. The main building, surrounded by two ranks of thick walls with twenty towers, had extensive storage facilities, stables, a chapel and a meeting hall. Water cisterns allowed it to withstand long sieges, perhaps up to five years. At its height, the castle housed a garrison of some 2000 men. After a series of unsuccessful sieges through the 12th century, it was eventually taken by Sultan Baibars in 1271, forcing the Knights to depart for Rhodes. The interior features rare frescoes from the Crusader period. It is now owned by the Syrian government and was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2006.

41. Citadel of Saladin, Cairo, 1183 and later (Egypt)

42. Bahla Fort, Oasis of Bahla, 12th-15th century (Oman)

43. Great Mosque, Djenné, 13th century (rebuilt in 1907) (Mali)

Djenné, which was converted to Islam in 1240, was a major city in the Mali and Songhai Empires. Built on the site of an earlier palace, this huge religious complex eloquently reflects the incursion of Islam into West Africa. The mosque is constructed largely of bricks of sun-dried mud coated with mud plaster, and as such is the largest adobe building in the world. The rounded appearance of its envelope reminds many people of a giant sand castle. As with all such structures, its thick walls serve to regulate the temperature, protecting the interiors from heat during the daytime and radiating stored warmth at night. Ostrich eggs, symbols of purity and abundance, provide a covering for its towers and spires. The prayer hall is supported by 90 wooden columns. Because of regular flooding the mosque is built on a raised platform. The present structure dates from a rebuilding of 1907. Its custodians have resisted any modernisation, allowing only the installation of a loudspeaker system. The mosque is kept in good condition by means of an annual festival, in the course of which any damage is repaired. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988.

44. Citadel of Aleppo, Aleppo, 1230 (Syria)

45. Stelae and capitol of Aksum, Aksum, 0–1250 (Ethiopia)

46. Ruins of Kilwa Kisiwani, Kilwa, 13th-16th century (Tanzania)

47. The Great Enclosure and other stone ruins at Great Zimbabwe, c. 1200–1440 (Zimbabwe)

The mysterious stone ruins at Great Zimbabwe are some of the oldest and most impressive monuments of southern Africa. Great Zimbabwe, or the “house of stone,” is an extensive area containing hundreds of such structures. Archaeology has shown this to have been an important trading centre, with a network of contacts stretching across the continent. The Enclosure may have held as many as 18,000 inhabitants at its height. The ruins are notable for their eschewal of rectilinearity: their walls form a series of fluent and elegant curves. Most impressive of all the sites is the Great Enclosure, whose walls extend for some 250 metres and reach 11 metres in height. The first Europeans to see the ruins were Portuguese traders in the 16th century. During the subsequent imperialist era, the notion that the structures were the work of Africans was widely discredited for racial and political reasons, but excavations have since proved that they were indeed an indigenous production, probably built by a people belonging to the Bantu linguistic family. It is unclear why the settlements were abandoned, but drought, disease or a decline in trade are current theories. The modern-day nation of Zimbabwe is named for the ruins.

48. Madrasa Al-Firdaws, Aleppo, mid-13th century (Syria)

49. The Alhambra, Granada, 13th-14th century (Spain)

The royal citadel of the Alhambra was the centre of Muslim power in southern Spain. It was begun in the 13th century by Muhammad I Ibn al-Ahmar and added to piecemeal over a number of decades. The Alhambra comprises both a great fortress with 23 towers as well as a cool and luxurious retreat for the Caliphs, with many spacious rooms, courtyards and gardens. A variety of media, including stucco, colourful mosaic tiles, marbles and bas-relief sculpture, was used to ornament its walls. In many of the Alhambra’s interior spaces we find muqarnas vaulting, a decorative ceiling treatment in carved plaster that has a purely visual rather than a structural function. The most famous of the Alhambra’s outdoor spaces is the gracefully arcaded Lion Court: with its central fountain and four sunken water channels it is said to represent an earthly manifestation of paradise. Some of the complex was destroyed and built over when the Christians retook the region in 1492, but much remains. The Alhambra’s name means “red ” in Arabic, referring to the colour of the bricks of its outer defensive walls.

50. The Church of St. George, Lalibela, c. 1250 (Ethiopia)

51. Great Mosque of Divrigi, Divrigi, c. 1299 (Turkey)

52. Sultan Qala’un funerary complex, Cairo, c. 1285 (Egypt)

53. Mosque-Madrassa of Sultan Hassan, Cairo, 1356–1363 (Egypt)

54. Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, 1459 and later (Turkey)

This immense palace, which served as the official residence of the Ottoman Sultans from 1465 to 1853, is set on a prominent point overlooking the Golden Horn. Built on the site of the ancient Greek city of Byzantium, it was begun shortly after the conquest of Constantinople by Sultan Mehmed II. Insulated from the outer world, the palace was largely self-sufficient, having its own water supply, cisterns and kitchens. As many as 4000 people lived here at its height. Its plan is roughly rectangular, organised around four main courtyards, but frequent extensions and alterations resulted in an asymmetrical complex of hundreds of rooms, interspersed with gardens. Life in the palace was carried out according to strict ceremony, and speaking was forbidden in the inner courtyards. The innermost spaces were the private and inviolable sanctum of the Sultan and his harem. In 1921, with the end of the Ottoman Empire, the Topkapi Palace was turned into a museum. Its name, which dates only from the 19th century, means “cannon gate,” after a portal once located nearby.

55. Chinli Kiosk, Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, 1473 (Turkey)

56. Fortress city of Fasil Ghebbi, Gondar, c. 16th-17th century (Ethiopia)

57. Bayezid II Mosque, Istanbul, 1501–1506 (Turkey)

58. Tomb of Askia, Gao, c. 1550 (Mali)

59. Sankore Mosque (University of Sankore), Timbuktu, 1581 (Mali)

60. Mimar Koca Sinan ibn Abd al-Mannan, also known as Sinan, Mosque of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, Istanbul, 1550–1558 (Turkey)

This spectacular mosque, which occupies a prominent location near the harbor, is only one part of a larger religious complex featuring a cemetery, madrasas, shops, a caravanserai and many social services. Typical in many respects of Ottoman religious buildings, it is one of the masterworks of the architect and engineer Koca Sinan (c. 1490–1588). Though Sinan was not Muslim by birth, he was trained as a Janissary and served as the official court architect to the Sultans of Constantinople for half a century. The mosque was visibly inspired by the nearby Byzantine church of Hagia Sophia (532–537), which had been converted into a mosque after the Muslim conquest of 1453. Following its prototype, the great prayer hall of the mosque is covered by a large dome and buttressed by two lower, half-domed spaces, though Sinan’s plan simplifies and streamlines that of the earlier building. Four needle-sharp minarets rise at the corners. The mosque is preceded by a large arcaded courtyard, while Suleiman is buried in an octagonal mausoleum in the cemetery behind. Sinan kept a modest residence for himself at the northern corner of the site.

61. Sedefkar Mehmet Aga, Mosque of Sultan Ahmed, also known as The Blue Mosque, Istanbul, 1609–1617 (Turkey)

62. Sultan Qansuh al-Ghuri Caravanserai, Cairo, 1504–1505 (Egypt)

63. Mimar Koca Sinan ibn Abd al-Mannan, also known as Sinan, The Selimiye Mosque, Edirne, 1568–1574 (Turkey)

64. Mimar Koca Sinan ibn Abd al-Mannan, also known as Sinan, Shehzade Mosque, Istanbul, 1545–1548 (Turkey)

65. Nuruosmaniye Mosque, Istanbul, 1748–1755 (Turkey)

66. Shah Mosque, Isfahan, begun in 1611 (Iran)

67. Tower Houses, Sana’a, 8th-19th century (Yemen)

68. Sir Herbert Baker, Union Buildings, Pretoria, 1910–1913 (South Africa)

69. Hassan Fathy, New Gourna, near Luxor, 1948 and later (Egypt)

70. Fareed El-Shafei, Mausoleum of the Aga Khan, Aswan, 1959 (Egypt)

71. Arthur Erickson, Etisalat Tower, Dubai, 1986 (United Arab Emirates)

72. Henning Larsen, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Riyadh, 1982–1984 (Saudi Arabia)

73. Michel Pinseau, Hassan II Mosque, Casablanca, 1986–1993 (Morocco)

74. Snøhetta, Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Alexandria, 1995–2002 (Egypt)

This great new library, repository of knowledge for researchers from Egypt and neighbouring Islamic countries, deliberately recalls the illustrious precedent of the Library of Alexandria, which was utterly destroyed in ancient times. In 1974, the University of Alexandria decided to build its library on a site close to where the original building once stood. An international effort spearheaded by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek and supported by UNESCO was launched, and a design competition was held in 1988. From over 1400 entries the Norwegian firm Snøhetta was chosen to build the new library. In plan, the major building is circular, while in profile it features 11 staggered levels that cascade down to the Mediterranean. The main reading room is lit by a glass-paneled roof some 32 metres above the floor. The walls are of Aswan granite, engraved with characters from 120 languages. Though the library has shelf space for 8 million books, it is far from full, relying mainly on donations from foreign countries to build up its holdings; it houses, however, the only copy and external backup of the Internet Archive.

75. Moshe Safdie, Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, Jerusalem, begun in 1953 (new buildings 1993–2005) (Israel)

76. Zvi Hecker, Spiral Apartment House, Ramat Gan, 1984–1990 (Israel)

77. Peter Barber, Villa Anbar, Dammam, 1992 (Saudi Arabia)

78. Norman Foster and Buro Happold, Al Faisaliyah Tower, Riyadh, 2000 (Saudi Arabia)

79. Ellerbe Becket, Omrania & Associates, Kingdom Centre, Riyadh, 2000 (Saudi Arabia)

80. Carlos Ott, National Bank of Dubai, Dubai, 1996–1998 (United Arab Emirates)

81. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), Burj Khalifa, also known as Burj Dubaï or Dubaï Tower, 2004–2010. Height: 828 m. Dubaï (United Arab Emirates)

The tallest building on earth even before it was completed, the Burj Dubai skyscraper was designed by Adrian Smith, who worked with the American architectural firm SOM until 2006. The anticipated height of the tower was left vague during its construction, but it is expected to top out at over 800 metres. Containing offices, luxury residences and a hotel, it is part of the larger “Downtown Dubai” project meant to attract visitors and investors to this small but very wealthy emirate. The tower consists of a central core surrounded by three tall elements that form a series of spiraling setbacks as they rise: in this respect it generally resembles the bundled tube form of the Sears Tower in Chicago, also by SOM, as well as Frank Lloyd Wright’s proposal for a ‘Mile-High’ tower of the 1950s. The building’s three-lobed footprint is said to be derived from floral patterning in Islamic architecture. Its lower part has a frame of special pressure-and heat-resistant reinforced concrete; during the construction process this was mixed with ice and poured at night to allow even curing. The tower’s budget and construction methods have been a source of controversy, costing over 4 billion dollars.

82. Tom Wright, Burj al Arab hotel, Dubai, 1993–1999 (United Arab Emirates)