The Global Built Environment as a Representation of Realities: Why and How Architecture Should Be the Subject

The Global Built Environment as a Representation of Realities Why and How Architecture

Should Be Subject of Worldwide Comparison Aart Mekking, Eric Roose, En-Yu Huang & Elena Paskaleva

The Global Built Environment as a Representation of Realities

The Global Built Environment as a Representation of Realities Why and How Architecture Should Be Subject of Worldwide Comparison

Edited by Aart Mekking and Eric Roose With contributions by En-Yu Huang, Aart Mekking, Elena Paskaleva and Eric Roose

Pallas Publications

The publication of this book is made possible by a grant from Stichting Perceel, Utrecht.

Cover design: Maedium, Utrecht Lay-out: The DocWorkers, Almere ISBN 978 90 8728 063 5 e-ISBN 978 90 4850 831 0 NUR 706 © A. Mekking and E. Roose / Pallas Publications, 2009 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book.

Contents

Introduction Breaking Boundaries: Towards a Global Theory of Architectural Representation Eric Roose Chapter 1 The Architectural Representation of Reality: The Built Environment as the Materialization of a Mental Construct Aart Mekking Chapter 2 The Architectural Representation of Islam: Saintly Brilliance in the New Design for the Amsterdam Taibah Mosque Eric Roose Chapter 3 The Architectural Representation of Paradise: Sufi Cosmology and the Four-ı¯wa¯n Plan Elena Paskaleva Chapter 4 The Architectural Representation of Taboo: Toilet Taboos as Guardians of Old Taiwanese Representations of Family Life En-Yu Huang Chapter 5 The Architectural Representation of Diversity: Changing Scopes to Meet Changing Realities in The Hague’s Transvaal Neighbourhood Aart Mekking

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23

51

95

141

173

List of Contributors

207

Classified Index

209

5

Introduction Breaking Boundaries: Towards a Global Theory of Architectural Representation Eric Roose

In a world that is growing smaller by the day, we are left with architectural tools that no longer suffice for the description, the interpretation, and certainly not the creation of a built environment that holds the increasingly diverse communities within today’s complex social situations. What many considered to be even the most basic ideas in the study of buildings, such as the circumscribable characteristics of regional styles from Amsterdam to Timbuktu, a universally discernable evolution of aesthetics from the traditional to the modern, and the uncontested primacy of material functionalism over superfluous decoration, once lifted to a global scale, prove to be mere imaginary walls set up by the West to distinguish itself from the East. The theory of representation in architecture as it is here presented aims to help break down these walls and open up the built environment to a more encompassing and comparative view. We believe that it will leave the interested reader equipped with a much better tool for discovering and understanding the many fascinating interconnections between peoples and buildings throughout history and throughout the world. However, since it discards, or at least complicates, notions that until now have been accepted as universal truths, before we confront the reader with the paradigm itself and its subsequent case studies, we believe an introduction is in order that explicates step by step the ‘Werdegang’ of an architectural approach that did not emerge overnight. It developed, of course, from the multitude of papers, publications, lectures, work groups, and research collectives with its major creator, Aart Mekking at its centre. In order to present this methodological development in an intelligible way without going into the many intricate details of the buildings studied and without losing the necessary overview, a choice was made for a fictitious interview with Mekking, based on a series of conversations with him and on a number of his publications. At the same time, this will allow the non-Dutch reader the opportunity to acquaint himself with the author’s earlier methodological research.1

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TIMES PAST, PLACES FARAWAY, AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE HERE AND NOW: AN INTERVIEW WITH AART MEKKING ‘‘The development towards the representational approach of the built environment began when, during my studies at the University of Utrecht in the 1960s, I developed a specific interest in 19th-century architecture, a subject that could hardly be called popular within the general style-analytical approach of those days. What attracted me to it was the fact that, in that particular century, as opposed to the academic admiration of modernist-functionalism I was surrounded by, both medieval and non-Western architecture counted as valuable sources for research and design. Since I was mainly interested in the matter of meaning, I posed a political-historical instead of an art-historical question. Simply put, I wanted to know more about the motivations of the people behind the objects of art, and less about their place in a supposed evolution of styles towards what was seen as universal modernity, with all the subjective attributions that inevitably accompanied such a value-ridden classification. So, starting from the architecture of the 19th-century West, I completed my studies of medieval churches in Europe and the Angkor Wat complex in Asia. Even though the latter was especially frowned upon as a valid object of study in Utrecht, I was not impressed by any pre-established boundaries between regions and disciplines, discovering obvious connections between my two subjects in their shared expression of the cosmic through the use of a cruciform ground plan. My first publication focused on the 19th-century Dutch designer Willem Nicolaas Rose, city architect of Rotterdam and later state architect.2 Rose had applied forms which, in the 1970s, were still generally described – lavishly using the ‘neo-curse’ – as spiritless style copies. The prevalent opinion was that, after our fathers’ ‘mindless craving for copying,’ we had finally discovered it. We had left the swamp that extended from Louis XIV to the Beurs of Berlage behind us. Unfortunately, prejudices have a long life cycle, especially the ones upheld in the domain of the ‘arts.’ Those who want to destroy them will have to deconstruct the logical fallacies that present the additional as the essential, and that have put the decorative element in its current, perfectly isolated, almost sovereign position. Both artist and object of art are entitled to be evaluated in their own context: knowledge of their intentions and their identity is the most important condition for understanding, let alone judging them. The much-encountered need for classification, not unworthy of a botanist, which places every ornamental ‘style quotation’ under the right header, is undesirable and even incorrect. It sprang from an analogy with the empirical method in the physical sciences, which stated that one would first have to collect as much material as possible, after which a precise description and classification would make it suitable for further processing. However, each part of a building only has meaning as part of a larger whole, and the whole only gains its final meaning in its smallest ornaments. Whenever elements are newly assembled, their forms are provided with another meaning, a new role in the

8

Introduction

unique whole that each building essentially is. What reason could there be left to place the ornament in such a grand, perfectly isolated position, and to, despite everything, still want to cling to the game of ‘style guessing?’ 19th-century architects did not have a ‘craving for copying styles,’ but consciously made use of a broad supply of forms, found in both the Middle Ages in the West and the non-West, in order to come up with a new meaning. In that first publication, I specifically focused on the architect’s intentions since I meant it as a basic re-evaluation of 19th century architecture against contemporary, subjective notions of ‘modernity’ against ‘traditionalism.’ In my next publication, however, I further explored the role of the 19th century building commissioner, resulting in what may well be the first study of the meaning of a Dutch ‘constructing entrepreneur’ as a phenomenon.3 Instead of restricting myself to the architect and his possible creative intentions, I now provided the reader with a very detailed picture of the socio-political context of the architectural patron Petrus Regout. As I showed, the latter built an industrial complex as if it were a genuine Latifundium, an agricultural estate with indentured tenants, thereby confirming his absolute authority over his employees. Being a devout anti-liberal as well as an anti-socialist, he fought together with the religious clergy against the rising socialism of his days, consciously resorting to feudal forms as the recognizable materialization of his ambitions. When I was offered a teaching position at Utrecht University, I continued with my interests in the sources of 19th-century architecture, as well as in breaking academic boundaries, by co-founding the intercultural work group ‘the Basilica’ and the interdisciplinary work group ‘Medieval Studies.’ The first, within the contemporary academic context in Utrecht, appeared unsuccessful, whereas the latter, by a multitude of spin-offs in the form of subgroups and publications around medieval buildings, proved highly successful indeed. Consequently, I chose to concentrate on the European Middle Ages, selecting the church of St. Servaas in Maastricht as the main subject of my Ph.D. research.4 Still interested in the cosmic, and still rejecting the quasi-exact exercise of style classification, however, I sought to combine my earlier approaches of architecture by looking at St. Servaas in terms of an expression of power, with an important role for its building elements having been assembled into a new whole in order to arrive at that expression. Basically, once one has decided to move beyond a style-critical and morphological assessment, one has to try to come up with a satisfactory answer to the following questions: why did that commissioner, at that time, choose for this building, while he could have chosen a completely different one? The much encountered thought, that any new and divergent building elements must have been introduced by a new construction team bringing forth its own ‘idiom of forms,’ must, in view of the status of both the building and its commissioner, be discarded. Therefore, in my dissertation, I had to establish a number of essential, new theoretical foundations. I chose to introduce the iconological approach to architecture, as it was practiced in Germany, into the Netherlands. I found that the research of the connection between certain historical data and the choice for certain architectural

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forms could be most adequately termed ‘reception research.’ It was based on the frequently encountered conclusion that, in the Middle Ages, existing building schemes, parts and forms, because of their symbolic meaning, were consciously taken over to be processed into a new building commission. The symbolic meaning of these architectural elements could be more or less fundamentally changed by their incorporation into a new context. The phenomenon that the meaning of a building scheme or form can change when it is used in the architecture of another building, actually occurs very frequently. The most obvious explanation for this phenomenon seems to be that the older meaning was displaced by a newer one, which, in the time between its rise and follow-up, was newly attributed to the building element involved. So, building schemes and forms were received, not because of a longing for the past, but precisely because of the actuality and opportunism of their symbolism; they were contemporary signals, meant for third parties. In the research regarding the character and measure of this change in meaning, because a context includes not only architectural, but also historical components, a number of historical data were invariably involved. Before one can switch to an iconological analysis, first the symbolic meaning of the architectural element in its earlier context will have to be traced. However, at that time, the iconological approach had not really become rooted yet, internationally speaking. In our country, this art-historical specialism was seldom practiced. E. Baldwin Smith has provided an excellent analysis of the main reason why so many art historians have taken a hesitant, if not disapproving, attitude towards the iconology of architecture: ‘The problem of presenting a convincing exposition of symbolic intent that is seldom specifically stated is made difficult by the modern conviction that architecture, apart from its figurative sculptures, has always been created for utilitarian and aesthetic reasons. Even when dealing with the buildings of the Middle Ages, there has been a prevailing tendency to disregard the political issues involved in the symbolism and to minimize the spiritual connotation as mystic, vague and nonessential to appreciation. This means that architectural symbolism will continue to seem artificial as long as the buildings that embodied it are divorced from the history of ideas, and as long as it is assumed that the motivating factors of architectural creation were always … only structural necessity, utility, decorative desire, and a particular kind of taste.’ I also attempted to liberate the St. Servaas from the restraints of the ‘Maasland architecture.’ Mainly, because this, in my view, hardly scientific, classification is founded on an over-estimation of the phenomena of ‘style’ and ‘style-characteristic.’ What is characteristic for a received building scheme is that it, as part of a building with a certain status, suddenly makes its appearance in a place, domain or region, and that it disappears from it as suddenly as the motivations that led to its reception are no longer pragmatic or valid. The purely formal approach to the architecture of a certain region is fundamentally incorrect, and simply must lead to incorrect connections and conclusions. Because, in the framework of the aforementioned approach, the question is

10

Introduction

never posed as to why at a certain, sometimes very precisely definable point in, time the commission was given to apply certain building forms and schemes, the illusion is created that the one architectural form would have more or less autonomically developed itself from the other one analogous to natural evolution. In this, both the role of the artist and of the ‘landschaftliche Eigenart’ as agent of morphological ‘developments’ are strongly over-estimated. The latter is a product of the romantic fiction of the ‘Genius Loci,’ a ghost that has been haunting art history for ages without actually revealing itself to anyone. And even if some make it appear that it was the artist himself who consciously made the form evolve instead of a blind force of nature, their finalistic art-historical narrative nonetheless implies a higher controlling institution. Neglecting the meaning of art even led to a complete neglect or denial of the sometimes long-term absence of certain building forms or schemes in the architecture of the ‘Rhine-Meuse Region’ in order to keep up the axioms of continuous style development. In the framework of a conference upon the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Medieval Studies interdisciplinary workgroup in Utrecht, held in the very year that the restoration of five medieval churches in the inner city of Utrecht had been completed, I concentrated on the ‘Utrecht Cross of Churches.’5 I argued that four important, non-parochial Utrecht churches, located in the four cardinal directions, had originally formed the ends of an axial cross around their geometrical centre at the tower of the Dom in Utrecht. The context that determined the rise of the politico-historical meaning of the Utrecht Cross of Churches was that of the Holy Roman Empire, and the commissioner was Hendrik III. The axial cross was seen as an essential characteristic of the Heavenly Jerusalem. The four churches that were founded under the supervision of Hendrik III all had similar forms. The key to the meaning of this lies in the churchly politics of the patron, who, in his own unique way, knew how to unify church and state. He accomplished this mainly by having reform-minded popes selected with whom he established close relations. The Utrecht Cross of Churches had to express this new unity of the ‘ecclesia,’ the earthly Kingdom of God, which was ruled in a unified manner by the emperor and the pope. The main concept of the churches themselves formed a further precision of that meaning. Its three main elements referred in their own ways to the reform-mindedness of the emperor, by borrowing elements from buildings that referred to earlier reform movements by great leaders. I subsequently focused on the vertical axis of this heavenly and political cross of churches, the Domtower.6 The upper, octagonal section of the Domtower is one of those ‘useless’ building elements that characterize the architecture created in the Middle Ages under a commission by the ruling class. That does not mean that this eye-catching part of the tower had no function. It was, however, at first, purely symbolic. The artfully created addition would have no doubt added to the status of the commissioner, while the builder would certainly have considered the prescribed completion as aesthetically pleasing. All this was, however, completely subordinate to the intention of

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creating an allegory of the living quarters of God, Christ, the angels and the chosen ones based on the number eight and the original colour white. In the Middle Ages, and later, the number eight was a frequently used symbol for the return of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and the descent of the Heavenly City to earth. More concretely, the Domtower formed a symbolic image of political power relations dependent on political circumstances. The Bishop, Frederick van Sierck, apparently had a great need for a new and representative symbol of power, since the thought of building a large tower on that particular location happened suddenly. This led to the cancellation of the original plan for the construction of a new cathedral, and posed the Domchapter with the problem that the extant design had to undergo a major adjustment. The commissioner’s needs were most certainly related to the fierce attempts he made to regain part of the Episcopal jurisdiction that, over the years, had drifted over to the archdeacon. The territory under the jurisdiction of the Domprovost’s archdeacon overlapped with the territory of the Count of Holland and Zeeland. The latter saw this as an intrusion, since the Domprovost was a selfconfessed enemy of the Hollanders and thus also of Van Sierck, a relative of count Willem III and the latter’s candidate at the latest Episcopal elections. Elements were incorporated into the tower that served as signs of Episcopal and landlordly power, such as the arch gallery in the substructure and the oratory at the second layer that normally symbolized a landlordly church, while the tower was to remain separate from the main church itself. The most important model was the former countly parish chapel – and later cathedral – of Freiburg, where similar elements served as signs of power of the local counts. However, in Utrecht, only the main concept was followed, since a number of new, meaningful elements of Episcopal power had to be processed as well. I then started concentrating on the complex relation between what we nowadays tend to think of as tradition and innovation in church architecture.7 In the science of architectural history, the incorporation of traditional building schemes and forms has been unjustly regarded as a sign of ‘backwardness.’ Now, however, more and more attention is correctly being paid to the underlying thoughts, even ideologies, that determined the design of a building. A church can be an argument cast in stone, an architectural reproduction of a political programme. For instance, since the Temple of Solomon was regarded as the ultimate allegory of God’s kingdom, copies of this building, both in the Holy Roman Empire and elsewhere, frequently formed part of a Palts [Palace] or a churchly complex that served as a focal point of sovereign authority and rule. The Palts’ Chapel of Charlemagne in Aachen, and the 12th-century part of the abbey church of St. Denis near Paris, are some prominent examples. People during Charlemagne’s age, and definitely into the 15th century, were already thinking Solomon’s Temple was the Dome of the Rock, the building that we now know was constructed circa 687 AD by Caliph Abd-al-Malik on the location of the destroyed temple. That Charlemagne created the largest roofed, centrally planned building that Europe north of the Alps had seen since late-

12

Introduction

Roman times, is interesting for the architectural historian of today but would hardly have been of importance to Charlemagne himself. The main purpose of his building campaign was the legitimizing principle of ‘copying’ Solomon’s Temple for his position as a ruler. Abbot Suger of the St. Denis also compared himself to Solomon and based the concept for the western part and the choir of his abbey church on what he regarded as Solomon’s Temple. However new the double ambulatory was as an element in the concept of a western church choir, nothing denotes that Suger considered it an innovation. An already existing element was received on ideational grounds, and that it, in its new architectural context, formed a hitherto unknown configuration was of secondary importance. In my oration lecture as professor of architectural history at Leiden University, I explained that the copying of the forms of the Domtower, after its construction, were part of an ongoing game of chess between the powers that were and their competitors.8 Subsequently, I ‘tackled’ the problem of the similarity of architectural quotations.9 In an attempt to explain the great differences in character and completeness between the countless examples of incorporation of the one building in the other during the Middle Ages, one customarily concluded that ‘medieval man’ was not very interested in precise architectural copies and even incapable of actually creating them, but that he, on the basis of his magical worldview, used completely different means to identify the one building with the other: numerical mysticism and naming. While analyzing and classifying, however, I noticed that not only complete buildings proved to have been copied from the very start, but also specific parts, and that the question of to what degree of precision, for instance, the Palts Chapel had been ‘copied,’ or which of its parts, seemed to be directly related to the position of the commissioner and the function of the ‘copy.’ It was apparently neither a different way of observation in any of these cases, nor a lack of technical skill or indifference towards a good similarity that determined the character of incorporation. With this, that no man’s land of ‘non-similar copies’ was replaced by a varied relation-pattern between buildings, of which the full copy is only one. One finds that these relational messages have often been more powerfully ‘formulated’ in architecture than in written accounts. This certainly has to do with the statement-like character of architectural symbolism, which is cast in quotations and not in a series of loose words that would provide the opportunity for nuances and subtleties. The idea that the design for such buildings in that period depended on the aesthetically determined preference of a commissioner or builder is a misunderstanding that has its roots in a 19th-century ‘art for art’s sake’-like denial of the art object’s ideological side. One might even ask if the latter could perhaps have determined the choice of the concept for whatever representative artefact there ever has been, or ever shall be. The fact that references to social positions and ambitions can only be expressed in schemes and forms that already have a certain meaning, in many cases resulted in an intriguing paradox. A commission is by definition of a temporary nature, but was often expressed in an old

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building concept that, through its repeated use, appeared to acquire a timeless character. Traditional art history that works with the concepts of the autonomous artist and the evolution of forms, immediately qualifies such an incorporation of the past as ‘backward,’ ‘provincial,’ or, at best, ‘conservative’ – unless, of course, it is a matter of quoting the art of the classics. However, once one begins to view such a building primarily as a ‘statement’ of the commissioner, it becomes, at least in its concept, a highly contemporary expression that, moreover, contains the wishes and expectations of the future. After that, I re-addressed the problem of ‘regional style,’ as I had already criticized it in my study of the St. Servaas, by establishing a large-scale project in Leiden named ‘Art and Region,’ with art-historical participants from Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands.10 Many dissertations have been – and continue to be – published as a result. Regardless of whether the contributions investigated the architecture, sculpture or painting, all of the participants agreed that the commission’s context, and not the contemporary ‘Bodensta¨ndigkeit’ of the artist, determined the character of the art production of a particular region. The majority of architectural historians still use the 19th-century concept of ‘Kunstlandschaft.’ Their aim is to explain the forms of mainly medieval churches from a certain, always vaguely circumscribed, region. However, it proved impossible to categorize, in even a slightly satisfactory way, our relevant architectural data into a number of ‘Kunstlandschaften’ on the basis of style, the period of creation or the use of materials. The ever divergently defined notions of ‘Maasland architecture,’ ‘the style of Tournay,’ ‘Rhenisch Romanesque,’ ‘Brabant Gothicism,’ ‘Maasland Gothicism,’ and ‘Schelde Style’ or ‘Schelde Gothicism,’ have provoked at least as many questions as they have answered. Since the methodological error, which lies at the basis of art-regional thinking, has now been pinpointed, and since it has now become clear according to which criteria the empirical data should be categorized, it is time to revise architectural history. Before such a revision can commence, however, one should clarify the methodological error that has been haunting us for a century and a half. This error lies hidden behind the definition of the notion of style. Over and over again, it appears that the commissioner not only deals with the concept of a building, such as ground plan and scheme, but also with the aspects of form, such as implementation and detailing. That is why both have to be situated and explained within the same mental context. In this way, research has brought new, unexpected connections and meanings to light, which have remained undiscovered and unexplained in the framework of the traditional notion of ‘Kunstlandschaft.’ Now, the supra-regional aspect of our medieval architecture, for which there was no room in the notion of ‘Kunstlandschaft’ either, can also be explained. It appears that what determined the choices for certain architectural concepts and forms, was mainly the opposition between the central power and the regional rulers. But, whatever the case, it was the context of a commission that steered towards certain combinations of forms, materials, themes and functions, and not some regional ‘Genius Loci.’ All of this, of course, is by definition applicable to any part of the world:

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Introduction

a Kunstlandschaft will be exactly the same phenomenon whether it appears in Asia, Africa, America or Europe. Within the more stimulating environment of the multitude of Oriental arts and languages departments at Leiden University, I also took the opportunity to focus on my other specialisation, non-Western architecture, lifting the subject of art to a more global level. For that, I needed a more all-encompassing perspective than the iconological method, which had been introduced and developed mainly with Western-medieval examples in mind. I subsequently introduced the notion, derived from postmodern philosophy, of ‘representation,’ which I defined as any historically founded proposal, be it visual (architectural design) or verbal (historical/anthropological text), to ‘see’ reality in a certain way.11 Because the logic of representation is not based on any knowledge-theoretical a priori, such as certain laws and schemes of thought, any form of objective reality is discarded. Combining this with my earlier findings, I then started developing the representational paradigm in a hitherto unpublished paper.12 It continuously circulated among, and was adapted in response to, interested students and researchers – among whom, the participants of this book – within a research group I called Comparative World Architecture Studies or Comwas. In this paper, I posed the built environment as the materialization of a mental construction. Apart from those aspects of building that are subject to physical laws, architecture is actually nothing more than a proposal to see reality in a certain way, using specific building elements related to the variables form, material and function. Although certain combinations of building elements and their meanings are often presented as traditions fixed in time and space, they are by definition subject to change because the representations themselves are intrinsically subjective, just as form, material and function are all put to subjective use. Since each new representation has a new topical meaning attached to certain elements, the visible characteristics of what is presented as an architectural tradition, and the content of their meaning, will be different each time. However, the meanings that were attached to these building elements by earlier builders and observers always play a role in the conceptualization stage of a new building, since nothing is created ex nihilo. In this process, commissioners always aim first at a certain experienced or mentally constructed reality, while it is only later that their thoughts extend toward the finding of suitable building elements from earlier representations with which this reality can be represented. This mental connection may, but does not necessarily have to be, an explicit or outspoken one. One of the most important characteristics of architecture as a representational medium is that it enables a commissioner to make a profound statement towards particular target groups without resorting to rationalization or verbalization. Either way, for an accurate description of a building and the explanation of its current meaning, it is vital to distinguish between the recently built proposal to see a certain reality, and the underlying ones: a building always represents a present reality by way of referring to earlier built representations through a specific transfor-

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mation of one or more of the latter’s building elements as found suitable by the commissioner. The classic architecture-historical analysis and description of the built environment generally gives a false impression of uniformity and precision. Architecture is narrowed down to a factual account, supported by the formulation of a number of objective criteria for comparing ‘a’ and ‘b’ in the sense that they could be objectively placed within a single category or not. One group of these objective criteria consists of ‘style characteristics,’ which is basically a tool for the observer to establish which building elements are ‘of the same style’ and which are not. They arose from the assumption that before their introduction in the 19th century as ‘laws’ for architectural design in the West, they would have been applied as building criteria anywhere in the world. From the 19th century onward, the representations of earlier built realities in widely differing contexts came to be evaluated by architectural historians along the lines of the style idiom. However, the purpose and meaning of a building cannot possibly be explained by stylistic criteria if it was not conceived with them in mind in the first place. Style concepts should not be used as objective criteria but should only be seen as possible building elements themselves, to be consciously interpreted and transformed in the construction of a new building. As a consequence, there is no such thing as ‘Romanesque,’ ‘Renaissance’ or ‘Modernism’ unless it is thought of as such in constructing a new representation. Besides the use of the concept of ‘style’ in current architectural history as if it were an objective means of analysis, there is also the much-used notion of ‘context,’ as if this too could provide a set of objective criteria to describe a particular building. The basically accurate idea that the relation between building elements and meaning depends on the context in which this relation is placed during the conception of a building, has all too often led to contextual stereotypes. The reference to empty notions such as ‘Western modernity,’ ‘nonWestern society,’ ‘Swahili culture,’ ‘the Islamic worldview,’ or ‘Calvinist Holland,’ presented as objective and uncontested contexts of architecture that need no further interrogation, prevents proper analysis. The absoluteness of these general contexts, as if they were some kind of physical characteristic of the building, can frustrate any attempt to gain insight into the possible and probable relations with other buildings from other times and places. What we used to think of as separate building traditions from separate periods and cultures were really the results of any building element from any period or culture deemed suitable for transformation by a commissioner being incorporated into the new representation with a new meaning placed in a new context. As the specifics of the latter determined the choices for specific constellations of building elements, and thereby the meaning of the entire representation, geographical and historical generalization only obscures a view of the motives that led to these choices. As an important side effect of the unavoidable re-use of representations, since nothing is created out of nothing, a limited number of basic representa-

16

Introduction

tional themes keep recycling through time and space with their appearance, disappearance and reappearance, cutting across assumed boundaries of both geography and history. As a consequence, architectural novelty is relative and there is no such thing as ‘progress’ in architecture. This absolute, much-used concept is intrinsically meaningless anyway since the basic non-existence of objective ‘laws’ means that objective criteria with which we could measure such a development do not exist. The Western notion of the ‘evolution’ of architecture from the ‘traditional’ to the ‘modern’ merely serves to glorify certain contemporary design preferences. The separation of ‘structure’ from ‘decoration,’ or ‘rationality’ from ‘symbolism,’ is no more than an art-historical idea, and a ‘modern’ building should be analyzed in exactly the same way as a ‘traditional’ building: all of these concepts have no analytical value whatsoever but should be studied as representations in their own right. If we really want to find a tool for sorting out the global built environment, we should stop inventing decontextualised series of regional and periodical styles, and start focusing on the basic representational themes as they have been included in buildings worldwide by their actual producers.’’

STRUCTURING CHAOS: RECURRENT THEMES AND REVOLVING TRADITIONS IN ARCHITECTURE In Chapter 1, Aart Mekking continues with these ideas and establishes a consistent paradigm with which to methodologically ‘attack’ the seeming chaos of the world’s built environment. It is here that the author takes it upon himself to operationalize the fundamental insight that architecture is but one of many mediums to represent reality. Aiming to provide the reader with a framework for research as well as design, Mekking proposes a set of instruments for everyday analysis, consisting of three basic clusters of long-cycle, primary building traditions that he discovered have basically been revolving through space since time immemorial. These encompass Anthropomorphic traditions, based on the characteristics of the human body and its coordinates; Physiomorphic traditions, based on the nature that surrounds man; and Sociomorphic traditions, representing relations between individuals and groups. Being no more than products of the human mind to get a grip on the surrounding world, their quasi-ageless omnipresence suggest an immanent and universal meaning while they have very little relationship to any specific context. Thus Mekking furthermore distinguishes the shorter-cycle, secondary traditions that belong to a more contextual stratum of meaning the human mind tends to resort to. Each of these traditions is in fact a reinterpretation of one or more already existing ones, although patrons and architects will often represent them as new. The author systematically groups these together and comes up with five distinct and recurrent Themes: 1. Axis Mundi and Cosmic Cross, which contains all of the natural and built body-related axial structures that represent the cosmos and its centre; 2. Horizons of Life, enclosing all nature- and society-related broad structures

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that represent social equality as well as the limits of world views; 3. Boasting Fac¸ades, which include the body-related and vertical structures that represent the triumphant, aggressive and defensive faces of power; 4. Including and Excluding Structures, which encompass all of the society-related topological structures, that represent the incorporation or – its opposite – the exclusion of humans; and 5. Holy and Unholy Zones, which contain all of the tripartite architectural structures, including the horizontal zoning of ground plans as well as the vertical zoning of the building and its fac¸ades, and further represents the socio-cosmic spheres of the living and the dead. Every short-cycled tradition seems to be based on one or another of the long-cycled traditions, although there will always be a certain amount of overlap since these concepts are instruments for methodologically sorting out the seeming chaos, and not an order that people would by necessity have rigidly adhered to in their architectural creations. However, with all of the appropriate nuances and differences, they do seem to have had some pre-eminence in the act of creation itself, or otherwise, they would have been indistinguishable as recurrent traditions in the first place. This connection between the analysis and the design of architecture is especially explored in chapter 2. Here, the Dutch cultural anthropologist and architectural historian Eric Roose shows an interest in the relation between form and meaning as it envelops itself in the creative act of producing a mosque design. Where existing approaches to Dutch mosques seem to always come down to inventing formal typologies related to styles and cultures that do not at all match the complexities of the empirical field, Roose takes the representational paradigm as a means to breaking open the tension between meaning as attributed to a building by a detached architectural critic and as produced by the relevant parties in the design itself. He shows that the creation of the ultimate Axis Mundi is what has been under consideration by the various mosque commissioners all along, while matters of nationality and modernity were mainly values for municipalities and architects to project their own realities onto the Muslim community involved. Deconstructing the creative process as having been determined from three diverging realities, the author argues that the result, the mosque as it is finally built, can only be analyzed as a constellation of three diverging reality representations. Only then can the – by now almost hysterical – question of why some mosques in the Netherlands ‘still’ use ‘those domes and minarets,’ while others do not, be answered in an intelligible manner. The above author essentially uses a synchronic comparison in his reconstruction of the represented realities involved. He meaningfully connects a number of modern buildings and only traces the building elements as currently used to their immediate historical examples. Meanwhile, in Chapter 3, the DutchBulgarian architect and architectural historian, Elena Paskaleva, chooses to apply a much more diachronic comparison. She takes a certain building tradition, the four-Iwan structure, and traces its representational meaning back in history to its beginnings, comparing it to its built predecessors. By doing this,

18

Introduction

she reveals that it has been omnipresent in what, to earlier architectural researchers, once appeared to be very different building types pertaining to very different periods and regions, even cutting through what used to appear to be very different religions. Analyzing the structure within the themes of the Axis Mundi and Cosmic Cross, Holy and Unholy Zones, and Excluding and Including Structures, Paskaleva is then able to show that it was actually the representation of a Sufi reality that led to the spread of the four-Iwan plan, and, taking all of this into consideration, that all of the various buildings that used it were perhaps not so different from each other after all. Dismissing the existing tendencies to narrow the descriptive and explanatory scope to functional motivation and a national or even local setting, the author argues that the much broader cosmological concept of the four realms of the celestial garden is much more relevant when we try to understand these ‘distinctive’ buildings. They have all been clearly based on the long-cycle Anthropomorphic tradition, and thus all essentially stand for the relation between Man and God, a channel between the Earth and the Heavenly Realm, and ultimately the Divine origins of the powers that be or that want to be. In chapter 4, the Taiwanese architect and architectural-historian En-Yu Huang contradicts the existing tendency of trying to bring all Taiwanese building traditions that involve architectural taboos together under the title of Feng-Shui. He argues that there are obvious connections between Feng-Shui and architectural systems from other regions, and that there are many internal variations and that the underlying traditions are actually much older than Feng-Shui itself. When we consider the very important toilet taboo, for instance, which incorporates mainly locational and orientational prescriptions, Huang shows that it represents a core reality that has been kept intact throughout history, undergoing a ceaseless transformation in traditional as well as in modern housing. The author establishes that the Anthropomorphic Long-cycle Tradition, and to a lesser extent the Physiomorphic Long-Cycle Tradition, form the fundamental basis of traditional Taiwanese dwellings. Next, he distinguishes the themes of Holy and Unholy Zones and Axis Mundi and Cosmic Cross as the most important short-cycle traditions present in the buildings under study. Analyzed within these traditions, the toilet taboo proves explainable, not as a mere byproduct of the rigid application of static Feng-Shui regulations, but as the very heart of an essential reality that survived a dynamic series of spatial and structural adjustments in Taiwanese housing construction. As a result of his representational analysis, Huang is able to devise a way for designers to understand that core reality and, from there, process it into modern architecture in such a way that current spatial constraints are met while still making sure that future inhabitants will not feel estranged within their own dwellings. While these authors may stress the various dimensions of the representational paradigm, and may come from different backgrounds, use different techniques for gathering their information and research materials, and show different aims for using the methodology, they all prove that the theory of rea-

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lity representation can account for phenomena that hitherto were the subject of much misunderstanding and confusion. What is also evident from these chapters is that, although different authors use and find different traditions in their research, the Axis Mundi is the most important theme encountered in the empirical field, which of course, given its name, should come as no surprise. That all of these traditions can simultaneously be united into a single part of the built environment, however, is shown by Mekking himself in chapter 5, as he analyzes an entire area of The Hague. It is here that the author was confronted with an urban planning situation that had originally been established for a very specific group of Dutch inhabitants. The ensuing, multi-cultural changes in social composition resulted in the phenomenon that this part of the built environment no longer forms a representation of the reality of any of its new dwellers. By analyzing the extant structures in terms of the entire set of long-cycle and shorter-cycle traditions that he established in chapter 1, the author is able to establish a strategy for contemporary urban planners to extrapolate from, and make use of, the existing architecture in such a manner that the deeply embedded traditions may be applied to reach a much more sustainable built environment. Keeping the ever-recurrent Anthropomorphic, Physiomorphic and Sociomorphic traditions in mind, and basing it on the globally shared Themes of the Axis Mundi and Cosmic Cross, Horizons of Life, Boasting Fac¸ades, Including and Excluding Structures, and Holy and Unholy Zones, the neighbourhood could, using a minimum of energy and expenditures, house, not only people from those cultural backgrounds that currently choose to live there, but also any future inhabitants.

NOTES 1

2 3 4

5

6

20

Interviews with Aart Mekking by Eric Roose were done in spring 2008. The relevant publications will be referred to when applicable. All of the following quotations and descriptions have the interviewed author’s full consent. A.J.J. Mekking and F.J. Sleeboom, Het Stadsziekenhuis aan de Coolsingel te Rotterdam van W.N. Rose, Ahrend Facetten reeks, 1972; quotations from pp. 11-13, 25. A.J.J. Mekking, Petrus Regout. Een Ondernemer als Bouwheer, in: Wonen-TA/BK, nr.1 (January), 1975, pp. 1-19; quotations from pp. 14, 16. A.J.J. Mekking, De Sint-Servaaskerk te Maastricht. Bijdragen tot de Kennis van de Symboliek en de Geschiedenis van de Bouwdelen en de Bouwsculptuur tot ca. 1200, Utrecht: Clavis, 1986; quotations from pp. 5, 6, 13, 15, 16, 19, 22, 24, 49, 50. A.J.J. Mekking, Een Kruis van Kerken rond Koenraads Hart. Een Bijdrage tot de Kennis van de Functie en de Symbolische Betekenis van het Utrechtse Kerkenkruis alsmede van die te Bamberg en te Paderborn, in: Utrecht. Kruispunt van de Middeleeuwse Kerk. Voordrachten gehouden tijdens het Congres ter Gelegenheid van Tien Jaar Medie¨vistiek, Faculteit der Letteren, Rijksuniversiteit te Utrecht, 25 tot en met 27 augustus 1988, Utrecht: Clavis, 1988, pp. 21-53; quotations from pp. 23, 27, 42. A.J.J. Mekking, Pro Turri Trajectensi. De Positieve Symboliek van de Domtoren in de Stad Utrecht en op de ‘Aanbidding van het Lam Gods’ van de Gebroeders Van Eyck, in: J.B. Bedaux (ed.), Annus Quadriga Mundi. Opstellen over Middeleeuwse Kunst Opgedragen aan Prof. Dr. Anna C. Esmeijer, Utrecht: Clavis, 1989, pp. 129-151; quotations from pp. 135-143.

Introduction

7

A.J.J. Mekking, Traditie als Maatstaf voor Vernieuwing in de Kerkelijke Architectuur van de Middeleeuwen. De Rol van Oud en Nieuw in het Proces van Bevestiging en Doorbreking van Maatschappelijke Structuren, in: KNOB Bulletin, vol. 97, no. 6, 1998, pp. 205-223; quotations from p. 210, and: Traditie en Vernieuwing in de Kerkelijke Architectuur van de Middeleeuwen, in: Spiegel Historiael, vol. 26, no. 6 (June), 1991, pp. 293-299; quotations from pp. 293, 295, 298. 8 A.J.J. Mekking, Het Spel met Toren en Kapel. Bouwen Pro en Contra Bourgondie¨ van Groningen tot Maastricht, Utrecht: Clavis, 1992. 9 A.J.J. Mekking, Het Laatste Woord?, in: E. den Hartog et al. (eds.), Bouwen en Duiden. Studies over Architectuur en Iconologie, Leiden: Leids Kunsthistorisch Collectief, 1994, pp. 219-252; quotations from pp. 220-222, 227, 231, 232, 234. 10 A.J.J. Mekking, Vorwort, and: Methodisches & Historiographisches zu ‘Kunst & Regio’ als Arbeitsgruppe der Niederla¨ndischen Forschungsschule fu¨r Media¨vistik, in: U.M. Bra¨uer et al. (eds.), Art & Region. Architecture and Art in the Middle Ages. Contributions of a Research Group, Utrecht: Clavis, 2005, pp. 7-13; quotations from pp. 7, 8-12. 11 A.J.J. Mekking, ‘Seeing Together.’ Een Toekomst voor de ‘Architectuurgeschiedenis’ vanuit Leids Perspectief, in: Kunstlicht, vol. 20, no. 3/4, 1999 [Kunstgeschiedenis 2000], pp. 48-53; quotations from p. 48. 12 A.J.J. Mekking, Architectuur als Representatie, Representatie van Architectuur. Een Schets van Conventies en Tradities in Mondiaal Perspectief, Leiden University, unpublished, version 2001; no page numbers.

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1

The Architectural Representation of Reality The Built Environment as the Materialization of a Mental Construct Aart Mekking

INTRODUCTION This essay is about the built environment as the materialization of a mental construct. From this point of view, architecture and urbanism are expressions of non-material phenomena. Since it is a materialization of socio-economically and ideologically conditioned opinions about its function, ordination and reception, every built environment offers a range of meaningful structures and forms which will be represented partially or as a whole in future constructions as cognate ‘realities.’ This explains why new things-to-be-built are always and everywhere, to a certain extent, based on a selection from already existing building traditions. Nevertheless, most commissioners, occupants and other ‘consumers’ of architecture are only aware of liking or disliking the structural and formal aspects of the built environment, and are very rarely conscious of the ideas represented by them. Therefore it is more pragmatic to speak of the representation of reality, and not of the representation of ideas, which, although more correct, would be just too theoretical. The term reality, as a key term of the paradigm of architectural representation, has an encompassing meaning, including all things thinkable and tangible, such as, for instance, a built environment. As an intrinsically logical and consistent rendering of reality, representation conforms to the traditions of, and the aspects inherent to, the medium used. Consequently, when analyzing the built environment as a representation of reality, the word tradition stands for the recurrence of a specific and consistent combination of intrinsic and formal aspects of building during a certain time span. The more context-bound a tradition, the shorter the span of time during which it is used, and the more confined the area in which it plays a role in

23

construction. It makes sense that the almost non-contextual traditions tend to be very widespread, and that they tend to be used over a long period of time. Using the architectural medium to represent reality, one not only has to deal with the above-mentioned traditions, but also with the medium-inherent aspects of building, which are of a material nature. Although these are basically governed by physical, static, chemical and climatologic ‘laws’ and processes, the different ways that people, since days immemorial, have been coping with these are by no means ‘scientific.’ On the contrary, they are, at first sight, amazingly enough, again dominated by a wide range of traditions. This explains the great variety in the handling of comparable building materials and constructions all over the world, under similar natural circumstances. Therefore, non-natural aspects of a building context are the source of this variety. The same goes for the function of a built environment, which is often mistakenly – but all the same, amazingly – seen as a kind of natural phenomenon, as a data seemingly governed by natural laws and processes. This explains why many an architectural historian describes building plans, structures and forms as the logic, timeless, un-traditional, in short as the non-contextual, inevitable outcome of a specific function. These explanations repeatedly fail to show why the form at stake is following a specific function. By deliberately ignoring the metaphysical dimension, the word ‘function’ had in his eyes, ‘functionalist’ architects and architectural historians abuse Louis Sullivan’s brief formulation ‘form follows function.’ The idealist American architect merely tried to resume a complex vision with these few words, and not the meaningless ‘shortcut’ others made out of it. One can better understand his ideas about ‘function’ after one reads the following famous passage from his ‘Kindergarten Chats.’ There he points out ‘that which exists in spirit ever seeks and finds its physical counterpart in form, its visible image, [the universe is one] wherein all is function, all is form …’.1 This is obviously not some kind of vulgar popular ‘functionalism,’ but an interpretation of the phenomenon of architecture, which is surprisingly close to the built environment as a representation of reality. One does not have to be much of an expert in architectural history to notice that new functions are initially always represented by architectural shapes which were not explicitly designed for it, although they obviously were considered appropriate for at least a couple of reasons. Since nothing new can ever be a ‘creatio ex nihilo,’ all architectural representation, even if it materializes a new function, uses already existing plans and forms, and is therefore rooted in one or more specific architectural traditions. Referring to the functional side of architecture is nothing more than mentioning just another reality represented by the medium. Trying to discriminate between building types on the grounds of their functional aspect means using the term ‘building type’ in an improper way, since all architectural typology is exclusively based on formal aspects. In some cases, the function of a specific group of buildings and its (formal) typology seem to match so perfectly that one would be tempted to see it as a ‘natural’ and ‘unavoidable’ combination. This ‘mental illusion’ occurs when people have perceived, for a really long time, that a certain function was represented

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The Architectural Representation of Reality

by the same building type. Historical ignorance causes this false conviction. In fact, the function of a building is just one of the countless context-bound aspects of reality represented in architecture. This explains, to name just one of the countless examples, why mosques (Li bai si) in the Chinese interior look very much like imperial palaces. The only aspect they have in common with Islamic prayer halls that we are accustomed to are their qibla walls (prayer walls) and their orientation.2

REPRESENTATION There would be no representation without the human faculty of transversal thinking. Transversal thinking always and everywhere enables anybody to relate people, events and other aspects of life, irrespective of their being causally related or not. Transversal connections are triggered by someone’s mental horizon, which, however individual it seems to be, is always shared by some group of people. Because building is an identifying act of positioning oneself in public space, the mental horizon of the patron-builder will inevitably be part of a worldview, a religion, a political ideology, or even the marketing strategy of a multinational. These more or less definite contexts determine, to a certain level, to what representational tradition a group of buildings belong. Later on in this essay, there will be an in-depth discussion on how a representational building tradition may be characterized. For now, it is enough to know that such a tradition is always an alliance of specific architectural forms and aspects of reality in a certain time and context.3 Particular connections between architectural or urban features as orientations, layouts, shapes and formal motives, which to outsiders seem totally illogic and out of place, are meaningful, even inevitable combinations in the eyes of those subject to the transcendent and unifying power represented in their transversally conceived creations. What else would be specific to ‘representation,’ apart from it being subject to transversal thinking? It is a personal expression of someone’s ideas, ambitions or just the conditions he or she is living in, coming into being via some chosen media. To be comprehensible or, even more, to be influential, one has to use traditions, which express, at a given place and moment, as clear as possible what one would like to communicate to a certain group. If we focus on the built environment, this means that someone orders an urban structure, a building, or some part of one, according to a chosen tradition, which represents, by its formal and material aspects, precisely those things one would like to have others understand as being characteristic for oneself or for one’s living conditions. What can be concluded from all this is that the logic of representation obviously requires a direct comparison between products, like buildings or architectural designs, from different or similar periods and regions. Its goal has been to build comparable environments, thus a comparative confrontation is nothing more than the continuation of a building tradition in order to repre-

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sent an analogous reality. A rather crucial question that arises immediately is how far the representing and the represented built environments are distinct entities. Would that ever be a goal of representation? The answer should be negative, since the mental space or framework in which every representation is processed could in no way be seen as ‘objectifying’ and, on the contrary, as providing a climate of unification or even identification. In a sizeable number of cases, the representing and the represented are seen as identical, and so the patrons identify with the commissioner of the represented building. This means that it would be useless to try to discriminate between the subject and the object. This not only goes for the ages before Rene´ Descartes formulated his rigorous ideas about a strictly separated ‘knowing subject’ from a ‘known object,’ but also for every representation such as a built environment throughout the contemporary world. This is because expressing something about one’s identity is always the goal of ordering or creating an artefact. The subject of a building process, the person commissioning to represent another built environment, is always motivated by what the reality represented by the object – the building to be represented – means to his own identity. Therefore, the two built environments will, to a certain degree, share the same identity. To what degree this occurs depends first of all on to what extent the one building is represented in the other. Never mind how original a building or an urban structure is presented, they are inevitably always based on earlier designs, and therefore, they share their identities. Since one has to conclude that, within the framework of the representational paradigm, it is useless to discriminate between a subject and an object, dealing with (a represented) reality from the inside is another prominent feature of the logic of representation. Without it, no direct confrontation of objects, let alone transversal thinking, would be possible. Since Descartes formulated his principles on the subject-object relationship as Immanuel Kant established his principles on the discrimination between them, ‘copying’ a building in the West is thought to be a normal and ‘scientific’ practice, whereas prior to the 18th century in the West, and, until today, in non-Western built environments, no ‘copied’ buildings are thought to exist at all.4 However, the idea that a mechanically copied artefact such as a prefabricated built environment would be a better representation than a recreated one, because all the details are the same, is in flagrant contradiction to the nature of representation. Of course, reproductions are still representations, but by no means better than nonmechanically shaped ones. It simply does not matter, because the logic of representation knows no strict or objective standards according to which people should represent abstract or concrete things, such as a built environment. Since the standards of representation are always part of the accepted representational tradition, none of them will ever be the same. On the one hand, a representational tradition can be qualified as fairly stable and uniform, being part of a ‘chain’ of representations of a specific complex of formal, functional and material aspects of architecture representing a particular reality. On the other, it is also a compilation of very individual representations,

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The Architectural Representation of Reality

assembled according to the commissioner’s standards. Reproduction, however, does not work that way. It is one of the consequences of the strict discrimination between the subject and the object, which began to revolutionize Western thinking after Descartes urged ‘that we systematically … rely on the clear and distinct concepts of pure mathematics’.5 Thus, the idea of an internal ‘tribunal,’ based on pure reason itself, was born. Immanuel Kant worked out the idea of this ‘forum internum’ and called it the ‘transcendent self.’ Although many scholars may still think so, it was hardly a new notion even then. Moreover, Kant’s mental jury was eventually based on a much older transcendent instance, that of a worldview, one of the encompassing contexts of the representation of reality we already discussed. Although it is not popular anymore in the Western world, it remains very much alive all over the world. Ever since Western scholars began to increasingly mistrust the human senses and the intellect as being incapable to directly know reality, the identification of the subject with the object is rejected more and more as a possible source of knowledge. Therefore, the subject eventually came to be seen as an outsider, as a court judging reality according to an increasing number of ‘true’ and ‘objective’ parameters. One should avoid dealing with reality as an object in its ‘natural’ context, and a scholar should analyze it exclusively in the isolation of his own ‘enlightened’ mind, deprived of all sensory perception. It is here that one should project every aspect of reality onto one’s own mental ‘screen’ to carefully analyze reality with the critical eye of pure reason. However, the predominance of the ‘Kantian paradigms’ in the scholarly discussion does not alter the fact that every human endeavour, including architectural and urban design, which is not subject to the ‘rules’ of nature or only partially so, should automatically be seen as subject to representational logic. Nevertheless, most intellectuals in the West have, since the Enlightenment, been less inclined to see it as such. Already for about a century-and-a-half all scholarly activity is supposed to at least look ‘scientific.’ Even an architectural historian should act as a natural scientist in order to be taken seriously, so it seems. Because this misunderstanding seriously distorts our view of representational reality and its consequences, we will pay special attention to this phenomenon. The main strategy for converting a mostly descriptive architectural analysis into a ‘scientific’ one involves making an absolute truth out of the rather vague categories of connoisseurship. Subsequently, its language, which is adequately suited to the Western art-loving elite, became a caricature of itself. Flexible parameters of style and region had to pass for natural laws. The most popular notion involved interpreting contextually determined stylistic changes as evolutionary processes. As soon as they belonged to the ‘laws’ of merely fashionable ‘architectural science,’ they became the absolute and rigid parameters of the ‘forum internum’ of (Western) humanity. This was the beginning of an endless process of projecting invented building ‘rules’ onto the ‘screens’ of periods and regions. Building in the Middle Ages became ‘Gothic’ or ‘Romanesque,’ Hindu temples were said to be built in the ‘Dravidian,’ the ‘Chalukyan’ or the ‘Indo-

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Aryan’ styles, if they were not simply seen as part of the worldwide emanation of a ‘Gothic’ way of shaping the built environment.6 The latter approach, upon closer inspection, is nothing more than a kind of cultural colonialism, which ended up remaining the very exception it had already been from the very beginning. A rather widespread bias towards the contrary was the view that cultural divergence between various regions was unbridgeable because their differences were considered as ‘proven’ to be fundamental. Scholars imitated the natural sciences to try to create some objective set of criteria as a mental tool to determine to what extent architectural traditions from various regions would differ. For the most part, it turned out that the true incentive to proceed in this way was a deeply rooted need to ‘prove’ one’s own culture as being superior. Going through the most frequently used architectural reference books of the past hundred and fifty years, it is rather shocking to see how much colonialism has contributed to portraying Western building traditions as superior to and totally isolated from, those of other cultures. After the fall of the Western colonial empires, almost nothing was done to redress this fraudulent picture.7 Ironically, it perfectly meets today’s popular need for higher political walls, most of all between the so-called Muslim and non-Muslim worlds. Even when prejudices and ideological motives did not play a very prominent role, the mere act of turning the inevitably vague characterizations of the respective cultures of world regions into quasi-scientific ‘definitions’ could not have been more inconsistent with the representative nature of culture itself. As we have already established, ‘true’ pronouncements, on which rigid descriptions such as definitions should be based, always block all direct communications between objects. Therefore, all of the comparisons of cultural traditions, the built environment included, would be impossible. This raises an interesting, rhetorical question of why successful colonial strategies of superiority seem to so perfectly match a ‘typical’ Western way of judging the nature of reality from the outside.8

THE SCOPE OF REPRESENTATION AND INTERPRETATION Apart from this relatively young Western bias of believing that architecture obeys the laws of natural science, the interpretation of the built environment always depends on the interpreter’s scope. This is doubtlessly the most important basic fact every architectural historian has to be aware of before doing any research on the built environment. The narrower the interpreter’s scope, the more special the events and objects represented seems to be. While local reality can be – unconsciously – represented by (supra-)regional phenomena, if the scope is worldwide a local phenomenon can be recognized as the representation of a particular case of a very widespread phenomenon. All of the other scopes fit between those two extremes. The following two examples make clear

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The Architectural Representation of Reality

how and to what extent different scopes can influence the interpretive representations of architecture by builders, dwellers and historians. The Local Scope A very clear example of the way in which a local scope can determine the interpretation of a piece of architecture, is the average person’s verbal representation of the medieval Saint Nicolas Church in Soest (Westfalia, Germany). Its main features, the nave, the columns splitting it up, and the storied utmost-western bay, are generally interpreted as the main features of a ‘Kogge’ {o.Engl.: Cogue}, a kind of medieval ship. The features that are supposedly represented by the church are, respectively: the ship’s keel (nave), the masts rising out of it (columns) and the aft castle {‘Kaju¨te’; m. English: bridge} (western altar tribune).9 This non-causal, phenomenon-internal and transversal interpretation of architecture like the one of the Soest church can only be understood by studying its function during that period. At least from 1214 onward, it was the religious centre of the Schleswick trading/shipping guild (‘Schleswigfahrer’).10 Because architecture is a reality-representing medium, these local and temporarily contextualized verbal representations could be formulated. Even when the patron’s motivations and formal choices were well known and crystal clear, the interpreting historian should never use them unquestioningly in order to explain why a building looks the way it does. Although every historian represents realities the way writers, artists and architects do, he is different when it comes to at least one essential detail. Since his representation must simultaneously be a detached interpretation, he must always ask the question of what context he should see the building’s commission and commissioner. This context should never be a general one, but should always be as precise and specific as possible. Therefore ‘Building in Renaissance Italy’ or ‘Architecture in Imperial China’ can only be the easy title of a glossy book, but never the context of serious architectural research. The artist can never be blamed for identifying himself with the reality represented. The historian can, because he must maintain a suspicious distance from his object, otherwise he naively becomes a part of the representation. He is then no longer the master of his research object but becomes its prisoner. Architectural historians who identify themselves with the reception of a work of art, such as the representation of the Saint Nicolas chapel as a Cogueship, are hemming themselves in.11 To put it concisely: the historian’s scope should always be at least one degree wider than his object’s, and – if necessary – a global view.12 To stick to the Soester example, the chapel should first be thoroughly analyzed and fit into the correct and wider – but never general – context, both formally as well as historically. In doing so, one would discover that about fifty years earlier, the church’s commissioner, certainly not just any merchant, had a very different reality in mind that he wanted represented than the popular ‘ship-’associated reception made believe. Observing it with the appropriate

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scope, the architectural type is that of the double choir oratorio with a built-in story for the seigniorial altar in the Western one. Saint Nicolas was certainly the provost’s chapel of the nearby Saint Patrocli Minster, which served his personal liturgical representation as well as the religious needs of his Familia. More than anything else, the door in the north-western wall of the tribune unambiguously represents the original function and urban embedding of the chapel. Although this element now looks embarrassingly out of place, it was once the status-rendering main entrance of its owner, approaching over the raised passageway, which must have connected the nearby Minster-complex and Saint Nicolas. Whilst the tradition of the double-choir seigniorial chapel as such was a broad one, also found throughout the Holy Roman Empire, the way it was formally worked out in Soest and its patronage were much more regional. The high double nave with its very slender columns reminds one of the Episcopal chapel of Saint Bartholomew in nearby Paderborn.13 It is safe to say that this architectural emulation represented the ambitions of the founding provost. Naming the oratorio after the Anatolian bishop is how high clerks of Cologne’s archbishopric, being part of Lotharingia’s old ‘Mittelreich’, used to show their status and respectable roots. Of course, by that time Saint Nicolas had become a patron of merchants as well, and also in old Lotharingia. Nevertheless, the merchant’s patron never displaced the guardian of the high clerks in the realm.14 The Worldwide Scope Ironically enough, the apex of Indo-European architectural syncretism, the dome covering the central or Durbar Hall of the former Viceroy’s palace in Delhi (constructed in the period 1912-1931), is simultaneously the utmost display of the British royal ambitions to rule the world as reborn Roman emperors.15 This unique combination of one of the strongest identity markers of Western civilization, the Roman Pantheon, and a building that had to represent the Indian Buddhism, that had long ago almost expired, the famous Stupa of Sa¯nchi, is an important self-idealizing representation of the fin-de-sie`cle colonizing elite of the British Empire. Its architect Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens, who shared the widespread Western aversion to Hinduism of that time, therefore, in his building concept represented a rather wishful armchair vision of Indian reality.16 The architect and his patron, the king and emperor of India, George V, along with his officials, were the first to combine the two most outstanding representations of ‘Aryan High Civilization’ as it has been understood since the 19th century. About a century-and-a-half ago, the British began appreciating ancient Buddhist India as the ‘good’ orient, while viewing present-day Hindu and Islamic Asia as the ‘bad’ and ‘barbaric’ East.17 Lutyen’s Delhi dome turns out to be a surprisingly transcultural prolongation of an age old, Eurasian tradition to represent societies based on absolute divine power by erecting centralizing cosmic buildings. The oldest structure of this kind that he incorporated was, most probably, developed by the Buddhist

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‘Cakravartin’ or cosmic Indian emperor As¸oka in the 3rd century BC as the gigantic domed Buddha reliquary or Stupa of the Sa¯nchi complex. Like the second incorporated structure of this type, the Roman Pantheon (25BC/AD118128), which was rebuilt by the emperor Adrian, it represents the Dome of Heaven, the four cardinal points of the cosmos and the ideal proportions of the divine body.18 In the course of the century, preceding the conception of the Ras¸trapati Bhavan (the Vice-Roy’s Palace) the Roman Pantheon had already acquired its status as the representation of Western Civilization and genius as such. The French revolutionary government initiated this process in 1791, when it decided to convert the centralizing church building of Sainte Genevie`ve in Paris into a ‘Panthe´on des Grands Hommes’. The famous French architectural theoretician Quatreme`re de Quincy (1755-1849) orchestrated the metamorphosis of Soufflot’s church. He advised doing away with the ‘non-classical’ towers and instead, introducing ‘true classical’ skylight by building up the windows in the walls. Consequently, the sanctuary of famous men received the heavenly light of the sanctuary of all Gods/all Saints. To take away all doubts about Sainte Genevie`ve being the Roman Pantheon, the dome’s lantern was replaced by a cylindrical finishing, which represented the Pantheon in miniature.19 According to the famous statement by its architect, Donato Bramante, in 1505, that he would construct the ‘Pantheon on top of the Temple of Peace (=Maxentiusbasilica)’, the dome of the new, centralizing Saint Peter’s in Rome should be as big and as overwhelming as the Pantheon itself.20 One of his successors, the leader (1514-1520) of the Lodge, Raffaelle Sanzio, was buried in the Pantheon because he was a great admirer of ‘the most famous of all Roman temples’ (quote: Palladio).21 Since then, the Pantheon has become the gathering place, the exhibition space and the burial site of Rafael’s admirers, in short the ‘Pantheon’ of some of the most outstanding ecclesiastical artists of their time.22 Why did the patron of the New Saint Peter’s Church, Pope (1503-1513) Julius II, prefer the centralizing ‘disegno angelico e non umano’ (‘angelic, nonhuman design,’ of Michelangelo Buonarotti’s Pantheon) instead of rebuilding the church according to its original longitudinal plan?23 Everything seemed to point in a direction contrary to the pope’s preference including the chapter of Saint Peter’s and the most venerable Constantinian origin of the basilica plan itself. That is, almost everything because something very appealing must have compelled Pope Julius II to reintroduce imperial Roman domed architecture.24 The fact that Bramante and his colleagues had studied Italian domed church buildings purely out of professional interest, could not have been why the pope preferred a domed concept. Because deciding on the new Saint Peter’s building concept was in the first place, a political act.25 Julius II’s main interest was to join a building tradition that could honourably represent his monarchic ambitions to ‘give to all Italy … a single ruler, the pope.’26 Since the ruler of the other Roman capital, Constantinople (Istanbul), had already approved con-

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struction on centralizing domed buildings at the various holy sites of imperial power, the pope had to compete with him in the framework of this tradition. The Sultan-Emperor began by erecting a huge domed mosque on the hilltop where Constantine was buried (Mehmet Fatih Djami A.H 867-875 / AD 1462/ 3-1470/1), and in the following centuries his successors built more on the rest of the ‘seven Hills’ (Rome!) of the city.27 Since the Hagia Sophia Cathedral (AD 532-537) had been converted into the (East-Roman) empire’s main mosque (A.H 857 / AD 1453), the tradition of representing the emperor of the East with cosmic-domed temples was continued by the Muslim Sultan and head of all believers in his realm, the Christians included.28 As a worthy follower of Justinianus (AD 527-565) the lawgiver, Su¨leyman Kanunı(=legislator) the Magnificent had erected the amazing complex of a mosque that represented Hagia-Sophia on one of the most prominent hilltops (A.H 964 / AD 1556/7), as well as some public buildings and a university to represent himself as a new Solomon (=Su¨leyman), as Justinianus had once done.29 While the Muslim Roman emperor was finishing up on one of history’s most grandiose domed temples in his capital, Michelangelo’s design of the cupola of the main church of the ruler of Christianity and Roman Italy was also nearing completion.30 Both included representations of the Solomonic pretensions of their patrons that preferred old Roman Imperial architecture over the existing vision of the Temple of Jerusalem. In the case of the Sultan, the explanation is quite simple: since he had converted the Hagia Sophia, the Great Church of the Byzantines, into his main State mosque, this imperial Roman representation of the Temple became his standard. This goes even more for Su¨leyman, since planning his great mosque and signing a treaty with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and with Ferdinand I of Austria coincided. This made him consider himself to have wrested the Roman imperial title from his Habsburg rivals.31 In the case of the pope, the choice of a Roman building concept needs more elucidation. First, the irreparable loss of both Jerusalem and Constantinople forced him to focus on the importance and continuity of Roman power. Secondly, the constant threat of the great European monarchs on the pope’s rule over Rome forced him to concentrate on the great Roman tradition. The Emperor-elect of the Holy Roman Empire, Maximilian, was also extremely ambitious as his aim was to combine imperial and papal power in one title.32 Since the underlying motives for focusing on Roman heritage is fairly clear in the cases of the two capitals of the former empire, there is no need for further explanations of their kindred architectural preferences. Excluding the possibility of the triggering effect the Muslim East-Roman ruler had on the Western pretenders to Roman rule, European connoisseurs narrowed their scopes to an exclusively ‘domestic’ motivation. The late-medieval anti-German founding myth of the North-Italian city-states, eventually named the ‘Renaissance,’ had to subsequently pass for the scholarly explanation of Julius’s remarkable altering of the architectural paradigm. However, as we now know, the deep-seated hatred towards the German King-Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire fostered by the

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increasingly prosperous city-states stimulated their self-consciousness. This political reality was represented in an architecturally very interesting way. Since it was associated with German rule, Gothic architecture was rejected by these regional powers while the Roman way of building was declared appropriate for expressing the increasing self-consciousness of the emerging cities.33 None of this is applicable to Julius’s architectural policy. As a peer of the emperors, his scope had to be much wider and his motives totally different, from those of the regional city-states. Two more cases of narrowing one’s scope have played decisive roles in removing the concept of the new Saint-Peter’s Cathedral from its sources. The first has a rather comprehensive and actual character since it concerns the exclusion of the architecture of the Muslim-ruled realm as a ‘scientific’ condition for writing architectural history. As was shown above, this kind of pseudo-scientific ‘absolutism’ belongs to the vulgarized Kantian heritage of Western scholarship.34 Using Christianity as an absolute parameter for the relevance of architectural comparison created a bizarre paradox.35 At that time, the one and only comparable ruler to represent himself in the Christian imperial tradition as an ‘alter Salomo’ was the Ottoman Sultan, as we have seen. Both written and built sources are very clear on that: ‘orthodox Shah, Solomon of the age (A.H 964/ AD 1556-57)’ was carved into one of the walls of the Su¨leymaniye Mosque in Istanbul. The main entrance to the forecourt of the same building represents the ‘Vestibulum’ and Throne Room of the OldTestament king, not to mention the domed prayer hall which represented the Temple based on Justinian’s tradition.36 Palladio even refers to this representational tradition in his remark on religious architecture: ‘We do not doubt that the little temples we produce ought to resemble this very great example, which, via his immense goodness, was perfectly completed with the utterance of the Word.’37 The Jewish temple had been the ‘Imago’ or ‘Recapitulatio’ Mundi from the very beginning, which means that it was a cosmic building, like every sanctuary of a Cosmo-centric culture.38 This explains why Christian and Muslim architects believed that the centrally planned building of worship was the manmade reflection of God’s universe, and it is this shape that revealed ‘the unity, the infinite essence, the uniformity and the justice of God’ (Plato, Timaeus, 33 BC)39 This paraphrase from Rudolf Wittkower’s famous book The Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism40 has here been enriched by expanding his religio-cultural scope by using Muslim architecture and rectified by eliminating his erroneous temporal confinement. This second narrowing of scope, which consists of ignoring the span of historical time properly required to explain the phenomenon of cosmic domed architecture by confining it to the so-called ‘Renaissance’ architecture, represents another set of absolute pseudo-scientific parameters, often referred to as ‘Periodization’. It should not be trivialized because it plays a major role in all of the historical efforts to ‘define’ the characteristics of any place and time. Since it consists of sheer projection and has nothing to do with historical ana-

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lysis as such, one should never use it. Wittkower, for instance, projected medieval, ancient as well as non-Western notions atop the ‘Renaissance’ screen. There are many older domed cosmic representations of power in the West, which reluctantly limits us to this part of the world in order to keep abreast of Wittkower’s argument. The highest rulers, including the emperor, commissioned a substantial and interesting portion of it. If we concentrate on the most famous and influential of earlier Western cosmic domed sanctuaries we will notice how the same architectural tradition continued for ages. Charlemagne (AD 742-814), for instance, represented his cosmo-imperial ambitions by requesting that his advisors assist him in the conception of a monumental centralizing representation of the Temple of Solomon.41 Not long before (A.H 72/ AD 691), the Umayyad caliph ‘Abd-al Malik had erected, as a triumphant token of his Solomonic kingship, the octagonal Qubbat Al-Sakhra or Dome of the Rock on Al-Haram Al-Sharif, the Temple Mountain in Jerusalem. It was, of course, a conscious act of representing himself as the new ruler of the realm by the grace of Allah that ‘Abd-al Malik had chosen to rebuild the Solomonic Temple in the Byzantine tradition.42 Shortly thereafter, the Carolingian ruler and Roman emperor Charles also rebuilt the Temple in his residence of Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle). While the superimposed internal columns-in-arcades represent Justinian’s Temple, the general plan of Aachen’s chapel emulates the Caliph’s Temple Dome.43 This building would continue to be seen, well into the 18th century, as the vital source of an impressive sequence of centralizing representations of the Solomonic Temple.44 This well-known fact never provoked a single Western architectural historian to broaden his scope to even superficially investigate the Islamic building tradition, notwithstanding its obvious role as a cradle of one of the most intriguing and monumental architectural phenomena of Europe. In dealing with religious and cultural differences as absolute barriers that are subject to different ‘natural laws,’ continuous historical and formal lines are cut off and cultural wholes are divided up. As we have already shown, broadening the scopes of architectural traditions means opening up new perspectives regarding the themes they represent. Therefore, we should broaden our representations of Romano-Christian imperial power via the centralizing model of Solomon’s Temple to its RomanoIslamic counterpart. It must be clearer now that the represented Roman imperial idea was never bound to one specific religion. The paradigmatic switch from Jewish Temple architecture to the domed representation of the Roman Cosmos opens the world up to views beyond the traditions of the Abraham-based religions. Thus, older and universal ideas about cosmic kingship from the Romano-Hellenistic world were undoubtedly the basic theme of these representations. British colonial world rule finally opened up the Western horizon to the domed representation of universal Indian-Buddhist ambitions. Thereafter, the existence of an almost worldwide representation of cosmic rule by centrally domed structures should be fairly clear to everyone.45 Liberated from its colonial tendencies, this process of expanding the scope of the Cosmic Dome’s

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architecture may prevent architectural history from interpreting even the most local domed shrine as purely a part of a regional or even local tradition. Sorting Out Built Representations of Reality In order to compare the architectural representations of reality from different cultures or ages, considered by others so far as quite incomparable, we are in need of a theory that accounts for generally distinguishable phenomena in the built environment. The main risk of scholars who are trying to establish a system to analyze the architecture of the world as a whole, is that they will develop a set of static and blank categories, which, in the end, prove to be of more descriptive than any analytic value.46 What is almost as treacherous is the hope that insights into the meaning and the principles of worldwide building will appear by merely looking for case-to-case formal resemblances. This is because similarities between individual plans, building forms and decorative elements do not necessarily imply that they have the same meaning. As we now know, comparable shapes and plans can easily be considered representations of different realities. Since the built environment can represent everything that is thinkable and tangible, not unlike all other creative media, the relationship between the form and the represented something is very complex. On the one hand, figuring out what the transcendent driving forces are for any one group of builders can be helpful when trying to discriminate between various forms that mean similar things. On the other hand, because there is such an overwhelming amount of formally comparable groups of built environments worldwide, a criterion that is simply too vague or general is totally inadequate as a research tool. Thus, the first thing that should be done is to find out how builders group their products into certain clusters by their preferring of specific forms and materials when it comes to the function of the structure to be built as well as their own social positions and ambitions. Moreover, it should be clear by now that, because architecture is a representational medium, one can never separate the analysis of its formal and material sides from the inquiry into what it was initially representing in the eyes of the principal proponents and what it means to the public now. To tackle these issues means first analyzing the formal side, and then looking for the shapes and the materials and what they meant to people at the place and the time they were chosen. This very act sets the comparative architectural analysis into motion. Two grouping options arise within this framework of the representational paradigm at the start of the comparative research process: one according to formal resemblance, and the other on the criterion of functional similarity. Both will expand our insights into the relationship between form and function, which functionalist misunderstandings have continued to damage since the early 20th century.

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The Paradigm of Revolving Traditions While thinking about classifying built environments in light of the representational paradigm, one should also be aware of the fact that its focus on man is fundamentally given for building concepts worldwide. Although this seems to be stating the obvious, it is of such great importance that one should nevertheless begin to analyze what it truly stands for. It basically means that a person who is busy creating a dwelling place, uses his or her coordinates and body parts to structure, to proportion, and to orientate this structure. This is how people make a meaningful place out of their structure. It is meaningful because one’s own body is the bearer of what any place in time means to each builder and inhabitant. While we generally analyze building (design) from a human-focused, representing art per se, it seems helpful and illuminating to use the following three, more or less individual, clusters of traditions, traceable to the worldwide, timehonoured building practice. The main one is a cluster of anthropomorphic traditions that is based on the characteristics of the human body, such as its head, breast, navel, limbs, and its coordinates (above, underneath, in front of, behind, to the left or right). This cluster is, importantly enough, also based on various measurements and proportions that are deduced from the ideal body or from a specific person’s body. By letting man project his bodily self onto the surrounding nature, because he or she needs a meaningful representation of it, the dualist image of the macro-micro cosmos emerged as the worldwide basis for the clustering of physiomorphic building traditions. Since the human body, and every shelter, which has been shaped after it, represent the principles of the universe. In the East, Feng-Shui and Vaastu are its comprehensive and coherent verbal representations, while in the West, the less consistent architectural allegory and the proportional systems are their counterparts.47 The third cluster, which exists globally, consists of sociomorphic building traditions that represent the relations between individuals and groups. Its most important features are again based on the characteristics of the human body and their projection onto nature. These structural parameters of building concepts include vertical and horizontal axiality, broadness and circularity. These three clusters of building traditions, which constitute the most basic stratum of meaning of any built environment, are, of course, nothing more than products of the human mind to try to comprehend the surrounding world. Their quasi-ageless omnipresence suggests an immanent and universal meaning and thus has little relationship to any specific context. Taking position in the ever-changing reality by conceiving and building its environment, the human mind not only resorts to these three, long-cycle primary traditions but also to shorter-cycle traditions, which belong to a second stratum of meaning. In short, because these secondary traditions are highly contextual, they exhibit more or less accurate time frames. Each age and region has seen hundreds of thousands of these traditions, ranging from very short-lived ones, the locally confined, to the relatively longer-lasting ones, with broader ramifications. Each

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of those traditions is, in fact, a reinterpretation of one or more pre-existing ones, although patrons and architects often prefer to represent them as new. The connection between this second stratum and an underlying long-cycle tradition is, as one would expect from any representation, not logical but transversal. Before proposing five representational clusters into which to roughly group these shorter-cycle traditions so they become accessible to research, it seems useful to adjust the conventional paradigm of the analysis of worldwide building. It should by now be, after all that we have said about it, broadened from ‘a mere representation of reality’ to ‘a representation of reality by revolving traditions’. The addition of the revolving-cycle metaphor should not be surprising because it has already been proven that tradition is always part of both the past and the future (fig. 1). By the time we reach the end of a long and systematic grouping process, the following five themes seem to be recurrent and distinct enough to be suitable as a kind of working space in which specific architectural clusters, characterized by related combinations of formal structure and represented content, can be analyzed. 1. Axis Mundi & Cosmic Cross. This central theme contains all of the natural and built body-related axial structures, representing the cosmos and its centre. The age-old icons of the four-sided world, for instance, can be found in various regions such as South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Middle- and South America. They always represent the ideal scheme of territories, cities and dwellings.48 Monumental structures often feature tower or mountain-like vertical elements, which represent the connection between the micro-cosmos and the macro-cosmos. The five-towered crossing (quincunx) of

Fig. 1 Schematic rendering of the built environment (O) as a product of the 5 crucial shortercycle themes of architectural representation as based on the 3 long-cycle representational building traditions.

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Tournai (B) Cathedral (ca. AD 1175) and the five mountain-like accents (quincunx) of the four-sided Angkor Wat (KH) Temple complex (AD 1130-1150) provide excellent examples of a very important worldwide shorter-cycle tradition that can best be analyzed from within the ‘working space’ of the Axis Mundi & Cosmic Cross theme (fig. 2).49 It will eventually become clear that the anthropomorphic long-cycle tradition exists under the shorter-cycle tradition of the quincunx axes. In the case of Angkor, the anthropomorphic meaning of the vertical axial elements is the God-King connecting Heaven and Earth. In the specific context of Tournai, the Lords of the Cathedral, being the local mediators between Heaven and Earth, clearly represent the individualization of the anthropomorphic stratum.50 There may be a need for further explanation as to why vertical axiality sometimes belongs to the physiomorphic tradition as well. The high rising parts of an architectural complex are usually mountain-shaped such as in the case of Angkor, and more generally in the case of the innumerable Asian Hindu temples, which is a clear representation of nature. To be more precise, it represents one of the holy mountains for Hindus because their gods are supposed to live there.51 2. Horizons of Life. This theme encapsulates all of the nature- and societyrelated broad structures that represent social equality as well as the limits of world views.52 At first sight, it seems amazing that the main structural feature of mosques and palaces in the Holy Roman Empire share the same worldwide representational tradition. This tradition means that people use the broadstructure space to express equality almost everywhere. In the case of a mosque,

Fig. 2 The cosmic basis of two different historical and religious ‘realities’ represented within the framework of the same theme, using the same anthropomorphic coordinates.

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the prayer, or qibla wall makes them equal in the eyes of Allah. In the case of an imperial palace, the emperor and his peers are seated along the same throne wall, facing, as an equal group of rulers, the rest of those present. The fundamental equality of believers is a principle well-known to several religions.53 The sovereign who sits among his peers along a broad wall was an unmistakable representation of the dominance of the powerful German tribes in the medieval West Roman Empire. The palace of the count of Holland in The Hague provides a striking example of the contemporary’s awareness of its precise and region-bound meaning. When Count William II was elected king of the Holy Roman Empire, he began construction on a broad-structured palace in The Hague’s Binnenhof. His son, who was the heir to the throne of Scotland, sacrificed this dwelling for a longitudinal one, according to the royal English tradition. Count Floris V received his peers and his other guests, not flanked by the noble elite of the realm, but by sitting alone at the noble high table (fig. 3).54 We do not need to offer any further explanation regarding the representational tradition of ‘The Horizon of Equality’ and how it is directly based on the long-cycle sociomorphic tradition, and that this line of social equality is basically nothing more than a representation of the first and most absolute horizontal line men ever saw: the horizon itself. Therefore, the concept of a broad-structured built representation will always automatically reactivate a long-cycle physiomorphic tradition. 3. Boasting Fac¸ades. This theme includes the body-related, vertical structures that represent the triumphant, the aggressive and the defensive faces of power.55

Fig. 3 The politico-religious horizons of two different ‘realities’ – the equality of feudal lords and that of praying Muslims – represented in the frame of the same theme, using the same physiomorphic phenomenon.

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No aspect of any building worldwide, apart from the ground plan, is more frequently used to represent the position and the ambitions of the patron-dweller than the fac¸ade. A very interesting and widespread building tradition that should be analyzed in this thematic ‘working space’ is the heightened front, a fac¸ade that rises above the building behind it to impress the beholder. This kind of ‘Fac¸ade of Power’ is found in very different cultural contexts. Of this sheer immeasurable total number of buildings, we will present three of them as global examples. The first is the fac¸ade of Stralsund’s medieval town hall in Germany. The second is the 19th-century chief ’s House in Korhogo (Coˆte d’Ivoire), the third is Temple I, which lies at the ceremonial centre of the huge Mayan capital of Tikal in Guatemala, sixth and seventh centuries AD (fig. 4). The first thing that can be concluded from this generally contextualized formal confrontation of these three fac¸ades is that building a ‘boastful’ – meaning that is not material-functionally ‘oversized’ – fac¸ade does not depend on a specific context. The effort to increase the height of the fac¸ade to impress has nothing to do with specific religious ideas, not even considering comparable historical or social circumstances. The beautiful vision of the heavenly city which the Stralsund fac¸ade, with its openwork windowed gables revealed to those sailing on the Baltic, was just an adaptation of a theme that matched the citizens’ pride in the town’s blossoming economic situation.56 Although the ambition to represent local society as the Heavenly City was certainly not the idea behind the design of the chief ’s house in Korhogo, its fac¸ade bears a strikingly close resemblance to the ostentatious fac¸ade in Stralsund. The reason for it is much easier to explain than the cultural, geographical and temporal differ-

Fig. 4 Raising the façades with ‘useless’ open tops represent comparable socio-historical realities in the field of the same theme by using identical human behaviour as its long-cycle basis.

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ences would lead one to expect. Both fac¸ades owe their grid-like structure of horizontal and vertical bands to the Romano-Hellenistic Middle East-based architectural traditions, which had a great influence on both Islamic-Arab and greater Europe’s general building concepts. Arab invaders introduced it into various parts of Africa, while the European ambition to expand the Christian Holy Roman Empire allowed it to survive in so-called Gothic and subsequent building traditions.57 The ‘cresteria,’ or immense and once richly decorated stone comb that crowned the fac¸ade of the pyramid-based cella of Temple I of Tikal, doubtlessly represents the similarly enormous headdress of the Maya king. This upper zone of a temple structure without question once showed the pantheon of the builder-king’s clan.58 Each of the three boasting ‘fac¸ades of power’ in its own way represents the local elite: the city’s governor, the chief, and the king. They were all elevating themselves in this manner and made their claims of supernatural legitimacy. It surely needs no further explanation that the anthropomorphic long-cycle tradition is the stratum in which the shortercycle ‘frontal’ architectural representations of local power systems are based. 4. Including & Excluding Structures. This theme encompasses all of the societyrelated topological structures, that represent the incorporation or – its antonym – the exclusion of humans.59 All over the world and for ages now, people have found their own ways to distinguish between ‘them’ and ‘us.’ In architectural terms, it mainly means erecting walls to include ‘those who belong to us’ and exclude ‘those who do not belong to us.’ Governments build walls to keep those inside who they want to exclude from society. Prisons, concentration camps, refugee camps, ghettoes, quarantine islands are some of the common walled-in ‘solutions.’ These built environments, depending on the living circumstances and perspectives of their inhabitants, are better described almost everywhere in terms like ‘Inferno’ or ‘Purgatorio’ because of Dante Alighieri’s famous literary works. On the other hand, one can also find people who have freely chosen to live outside of society in order to find their own happiness or holiness. Monasteries and gated communities are the current built representations of this desire. Their plans are mostly based on cosmic paradisiacal schemes. One will not find these kinds of formal parallels among the built representations of a human ‘Inferno’ because they belong to the socially denied realities, which should remain beyond the reach of any of its representing building traditions. Some of the concentration camps built by the Nazis between ca. 1935-1945 present us with shocking examples of this. This is because the mass destruction of an entire people could not be represented as a part of reality even in Nazi Germany. Therefore, the concepts of these camps belong to building traditions that are alien to its function. For instance, in Sachsenhausen (1936) a friendly garden city layout was used to appease both the neighbours and the camp’s personnel.60 This kind of antonym – an open and positive layout for those excluded from society – is not usually found inside society, where the poor and disenfranchised do not fit into the official reality, society refuses them the civil right of a live-

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Fig. 5 The hidden (exclusive) and public (inclusive) urban representation of human suffering according to various socio-political realities. Within the framework of this shorter-cycle theme, the human implications of worldviews become much clearer.

able infrastructure. Consequently, these people have few means with which to represent their own marginal existences. The Brazilian Favelas provide us with some poignant contemporary examples. Why is this fourth theme, then, the proper working space in which to compare the Nazi concentration camps and the Favelas? (fig. 5). Notwithstanding the principle difference between the two groups of inhabitants, they are both outcasts, despised, exploited and killed by society. The survival rates of the inhabitants of the Favelas are only somewhat better. Secondly, this reality is represented by an architecture of negation, which is a rather sad but also an interesting concept. The perversion of the Nazi garden camp needs no further explanation. The perversion of the ‘human’ habitat as a slum needs no further clarification. It should by now be clear that, at the margins of society, where the laws, the ideals and the inhabitants are seen as unworthy of any architectural representation, a builder can basically use any architectural tradition to ironically represent the opposite reality that it would normally represent. Embarrassment or rather unfathomable indifference of those in power towards the victims and the poor are the motives for housing them in this manner. 5. Holy and unholy zones. This last of the shorter-cycle themes includes all of the various tripartite architectural structures. It includes the horizontal zoning of ground plans as well as the vertical zoning of the building and its fac¸ades, which represent the socio-cosmic spheres of the living and the dead.61 It is almost impossible to find a dwelling or a sanctuary that has no architectural

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references to one or more of these three cosmic domains: the unholy, lethal and cosmic order-endangering underworld, the ambiguous terrestrial domain, striving for the re-establishment of cosmic order, and the holy or celestial zone as the architectural projection of Everyman’s dream of cosmic order. The mighty foundation of massive natural stone, in the Mediterranean realm, in India as well as in Middle- and South America, almost always represents the world of the toiling earthlings who have to off-hold the demons of depth as well as to support their god-miming oppressors.62 The most precise representation of the reality between the netherworld and earth is the rustic zone of ancient Mediterranean building traditions that is still the dominant representative power-architecture of the Western World and beyond. The South Asian tradition of concentrating livestock, or manual labour and food preparation – mostly done by women – at the open ground floor level is very comparable. Meanwhile, the head of the family and some of the – mostly male – members of the household have their fixed positions on the upper floor. At the upper level of many houses throughout this region, male and female ancestral figures or Ragas indicate the overworld-like character of this part of the house.63 An overwhelming amount of monumentalizing buildings found in India, Eurasia and South America, often abundantly represents the celestial meaning of the top story, which inevitably represents the socio-political status quo. Heavenly beings, domes, mountains, idealized nature, tribal mementos and divine palaces remind one respectively of godly and ancestral presences and offer protection.64 Every vertical partition of a building’s body is, in the end, a representation of the partition of the human body. Therefore, the tripartition of this fifth

Fig. 6 The anthropomorphic, trizonal scheme of the cosmos is used here to represent the ongoing reality of self-conscious family life as an inseparable part of creation. It is one of the oldest transcultural representations within the shorter-cycle representational theme framework.

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shorter-cycle theme represents, from low to high, as far as it belongs to the first partition, the feet, the legs and the lower parts of the human body (in terms of architectural representation the bearing base, where the netherworld meets the earth). It also belongs to the second partition, as it represents the upper part of the body, the seat of the heart (in terms of architectural representation of the earthly and epiphanic level, where heaven meets earth). Finally, it also belongs to the third partition because it represents the head (in terms of architectural representation of the overworld, where the living meet the dead). This aspect certainly needs no further explication than the fact that every built environment that ‘recycles’ this representational tradition is mainly based on the anthropomorphic long-cycle tradition (fig. 6). The theme of the Holy and Unholy Zones is not confined to the vertical aspects of a building; it also applies to its plan. But, depending on functions being more public or private, male or female, older or younger, clean or unclean, they are here distributed somewhere between the heart and the edge, between the Holy centre and the Unholy periphery. This horizontal zoning is also based on the anthropomorphic long-cycle tradition because it represents a man diagonally stretched across a square (according to the Indo-European Western tradition, the Homo ad Quadratum; according to the Indian Vedic Indo-European tradition, the primordial Demon held in check by a Mandala) or in a circle (according to the Indo-European Western tradition, the Homo ad Circulum). The utmost-inner, and therefore holiest of zones, represents his navel, in which the Axis Mundi is based. The outer, and most unholy of zones, represents his hands and feet, being the instruments of a tough and even unclean life of labour. The impact that horizontal, interior zoning has on public space is, of course, much smaller than that of vertical zoning. Because this zoning is the basis of, more or less, every dwelling’s private spheres, it has much in common with the fourth Theme ‘Including and Excluding Structures,’ the latter relating to family, clan and society-related topological structures. The world that had once been mostly clan-focused and is often much more multicultural today, and the globalized future, has never before seen the scope of architectural representation expand at such speeds as today. Moreover, never before has it been so difficult to understand the built environment without using a comparative analysis. The signalled, alarming lack of knowledge about the different cultural traditions that architecture forms a part of, has made a meaningful analysis of the built environment as such all the more urgent. Since the representational paradigm of architecture is about the built outcome of the (complex) process of expressing aspects of a human ‘here and now’ reality in architecture, the researcher should be equipped with mental tools that can be used as an interface between him and the form-context complexities, or the building tradition that he or she would like to analyze. Furthermore, these tools should be as kaleidoscopic as life itself, appreciated for their usefulness, and should not be seen as a set of ‘beautiful rules’ invented by some researcher and admired for their elegance, completeness and abstraction. As noted earlier, the three long and five shorter-cycle revolving traditions, however asymmetrical and

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general they may seem, are constituted to provide precisely that usefulness to every architectural historian interested in analyzing all kinds of architectural traditions. Although they are applicable to every question related to the architecture-representational paradigm, regardless of time and place, they are by no means meant as formulations of ’true universal building principles.’ The, more or less, distanced and abstract character of the three and five revolving traditions is an inevitable effect of their ‘pre-sorting’ position between the researcher and the innumerable local traditions, recycled on an everyday basis to architecturally represent millions of here and now realities. These ‘three and five,’ traditions transcend all cultural and temporal differences and re-formulate the worldwide, highly variable building reality. They not only provide the researcher with a better grip on his subject but also primarily require comparisons in the broadest possible scope. In doing so, the researcher will be rewarded with a much better, deeper understanding of his subject than he would ever get by sticking to the narrow here and now scope of his topic. The scholar will get his reward for sufficiently widening his scope in a rather basic way: in most cases, he will no longer come to the wrong conclusions. For instance, the mastery of dome construction would no longer be placed in Renaissance Italy but in the 16th-century Ottoman Empire, where it arguably belongs.65 Perhaps, what is even more amazing is that, in recent literature on urban history, there has been an almost total negation of the Indus Valley as the location for, by far, the oldest grid-based urban plants. Instead, the old myth of a ‘Western,’ Mediterranean-based origin dated much later is still preferred by most authors.66 Numerous examples, from all over the world, that misjudge the historical position of certain architectural achievements because of a certain narrow-mindedness that was caused by the over-estimation of one’s own (Western) culture, should also be emphasized. Will this ever change in our Age of Globalization?

NOTES 1 2 3

4

5

Sherman Paul, Louis Sullivan, An architect in American Thought, Inglewood Cliffs (NJ), 1962, pp. 32, 36. Sun Dhazang, Islamic Buildings (Ancient Chinese Architecture vol. VIII), Wien/New York, 2003. Wolfgang Welsch, Der transversale Vernunft, Frankfurt a.Main, 1995; Frank R. Ankersmit, De Macht van Representatie, Exploraties II: Cultuurphilosophie en esthetica, Kampen, 1996, pp. 156161. Ankersmit,1996 (3), pp 184-189, 223 note 6, and chapter 7, section 2 and 3; Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton, 1979, p. 45; Aart J.J. Mekking, De SintServaaskerk te Maastricht. Bijdragen tot de kennis van de symboliek en de geschiedenis van de bouwdelen en de bouwsculptuur tot ca. 1200 (Clavis Kunsthistorische Monografiee¨n vol.2), Zutphen,1986, pp. 184-185; A.J.J. Mekking, De Sint Nicolaaskapel op het Valkhof te Nijmegen. Patrocinia, voorbeeld, functie en betekenis (Nijmeegse Studie¨n vol. XVIII), Nijmegen, 1997, esp. pp. 32-36. John Cottingham, Descartes, Rene´, in: A Companion to Epistemology (eds.: J. Dancy and E. Sosa), Oxford and Malden, (MA), 1992, p. 96.

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6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

17 18

19

20 21 22 23 24

25

46

James Fergusson, Indian Architecture (ed. James Burgess) and Eastern Architecture (R. Phene Spiers), London, 1910, vol. I, pp. 301-309; 420-423; vol. II, pp. 84-87. Karl Scheffler, Der Geist der Gotik, Leipzig, 1919, passim. For a witty and interesting comment on this dubious labelling practice, see: Gautam Bathia, Punjabi Baroque and Other Memories of Architecture, New Delhi, 1994. For instance, Nicolaus Pevsner, An outline of European Architecture, Harmondsworth 1943; David Wattkin, A history of Western Architecture, London 1986. Ankersmit 1996 (3), pp. 186-187. C. Meckseper, Kleine Kunstgeschichte der deutschen Stadt im Mittelalter, Darmstadt,1982, p. 213, fig. Z. 73; E. Linnhof, St. Nikolai-Kapelle in Soest, Soest, 1991, pp. 1-6 H. Schwartz, Soest in seinen Denkma¨lern, II. Band (Soester wissenschaftliche Beitra¨ge, Band 15), Soest, 1978, Die Kapelle S. Nicolai episcopi am Kolk, pp. 180-184. Meckseper 1982 (9), p. 213; Schwartz 1978 (10), pp. 180-182; Linnhoff 1991 (9), pp. 2-6. Theo de Boer, Pleidooi voor Interpretatie, Amsterdam, 1997, pp. 28, 37-39, 42-43. Mekking 1997 (4), p. 50-51; Wolfgang Braunfels, Die Kunst im Heiligen Ro¨mischen Reich II, Die geistlichen Fu¨rstentu¨mer, Mu¨nchen 1980, p. 339-342. Mekking 1997 (4), pp. 5-14. Andreas Volwahsen, Imperial Delhi, Mu¨nchen/Berlin/London/New York, 2002, pp.49, 78-82. Lutyens, Edwin, in: Macmillan Encyclopedia of Architects (ed.: Adolf K. Placzek), vol. III, London, 1982, pp. 42-49; John R. McKenzie, The Uncivilized Races of Men in All Countries of the World, vol. II, New York, 1880, p. 1407 ff; Volwahsen 2002 (15). Edward W. Said, Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient (with a new afterword), London, 1995, p. 99. Stupa, Sa¯nchi: Benjamin Rowland, The Art and Architecture of India: Buddhist – Hindu – Jain, (The Pelican history of Art), Harmondsworth, 1970, pp. 78-79; Andreas Volwahsen, Bouwkunst der Eeuwen. India (trans. H. Manger), Amsterdam, 1971, pp. 16-21; Adrian Snodgrass, The Symbolism of the Stupa, New York, 1985, pp. 69, 95, 360-262; Volwahsen 2002 (15), p. 102; Pantheon, Rome: Walther Buchowiecki, Handbuch der Kirchen Roms. Wien, 1970, vol. 2, S. Maria ad Martyres: 654-688, pp. 654-659; John B. Ward-Perkins, Roman Architecture, New York ,1977, pp. 133-141; E. Baldwin Smith, The Dome: A Study in the History of Ideas (renewed edition), Princeton, 1978, p. 91-93; Spiro Kostoff, A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals (2nd ed.), New York, 1995, pp. 217-221; Volwahsen 2002 (15), pp. 116-123. Emil Kaufmann, Architecture in the Age of Reason: Baroque and Post-Baroque in England, Italy, France, New York, 1955, pp. 139-140; Yvan Christ, l’Ancienne Abbye Sainte Genevie`ve, in: l’Ile Saint Louis, l’Ile de la Cite´, le quartier de l’ancienne Universite´, Alfortville, 1974, p. 216 (figure bottom); D. Joseph, Geschichte der Baukunst des XIX. Jahrhunderts, vol. III, 1, Leipzig, (ca. 1910), pp. 135-137; Paris Guide par les principaux e´crivains et artistes de la France, vol. I: La Science, l’Art, Paris, 1867, pp. 670-672; Udo Kultermann, Geschichte der Kunstgeschichte: Der Weg einer Wissenschaft (2nd ed.) Frankfurt am Main, 1981, pp. 120-22; David Watkin, The Rise of Architectural History, London, 1980, p. 24; Sylvia Lavin, Quatreme`re de Quincy and the Invention of a Modern Language of Architecture, Cambridge, MA, 1992. Buchowiecki 1967 (18), p. 115; James Lees-Milne, Saint-Peter’s. The Story of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, London, 1967, p. 145. Andrea Palladio, I quattro libri dell’ Architettura (Venezia 1570), Facsimile, Milano, 1968, Il Quarto Libro, p. 73. G.J. Hoogewerff, Felix Roma. Uit het verleden en heden der zeven heuvelen, Zutphen, (ca. 1928), pp. 103-104. Buchowiecki 1970 (18), pp. 654-688, especially: p.659. Kostoff 1995 (18), pp. 502-503; Jean Castex, De architectuur van Renaissance, Barok en Classicisme. Een overzicht 1420-1720 (Renaissance, Baroque et Classicisme: Histoire de l’Architecture 1420-1720, Paris, 1990), Nijmegen, 1993, pp. 109-118. Lees-Milne 1967 (20), p. 144; Watkin 1980 (19), p. 191.

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26 Karl August Fink, Pa¨pste der Hochrenaissance, in: Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte (Hubert Jedin ed.) Band III, Die mittelalterliche Kirche, Zweiter Halbband, Freiburg/ Basel/Wien, 1973, pp. 670-671; Friedrich Gontard, The Popes, London, 1964, pp. 568-569. 27 Visit: http://columbia.thefreedictionary.com/Constantinople; The Garden of the Mosques. Hafiz Hu¨seyin Al-Ayvansarayıˆ’s Guide to the Muslim Monuments of Ottoman Istanbul (Howard Crane, ed.), Studies in Islamic Art and Architecture vol. VIII, Leiden/Boston/Ko¨ln 2000, pp. 11-13. 28 Wolfgang Mu¨ller-Wiener, Bildlexikon zur Topographie Istanbuls, Tu¨bingen, 1977, pp. 19-20; The Garden of the Mosques 2000 (27), pp. 6-7, 11-13; Nicolae Jorga, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches. Nach den Quellen dargestellt, Zweiter Band bis 1538, Gotha, 1908-1913, pp. 36-37; Jane Taylor, Imperial Istanbul: A Traveller’s Guide, London/New York, 1998, pp. 104-105, 117-121. 29 The Garden of the Mosques, 2000 (27), pp. 19-22; Gu¨lru Necipog˘lu, The Age of Sinan: Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire, London, 2005, pp. 207-222; Paul von NarediRainer, Salomos Tempel und das Abendland, Ko¨ln ,1994, pp. 116-125. 30 Buchowiecki ,1967 (18), p. 121. 31 Necipog˘lu, 2005 (29), p 207. 32 Fink, 1973 (26), p. 670. 33 Paul Frankl, The Gothic: Literary Sources and Interpretations through Eight Centuries, Princeton, 1960, pp. 237-414, especially: p. 248. 34 A startling example of a Western-based finalistic architectural ‘analysis’ is P.N. Oak’s The Taj Mahal is a Hindu Palace (Bombay, 1968). The Mogul representation of Islamo-Indian imperial reality is severely mutilated to enable it to fit into the scope of Hindu chauvinism. 35 A French art historian and Muslim convert, Roger Garaudy, joined in the belief that Islamic architecture is a part of Qura’nic revelation. This narrow and dogmatic scope on the built environment forced him to eliminate every historical approach to Islamic religious building practice, putting it on a transcendent level beyond time and space and therefore beyond every other interpretation as well. Roger Garaudy, Mosque´e, Miroir de l‘Islam / The Mosque, Mirror of Islam, Paris, 1985. 36 The Garden of the Mosques, 2000 (27), p. 20; Aart J.J. Mekking, Vorraum go¨ttlichen Wissens. Der Westbau der lo¨wener Peterskirche als Repra¨sentation allgemeiner und kontextbedingter Wirklichkeiten (130-144), in: Kunst & Region. Architektur und Kunst im Mittlelater, Beitra¨ge einer Forschungsgruppe/Art & Region. Architecture and Art in the Middle Ages, Contributions of a research group (Uta Maria Bra¨uer, Emanuel Klinkenberg, Jeroen Westerman, eds.), (Clavis Kunsthistorische Monografiee¨n vol. XX), Utrecht, 2005: 130-144, pp. 138-141; Aart J.J. Mekking, Neu-St.Peter in Rom. Ein Zentralbau als Tempel fu¨r den christlichen Salomo. In: Medien der Symbolik in Spa¨tmittelalter und fru¨her Neuzeit – Der Fu¨rstenhof. Studientag der Onderzoekschool Medie¨vistiek Groningen und der WWU Mu¨nster, 19 und 20 Oktober 2001 (unpublished). 37 Palladio 1968 (21), Il Quarto Libro, p. 3. 38 Robert Jan van Pelt, Tempel van de wereld. De kosmische symboliek van de tempel van Salomon, Utrecht, 1984, passim. 39 In the West, since late antiquity, the Timaeus was read in the Greek scholar Chalcidius’s Latin translation (ca. AD 300); in the Arab world, most scholars could read the text in the original language; See: Max Manitius, Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters, Zweiter Band (1923), Mu¨nchen 1965, p.581. 40 Rudolf Wittkower, Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism (Studies of the Warburg Institute vol. 19, 1949), London, 1676, p. 23. 41 Monumenta Germaniae Historica (MGH), Epistolae Carolini Aevi, vol. 4, Hannover/Berlin, 1895, p. 235 42 Priscilla Soucek, The Temple of Solomon in Islamic Legend and Art, in: The Temple of Solomon. Archaeological Fact and Medieval Tradition in Christian, Islamic and Jewish Art (ed.: Joseph Gutmann), Missoula, (MT), 1976: 73-123, p. 88-111; Oleg Grabar, The Shape of the Holy: Early Islamic Jerusalem, Princeton, 1992.

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43 Aart J.J. Mekking, Vorbilder und Rezeption. Das Bauwerk, in: Der Dom zu Aachen. Seit 25 Jahren Welterbe der UNESCO. In: Die Waage vol. 42, October 2003, pp. 62-66; Mekking 1997 (4); Naredi-Rainer 1994 (29), pp. 117-130. 44 Wolfgang Goetz, Zentralbau und Zentralbautendenz in der gotischen Architektur, Berlin, 1968, passim; Helen Rosenau, Vision of the Temple. The Image of the Temple of Jerusalem in Judaism and Christianity, London 1979, passim; Naredi-Rainer 1994 (29), passim; Otto Ho¨ver, Vergleichende Architekturgeschichte, Mu¨nchen, 1923, passim; Mekking 1997 (4), pp. 32-36; Aart J.J. Mekking, Houses of Prayer, Houses of Preaching. A structural comparison of Islamic and Calvinist-rooted religious Architecture, in: Het kerkgebouw in het postindustrie¨le landschap/The church in the post-industrial landscape, Zoetermeer, 2004: 79-90, pp. 85-87. 45 Peter Sloterdijk, Spha¨ren. Mikrospha¨rologie, vol. I, Blasen, Frankfurt am Main, 1998, ‘Hochkulturen Theologie’: pp. 56-57, 65; Peter Sloterdijk, Spha¨ren. Mikrospha¨rologie, vol. II, Globen, Frankfurt am Main, 1999, Exkurs 4: Pantheon. Zur Theorie der Kuppel, pp. 435-464. 46 Dagobert Frey, Grundlegung zu einer vergleichenden Kunstwissenschaft. Raum und Zeit in der Kunst der Afrikanisch-eurasischen Hochkulturen, Innsbruck/Wien, 1949. 47 E. Lipp, Feng Shui: Environments of Power. A Study of Chinese Architecture, London, 1995; D.N. Shukla, Vaastu Shaastra, vol. I. Hindu Science of Architecture, New Delhi, 1995; Mekking 1986 (4), On Architectural Allegory: pp. 58-86; Paul von Naredi-Rainer, Architektur und Harmonie. Zahl, Mass und Proportion in der abendla¨ndischen Baukunst, Ko¨ln 1982. 48 Axis Mundi & Cosmic Cross is the first theme presented in a series of unpublished lectures by Aart J.J. Mekking, called: ‘Introductions into Crucial Themes of World Architecture Studies’ C (omparative) W(orld) A(rchitecture) S(tudies), Leiden University, 2000-2005. It includes the following sections regarding worldwide traditions: Cosmic Man, The Mountain of the Gods, The Tower of Heaven, The Cosmic Pillar. For a copy contact: [email protected]. 49 Some reading suggestions: Aart J.J. Mekking, ‘The Hague: A Capital of Centro Phobia. An Analysis of Its Built Representation’. In: Wang and Shuguo (eds.), Research Essays Collection of Beijing Studies in 2004. (pp. 263-280). Beijing: International Programme Departement; Werner Mu¨ller, Die Heilige Stadt. Roma Qaudrata, himmlisches Jerusalem und die Mythe vom Weltnabel, Stuttgart, 1961; Joseph Rykwert, The Idea of a Town: The Anthropology of Urban Form in Rome, Italy and the Ancient World (1976), Princeton, 1995; Daigoro Chihara, Hindu-Buddhist Architecture in Southeast Asia, Leiden, 1996; Urban Form and Meaning in South Asia: The Shaping of Cities from Prehistoric to Precolonial Times (eds.: Howard Spodek and Doris Meth Srinivasan.), Hannover/London 1993; Paul Wheatly, The Places Where Men Pray Together: Cities in Islamic Lands, Seventh through the Tenth Centuries, Chicago/London, 2001; Arthur Versluis, The Elements of Native American Traditions, Shaftesbury/Rockport/Brisbane 1993; A. Arrelano Hernandez et al., Maya Die klassische Periode, Mu¨nchen, 1998. 50 J. Warichez, La Cathe´drale de Tournai et son Chapitre, Seconde Partie: La Cathe´drale, Wetteren, 1934; J. Warichez, De Kathedraal van Doornik. Eerste Deel: Romaansche Architectuur en Beeldhouwkunst (Ars Belgica. I), Antwerpen 1934; Henri Stierlin, Angkor, Fribourg, 1970; Jacques Dumarc¸ay and Pascal Roye`re, Cambodian Architecture, Eighth to Thirteenth Centuries (Handbook of Oriental Studies. Southeast Asia, vol. XII), Leiden/Boston/Ko¨ln, 2001, Part two. 51 Stella Kramrisch, The Hindu Temple vol. I (1946), Delhi, 1996, ‘The image of the Mountain and the Cavern’, pp.161 ff. 52 Horizons of Life is the second theme presented in a series of unpublished lectures by Aart J.J. Mekking, called ‘Introductions into Crucial Themes of World Architecture Studies’ See note 48. For a copy contact: [email protected]. 53 Mekking 2004 (44), p. 81-90. Horizons of Life is the second theme presented in a series of unpublished lectures by Aart J.J. Mekking, called ‘Introductions into Crucial Themes of World Architecture Studies’ See note 48. For a copy contact: [email protected]. 54 Aart J.J. Mekking, Die Aula Palatii in Den Haag. Ernst Schubert zum 70. Festschrift Ernst Schubert. Zeitschrift fu¨r Kunstgeschichte, 3 (1997), p. 308-333. 55 Boasting Facades is the third theme presented in a series of unpublished lectures by Aart J.J. Mekking, See note 48. For a copy ask: [email protected].

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56 Stralsund et al.: Aart J.J. Mekking, Traditie als maatstaf voor vernieuwing in de kerkelijke architectuur van de Middeleeuwen. De rol van oud en nieuw in het proces van bevestiging en doorbreking van maatschappelijke structuren. Bulletin Koninklijke Nederlandse Oudheidkundige Bond (KNOB), 97(6) (1998), pp. 205-223; Korhogo: Labelle Prussin, Hatumere: Islamic Design in West Africa, Berkeley/Los Angeles, 1986, p. 173. 57 Old Middle East: Archa¨ologische Entdeckungen. Die Forschungen des deutschen archa¨ologischen Instituts im 20. Jahrhundert, Mainz 2000, Uruk – Die Wiege der Kultur, pp. 156-162; S. Giedion, The Beginnings of Architecture, Princeton, 1964, pp. 193-214; C. Bezold, Ninive und Babylon (ed.: C. Frank), Bielefeld/Leipzig, 1926. Africa: Nnamdi Elleh, African Architecture. Evolution and Transformation, New York/San Francisco, et al., 1997, ch. 3, ‘Islamic Architecture in Africa’, pp. 73-87; Prussin 1986 (56). 58 Harrelano Hernandez 1998 (49), pp. 142, 144-146; Henri Stierlin, Die Kunst der Maya, Stuttgart 1982, pp. 42-56. 59 Including & Excluding Structures is the fourth theme presented in a series of unpublished lectures by Aart J.J. Mekking, called ‘Introductions into Crucial Themes of World Architecture Studies’. See note 48. For a copy contact: [email protected]. 60 Ludo van Eck, Het boek der kampen, Leuven, 1979, passim. 61 Holy & Unholy Zones is the fifth theme presented in a series of unpublished lectures by Aart J. J. Mekking, called ‘Introductions into Crucial Themes of World Architecture Studies’ See note 48. For a copy contact: [email protected]. 62 General West: Kostof 1995 (18), s.v. Rustication. Medieval West: C.M.H. Martin, D.J. de Vries, Beschrijving en datering van de kern van het gebouw, in: Het Kapittel van Lebuinus in Deventer (eds.: J.R.M. Magdelijns, et al.), Deventer, 1996, pp. 172-178. India: Kramrisch, 1996 (51), pp. 171-173; Gerard Foekema, Architecture Decorated with Architecture, New Delhi, 2003, See: ‘ad’hist a´na/base, upapı´tha/pedestal, p. 21; South America: Die klassische Periode, Maya 1998 (49), for instance: Tikal. 63 Indonesian Heritage. Architecture (ed.: Gunawan Tjahjono), Singapore/Djakarta, 1998, pp. 3233, 42-43; Gaudenz Domenig, Tektonik im primitiven Dachbau (Go¨ttersitz und Menschenhaus, Exposition ETH Zu¨rich), Zu¨rich, 1980, pp. 127, 162; Bart Barendregt, From the Realm of Many Rivers. Memory, Places and Notions of Home in the Southern Sumatran Highlands (diss.), Leiden, 2005, p. 371. 64 General West: Adolf Reinle, Zeichensprache der Architektur. Symbol, Darstellung und Brauch in der Baukunst des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, Zu¨rich/Mu¨nchen, 1976, pp. 259-281, 314-319; E. Baldwin Smith, Architectural Symbolism of Imperial Rome and the Middle Ages (1st ed., 1956), New York ,1978; Mekking 1986 (4), Chapter.V De ‘Stad God’s’ als het ‘Heilige paleis’ van de keizer, pp. 222-278; Aart J.J. Mekking, Pro Turri Trajectensi. De positieve symboliek van de Domtoren in de stad Utrecht en op de ‘Aanbidding van het Lam Gods’ van de gebroeders Van Eyck, in: Annus Quadriga Mundi. Opstellen over middeleeuwse Kunst opgedragen aan prof. dr. Anna C. Esmeijer (J.B. Bedaux ed.), (Clavis Kunsthistorische Monografiee¨n vol, VIII), Zutphen, 1989, pp. 129-151; Emanuel S. Klinkenberg, Architectuuruitbeelding in de Middeleeuwen. Oorsprong, Verbreiding en Betekenis van architectonische Beeldtradities in de West-Europese Kunst tot omstreeks 1300 (diss.), Leiden, 2006, s.v. ‘Het Hemelse Jerusalem’. India: Kramrisch 1996 (51), Part Six. The Islamic World: The Superstructure; The Mosque. History, Architectural Development & Regional Diversity (eds.: Martin Frishman, Hassan-Uddin Khan) (1st ed. 1994), London, 2002, See: the inner and outer decorations of the Domes, the topping of walls and roofs by structures which refer to ancestral or heavenly dwellings, decoration representing paradisiacal nature. Middle and South America: Arrelano Hernandez 1998 (49), for instance: Die kosmische Vorstellung der Maya von Raum und Zeit. 65 Ulya Vogt-Go¨knil, Sinan, Berlin, 1993, pp.17-309, esp.: p. 26; Necipog˘lu 2005 (29), See: II. Architecture in the Islamic East and Renaissance Italy. 66 Christopher Tagdell, The History of Architecture in India, London, 1990, pp. 1-2; Vijay Kumar Thakur, Urbanisation in Ancient India, New Delhi, 1981; Spiro Kostof, The City Shaped, London, 1991, p. 96; Le´on Homo, Rome Impe´riale et l’urbanisme dans l’antiquite, Paris, (1951) 1971, l’E´le´ment ge´ne´ral, pp. 1-31.

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2

The Architectural Representation of Islam Saintly Brilliance in the New Design for the Amsterdam Taibah Mosque Eric Roose

LOOKING AT HINDUSTANI-COMMISSIONED MOSQUE DESIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS The Mobarak Mosque, The Hague The first purpose-built mosque in the Netherlands was opened in 1955, in The Hague by a Hindustani-Islamic missionary community from Pakistan. Since their Mobarak Mosque supposedly did not initially incorporate any stylistic elements from their home country, it was regarded as physically integrated into the Dutch environment as a genuine ‘modern Dutch villa’. For years it was not recognized as a mosque, let alone the first one. It was only after two turrets were added at the entrance portal almost a decade later that the building was finally described by Dutch newspapers as a ‘Pakistani mosque’. Although an extension in the back of the building maintained the ‘Dutch’ style, a minaret that was more recently added supposedly gave the mosque its final, distinctively ‘Mogul’ image. The minaret was constructed of Dutch bricks similar to that of the main structure, and thus it was considered a successful attempt at integrating two distinct ‘cultural’ building styles. However, as I have shown elsewhere, when studied in-depth, a much more explicitly religious construction arises from its design process.1 The ‘modern Dutch’ quality of the building appears to have grown more from persistent municipal pressure than from any cultural adaptation required by the commissioner, even if this was later claimed to be the case by the commissioner himself. Moreover, many of the particular building elements that were produced in the original ‘modern Dutch villa,’ as well as in its later additions can, upon closer inspection, be linked to certain buildings in the home area of the community that had a much more specific religious meaning to them than merely being Hindustani-Islamic: the Mubarak

51

Mosque and the Minaret of the Messiah, which were built in the second half of the 19th century by Ahmad, the founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement, reformer of Islam and self-proclaimed prophetic successor to Mohammed. The First Taibah Mosque in Amsterdam In 1985, the second mosque around a Hindustani-Islamic missionary community was built in Amsterdam-Zuidoost (Southeast). Although this community had mainly come from Surinam before it gained its independence from the Netherlands in 1975, the community’s Pakistani connections were maintained in the Netherlands as tightly as in the colony. The Taibah Mosque was the first to undergo professional architectural critiques. The design’s characteristics were generally attributed to the architect, who was seen to have successfully combined traditional Islam with modern Dutchness, and who was under the impression that he had built the first real mosque in the Netherlands. This assumption was not so strange, since his commissioner would have fervently denied, as we will see further on, any Islamicness on the part of the Mobarak missionary community altogether. However, from this part of the Taibah’s design process it appears that although the building was described as a modern Dutch transformation of both a generally Islamic building tradition and a Hindustani-Islamic building style, it actually appears to be a transformation of particular building elements as recognized by the commissioner in some very specific buildings within and outside the Hindustani culture area, and a materialization of an Islamic construction that fiercely contested what was being produced in The Hague. The Second Taibah Mosque in Amsterdam Following a recent change in the community’s leadership, the Taibah building has been significantly enlarged as well as being given an almost completely new design. According to some observers, it now represents Hindustani-Islamic culture even more than its predecessor because of the increased use of ‘cultural’ building elements and the abandonment of the ‘modern Dutch’ style. However, when looking at the design process, this design included specific building elements as identified by the new commissioner in a specific building outside the Hindustani culture area even more than its predecessor. As such, it was meant to surpass the latter in an ongoing competition with contesting constructions of Islam embraced by other Hindustani-Islamic community leaders. On a different scale, the resulting transformations of these building elements were explicitly imagined as modernizations for a Western audience by the commissioner himself. Although the complexity and the dynamics of these Islamicarchitectural processes seem to have let most writers on architecture in the Netherlands indifferent, with some even calling the Hindustani commissioners’ mosque design ‘Mogul’ – combined with the prefixes ‘modern’ or ‘traditional’ depending on the tastes of the author – it is exactly this continuous production

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of internal religious opposition that is currently shaping the mosque designs of Hindustani commissioners in the Netherlands. The Representational Analysis of Hindustani-Commissioned Mosque Design Since the main purpose of a Muslim commissioner’s building activities is to substantiate his own construction of Islam as the ultimate over other versions, no consistent stylistic typologization will ever help us to understand exactly why his building looks the way it does. The answer to that question can only be found by analyzing his motivations and formal preferences in terms of the representation of reality, with the commissioner transforming earlier built representations, from any random time and any random region as long as it suited the reality as mentally constructed by him, to a new context. In fact, within the complex empirical field of Hindustani-commissioned mosque design in the Netherlands as it eludes consistent typologies of Hindustani style and culture, the only valid comparative criterion that can both consistently explain the stylistic inconsistencies of the architectural objects researched as well as the argumentational inconsistencies of their Muslim commissioners is the commissioner’s all-pervading drive to create the ultimate Axis Mundi. In Mekking’s terms regarding the representational cycles of architectural traditions, a mosque should be seen as a genuine cosmic centre, the very navel of the world. Constructed to subjugate everything else, it always uses a multitude of possible building elements cutting cleanly through imaginary boundaries of history and geography as long as it suited its cosmic meaning. To understand exactly why particular building elements were chosen in a particular cosmic representation while other building elements were rejected, it is necessary to explore the specified politico-religious context of the commission itself.

THE VARIETIES OF HINDUSTANI ISLAM The Spread of Islam in Hindustan For the politico-religious divergences within what many architecturally interested observers in the Netherlands still think of as a coherent HindustaniIslamic culture group to become even remotely intelligible, this story has to begin centuries ago in the northern part of the South Asian sub-continent. Here, amidst deeply embedded beliefs in ancestral saints as mediators between the living and the gods, Sufi missionaries had spread Islam on the basis of their intimate connections with the divine for hundreds of years. Reverence for these Islamic holy men and the Holy Prophet Mohammed as their physical and spiritual ancestor and – in effect – the ultimate saint, was widespread throughout the Islamic parts of the sub-continent, and had been incorporated by Sultans and Mogul emperors alike as a tool of politico-religious control. Importantly, the northern part, also called Hindustan, had never been as strictly controlled as the more central areas, so that local religious leaders, or

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Pirs, here had always retained a large amount of land-based political power around the medieval saintly tombs they inherited. With the slow decline of Mogul rule from the 18th century onward, these leaders had been able to enhance the legitimization of their religious power by transforming themselves from being Sufi mediators to living holy men. While they used to derive their authority simply from the saintly shrines located on their estates, now they were attributed, by virtue of their ancestors and ultimately of the Holy Prophet himself, with special powers of their own.2 The Deobandi vision of Islam However, things started to change with the abolishment in the 19th century of what was left of the Mogul empire by the British. In reaction to the subsequent religious void, a number of Islamic revitalization movements sprang up, which contested the religious traditions and political powers of the Sufi Pirs. Rival leaders of the Deobandi School aimed at reforming the saintly cults into a more puritan Islam, doing away with what they saw as the worship of Mohammed, living holy men, and saintly shrines at famous mausoleum mosques. As a later Deobandi Mufti explained the role of the mosque in Islam: ‘Three mosques, the Masjid-al-Haram [at Makkah], the Prophet’s mosque at Madinah and the Masjid-al-Aqsa at Jerusalem have an exalted position in view of their historical position and religious sanctity. No other mosque has such an exalted position. ... [A] journey especially to visit any other mosque in the belief that one would earn a special reward (any more than his attendance at the local mosque) is not permitted. ... [One] should not have a false notion that a visit to, say, Jama Masjid of Delhi would get him half as much reward as that of a Haj pilgrimage or that a visit to the Shrine at Ajmer would get him as much reward as a Haj pilgrimage. ... During the days of ignorance, people used to undertake pilgrimage to places which they, in their blind faith, considered holy. This led to distortion of the faith and people started worshipping others than the one God. The holy Prophet plugged the sources of such a distortion so that such excursions do not serve as a step towards the worship of any other than the one God.’3 The Brelwi vision of Islam The traditional leaders reacted in their defence, especially Ahmad Reza Khan (1856-1921), who created a strong current with his Brelwi School, named after his home at Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh. His teachings focused on Mohammed as the most important figure and as the source of Islam, a mediator between Muslim and God, and the ever-existing Light, or Nur, that lit the dark world of unbelief. This ‘Nur of Mohammed’ was derived from God’s own light, and had actually existed from the beginning of creation. Mohammed’s Nur had been sent down to earth through all prophets from Adam onward, culminating in Mohammed himself as their Seal. The very world had been created for the

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Prophet, and designed for his glory. In short, Mohammed was revitalized as the ultimate saint, and his birthday and heavenly ascension as the most important Islamic celebrations. Later saints derived their sanctity from him and the annual celebrations of their deaths, or Urs, were stressed. Like Mohammed, they had a corporeal presence in their tombs and could actually hear the prayers of believers. As a later Brelwi imam noted in a Dutch publication: ‘The Prophet and the Saints may always be honoured, even after their deaths. When Prophets leave the earthly domain, their miracles are not over, and when the Saints leave us, their wondrous acts are not over either. The hadith clearly states that [they] live in their sacred resting places. ... [They] say that it is Kufr (heresy) and Shirk (polytheism) when one builds a dome over the grave of a saint, burns oil lamps for those who worship and serve in mausoleums, and pledges donations to the souls of the dead. ... [But, in fact] no Islamic learned man has ever said that it was polytheism or heresy to build a dome or a mausoleum, or to visit a mausoleum.’4 Moreover, the living Pirs were confirmed in their physical and spiritual descent from the saints, and in their right to control their estates and the saintly shrines thereon. They were believed to be able to mediate between saints and followers and to have special spiritual powers, while their images were highly revered. The Sayyids, the claimed physical descendants of Mohammed, were especially accorded a great deal of respect.5 Both reformist and Brelwi leaders called themselves leaders, not of sects, but of the mainstream Muslims, while each call their opponents infidels. Members of the Brelwi School actually appropriated the term Ahl-I Sunnat Wa Jama’at, a classical name for the Sunni community in general, while they consistently called their puritan opponents Wahhabi.6 The Ahmadiyya vision of Islam The nominal emphasis on the ‘Sunni’ character of the Brelwi School was also used to distinguish themselves from another religious community that had emerged in the region in reaction to British upheavals of the status quo. Ghulam Ahmad (ca. 1835-1908) from Qadian, Punjab, created this community by claiming he had been sent by God as a Saviour to restore Islam to its original purity. He regarded the actual worship of saints and saintly tombs to be one of the corruptions that had exposed Islam to increasing atheist, Christian and Hindu threats, and demanded that Muslims must first vow abstain from Shirk.7 As Ahmad’s successors noted in their descriptions of a ‘typical’ mosque: ‘No god except God is permitted to be worshipped in a mosque. ... Hence the idols and images which some people worship are not allowed to be brought into the mosque .... There are no statues, pictures, memorial tablets or relics of saints. The services are free from all artistic and emotional distractions. There is no music or singing and no lighting of candles, [and] no ... incense.’8 This choice of words was no coincidence, since saintly images, memorial tablets, relics, incense burning and devotional singing were all fairly standard

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elements of saintly mausoleum mosques in the region. Nevertheless, Ahmad’s own religious thoughts were also firmly tied to medieval Hindustani ideas.9 In his teachings, he made much use of Sufi notions of the divine light descending from God to believers on earth.10 Ahmad proclaimed himself to be the promized Messiah, or Masih, after Jesus. Jesus did not reside in heaven, waiting to return at the End of Days, but had been taken from the cross alive, eventually ending up in Srinagar, Kashmir, where his tomb was located. Ahmad also claimed to be a reformer of Hinduism. But, most importantly, Ahmad claimed to be the next Prophet or Mahdi after Mohammed, presenting himself as the spreader of God’s Light on earth. Since Mohammed was seen as the Seal of the Prophets by reformists and as the all-transcending saint by the Brelwi Pirs, Ahmad’s claims evoked strong reactions in all of the contemporary Islamic communities. However, he managed to assemble a small group of adherents and the Ahmadiyya movement was established, in March 1889, when his followers pledged allegiance to him in the city of Ludhyana. By claiming to be more than a mere religious leader, with or without divine-ancestral powers, but the next Prophet and effectively the only Muslim holy man, Ahmad essentially eliminated the very basis for existing leadership in the region. In this light, the fanatic fervour with which both reformists and contra-reformists have since fought the community is not that surprising. Ahmad died in May 1908. Nur al-Din, an erstwhile follower, was appointed by the elders of the movement as his successor or Caliph al-Masih. Under Nur al-Din, missionary activities were expanded to other countries, which resulted in conversions in Southern India, Bengal, Afghanistan and England. When he died in March 1914, however, the movement’s latent conflicts in leadership as well as religious doctrine came to the fore. As soon as Ahmad’s son, Mahmud Ahmad, was elected leader, another faction was created under Muhammad Ali. The first group called itself the Qadiani, after their headquarters and the birthplace of their founder, while the second based itself in Lahore and named itself after their new headquarters. In Muhammad Ali’s Lahori version, Ahmad was a spiritually gifted reformer, indeed, a Messiah, but not a Prophet in Mohammed’s unique sense. While in Qadian, his claims to Prophethood were emphasized, in Lahore his statements suggesting the contrary were regarded as more important. The Lahore movement was much more decentralized into regional departments, with the headquarters serving only a worldly, coordinating role.11 Mohammed was restored to his original significance as the Seal of the Prophets, and reappearing Maulanas did show a great deal of reverence for Ahmad but now merely as the latest in a line of God-sent saviours such as AlGhazali, Abdul Qadir Jilani and Moin-ud-Din Chishti.12 Although many of these Sufi saviours were revered among the Brelwi communities in the Hindustani region as well, the Lahore-Ahmadi had a difficult time pressing their case and refuting any associations with the Qadiani blasphemy as perceived by the Brelwi. In fact, the latter do not seem to have made any distinctions between the two schools.

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Hindustani Visions of Islam in Surinam As I have already shown elsewhere, the Ahmadiyya missionaries in The Hague had used a number of elements in their prayer hall from the Qadiani holy places in order to represent their Qadiani-Ahmadiyya Islam. However, besides the Punjab as a direct supplier of Hindustani Muslims to the Netherlands, an indirect source was Surinam, a Dutch plantation colony in South America, where slavery had been abolished in 1863. Since many of the former slaves, mainly from West Africa, did not wish to continue working on the plantations, colonial authorities had to recruit new labourers. In 1872, a treaty was reached with Great Britain to hire workers from British India.13 The main recruitment region was Uttar Pradesh, where housing and food problems were major motives for migrating along with the desire to escape the caste system, family problems, and seeking adventure. Muslims formed 17,5 percent of the total Hindustani immigrants. The early years were marked by hard work and harsh circumstances, but after the first five-year contracts ended in 1895, the authorities induced workers to stay by creating special educational facilities and the possibilities to own their own land. The Hindustani remained a closed community within the socio-cultural hierarchy in colonial Surinam, but managed to attain a certain status mainly through its agricultural activities. Between 1873 and 1916, a total of 35,000 Hindustani emigrated to Surinam, of whom 11,000 eventually returned to British India. Between 1916-1940, also called the ‘period of establishment,’ the Hindustani community raised its standard of living by investing in agriculture, the small crafts industries, and in the transport and distribution sectors. They ultimately became part of middle-class colonial society there.14 In 1929, a number of Hindustani-Islamic communities combined forces and instituted the Surinaamse Islamitische Vereniging or SIV. However, the emigration of Hindustani Muslims to Surinam did not mean that they left their basic divisions between Ahmadiyya and Sunni religious organizations behind. In the literature these first shipments of workers are sometimes categorized as ‘uneducated’ and ‘therefore’ almost ignorant of Islamic norms and values with only later influences from Pakistani teachers stirring up internal animosity from the 1960s.15 This seems to be something of a simplification since, even in the process of ‘establishment’, they were split up into factions based on existing Hindustani-Islamic distinctions.16 Soon after the institution of the SIV, the organization became linked to the Lahore-Ahmadiyya movement, which led to the foundation of three rival, anti-Ahmadiyya groups in the 1930s.17 In 1950, these groups were united in the fervently anti-Ahmadiyya SMA, Surinaamse Moslim Associatie, or Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat. Not coincidentally, this particular ‘Sunni’ denomination was also the one chosen by the aforementioned Brelwi School. In fact, it was Maulana Mohammed Abdul Aleem Siddiqui, a Brelwi missionary Pir who had convinced them to unite. Aleem was a member of a well-known Sufi clan from Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, who had moved to Pakistan after the partition of British India. He traced him-

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self back directly to Abu Bakr, whom he represented as the Prophet’s most beloved companion and the purest of his successors, having provided the plot for the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina and his final resting place. In fact, the Siddiquis claim the right to control this Islamic holy place and have contested Saudi custodianship. They base themselves firmly on the writings of Ahmad Reza Khan, who fought those who tried ‘to turn off the light of love for the Holy Prophet.’18 In the Taibah community’s representation, the story is more or less told as follows: ‘Muhammad Abdul Aleem Siddiqui was born in Meerut in 1892. At that moment, Maulana Sajjad Jamaluddin Al Afghani, a direct descendant of the Prophet himself, died. It was as if the successor had arrived. Aleem’s father was a great Sufi of the Qadriyyah Order, and he became one too. He introduced himself to the greatest Islamic teacher of that time, Ahmad Reza Khan in Brelwi (sic), who became his mentor. After having visited Mecca and Medina in 1919, the presence of the Prophet gave him the inspiration to start his worldwide mission. He brought spiritual light to the hearts of thousands, and was loved for the divine light that manifested itself in his person. He fought for the independence of Pakistan and moved to Karachi with his family in 1949. In 1950, he visited Surinam, where Muslims were being harassed by Ahmadi, who were being supported by the colonial government. The Maulana inspired the Muslims to assemble and create a Sunni association, the SMA, resulting in the later construction of the first authentic Islamic House of God, at the Kankantriestraat. In 1954, the Maulana died and was buried near Aisha in Medina.’19 In the Taibah community’s representation, the story of Noorani Siddiqui, Aleem’s son-successor, is told more or less as follows: ‘He was born in 1926 in Meerut and received the spiritual leadership of the Qadiriyyah, Naqshbandiyyah and Chistiyyah Sufi Orders from his grandfather and father. He also received the Caliphate of Ala Hazrat Ahmad Reza Khan from his father. When the Pakistani Muslim League failed to rise up against the Ahmadi, Noorani created his own Sunni political party, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan (JUP). He called his political ideology Nizam-e-Moestafa, as in the example of his beloved Prophet “Mohammad Moestafa Sallallaahoe alaihi wa Sallam.” He arranged for the constitution of Pakistan to be set up as an Islamic Republic, and had the Ahmadi declared non-Muslims. Noorani followed in his father’s missionary footsteps and visited these areas where Ahmadi were supported by colonial governments to weaken the power of true Islam. The debates between Noorani and the Ahmadi brought back the light in many houses of misled people, who returned to Islam. In 1964, he started visiting Surinam.’20 Here, Noorani was confronted with the fact that after his father’s death, some of the Brelwi member communities of the SMA had begun leaving the organization again.21 Noorani then turned his attention to countering Ahmadiyya missionary activities around the world by co-founding the World Islamic Mission or WIM in 1972/3, during a Hajj to Mecca.22 After he had induced the Pakistani government to declare the Ahmadiyya heretics by a parliamentary resolution in 1974,23 animosity among Hindustani Muslims in Surinam rose even higher.

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When Surinam was about to gain its independence from the Netherlands, the SMA briefly tried to have the new constitution declare that the Ahmadi were non-Muslims. Just as his father had managed to unite the competing Brelwi communities in Surinam by organizing the struggle against a common enemy, Noorani attempted to get them back together again in much the same way, emphasizing the religious differences between the Brelwi and Lahori visions even more. Although both groups strongly focused their Islam on Sufi saviours, with the Lahori effectively presenting their promized Messiah Ahmad as merely the latest and greatest in a series of reforming mediators between Muslims and God, the prominent role they bestowed on their Messiah was still firmly rejected by Noorani. Consequently, Mohammed himself, as Light of God and Seal of Prophets, gradually became more important in the production of a recognizably Brelwi construction of Islam in the face of the Ahmadiyya contestants. Whereas the SMA mosque that was built after Aleem’s death still used the onion-shaped domes and ringed turrets that most mosques and Muslim graveyards in Surinam incorporated, whether Lahori or Brelwi, its successor explicitly used building elements as identified in the Prophet’s holy places by a new community leader under Noorani’s guidance. In fact, as we will see later, it is that very leader who would eventually have a profound influence on the new Taibah Mosque’s design in much the same way.

THE FIRST TAIBAH MOSQUE, AMSTERDAM From Surinam to the Netherlands In the period 1973-1975, just before independence, many of Surinam’s Hindustani Muslims had moved to the Netherlands, mainly out of fear of CreoleChristian domination. At that time, most members of the Qadiani-Ahmadiyya communities naturally joined the Mobarak Mosque, while the LahoreAhmadiyya communities used pre-existing buildings as prayer halls.24 The Brelwi communities ended up being scattered in municipalities such as Zwolle, Eindhoven, Lelystad, Utrecht, The Hague, Rotterdam and Amsterdam. In an attempt to re-establish a more centralized organization, Noorani created the WIM-NL in 1975 in Amsterdam, where some of the major SMA leaders had moved.25 Noorani prominently used the ‘Nur of Mohammed’ representation in order to enhance the unity of Brelwi communities under his enlightened leadership in the face of the Ahmadiyya and Wahhabi rivals. After his father’s death, the deceased was portrayed under a crescent moon and starry sky with the Prophet’s mausoleum radiating light towards him. Subsequently, the Prophet’s tomb, consisting of the green dome and its adjacent minaret, and often pictured as radiating light, was conspicuously pervasive in almost every publication that the WIM-NL printed, as was the radiating image of the Koran. The green WIM flag, consistently called ‘the Islamic flag,’ by followers – and therefore the unsuspecting Dutch press – consisted of the Prophet’s dome and minaret next to a crescent moon and star, also referring to the flag of

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Pakistan. Medina was frequently described as the City of Light and the Prophet’s tomb as lighting up the world (figure 1). The ideas behind these images express Sufi notions that involve a cosmic relationship between heaven and earth, with heavenly domes, the revolving moon and stars, the cosmic pillar, rays of light, Mohammed as a column of light, and cities of light as the main components.26 In fact, the SMA’s head imam, when he fulminated against the Wahhabi and Ahmadiyya blasphemy, continuously compared the Prophet with the moon and the sun in a variety of ways, and his successor-saints with the heavenly stars.27 In effect, the WIM leader, as the latest in a series of Brelwi-venerated Sufi saints, was presented as the replacement of Mohammed on earth and the channel through which the latter’s light was radiated. This very specific construction of Islam resulted in the wish for a very specific architectural representation, although successive commissioners would never express it as such towards their architects. Foundation of the SWM and WIM-NL In 1975, the mosque organization, the Stichting Welzijn voor Moslims in Nederland, or SWM was founded in Amsterdam, but as the name of this foundation was also translated as Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat in the beginning, the link with the SMA and the Brelwi School was clear to all of those concerned.28

Fig. 1 Pictorial and verbal representations of the Holy Light (The Message International, vols. 2000-2005).

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Moreover, there were strong connections between the foundation and Noorani’s World Islamic Mission. Noorani was involved in the very foundation of the Stichting Welzijn voor Moslims in Nederland,29 which began organizing WIM conferences in 1977. Consequently, the SWM embraced the Brelwi, antiAhmadiyya and anti-Wahhabi construction of Islam of the WIM as well. In its statutes, the SWM declared that it based itself on the same principles as the WIM, and aimed to reach its goals in close cooperation with them. It would ‘honour and implement the values of Ahle Soennat wa Jamaat, like the celebration of Ied Milaad-un Nabie [the Prophet’s birthday], Daroed-o-Salaam (in an upright position honouring the Holy Prophet), the commemoration of Holy Men in Islam (Urs), Miraadj celebration [the Prophet’s heavenly ascension]….’ ‘The foundation is an Ahle Soennat Wa Jamaat organization and its board members have to be Sunni Muslims whose actions, words and convictions are in line with the Sunnat and the teachings of Islam, and they must also believe that the Prophet Muhammad is the Last Prophet of Allah, and regard all pretenders of prophethood as non-Muslims, and who do not offend the Prophet.’ All board members were to be appointed by the Spiritual Leader, his Eminence Hazrat Maulana Shah Ahmad Noorani Siddiqui.30 The Foundation began its activities in the Stichting Interim Beheer (SIB) building, the organization for ‘coloured’ users of the multi-purpose neighbourhood centre ‘Ganzenhoef ’ in the Bijlmer. But, apparently because of ethnic and cultural problems, the SIB began to lose its representative position, finally folding in 1981. In 1979, the Foundation moved to the ‘Hindoestaans Cultureel Centrum’ on the Bijlmerplein. The space made available for the Muslim community included a small prayer hall, a storage room for administrative functions, and a kitchen that was also used as an ablution space. Only some 300 members of the 2000 families could make use of the building at any one time, and there were no separate prayer or washing facilities for women. The facilities for the administrative department of the organization were much too small, and problems soon arose with other users of the building involving the celebration of Ramadan.31 So, the Foundation began actively looking to establish its own prayer hall in 1979. It was then that community leader M.I.R. (Roel) Lachman, Secretary General of the SWM, under the spiritual guidance of Noorani, negotiated with local authorities and possible financers to construct a purpose–built mosque. A problem was that, compared to Muslims from communities of foreign labourers like Turks and Moroccans, Surinamese groups, being Dutch citizens, were not entitled to subsidies other than for socio-cultural activities. However, Lachman decided to postpone the problem of finances to go ahead with his plans and to start searching for an architect. Starting the Design Process Lachman, in the community’s Ganzenhoef days, had been introduced to the Dutch architect Paul Haffmans, who had been involved in designing the multifunctional centre.32 The architect had shown an interest in multi-cultural

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design and had experience in designing housing in Iran and Nigeria, and had gained much experience with local construction authorities during his designs for the Ganzenhoef. Negotiations started in 1981, and in the architect’s memory, the commissioner’s initial request in terms of forms was merely that his mosque would have to be ‘like the Kaaba Mosque in Mecca and the Prophet’s mosque in Medina,’ of which he showed him two images that he had brought with him from Surinam. According to Haffmans, it was the Medina Mosque in particular that was revered by the commissioner since the Prophet was buried there. The community leader, according to Haffmans, believed that the two images were themselves holy. Haffmans had the impression at the time that the community leader did not have much knowledge of Islamic architecture and that there were no real mosques in Surinam at all, ‘except for a wooden building.’ All in all, in the commissioner’s initial discussion of mosque architecture with the architect, the mosques in Medina and Mecca were the only ones emphasized, while Mohammed’s own mosque was considered the most important to the community leader because it housed the Prophet’s tomb. In response to this rather vaguely formulated request, Haffmans understandably began coming up with his own ideas of Islamic architecture in relation to his commission, just like the architect Wiebenga had done in the case of the Mobarak Mosque. Versed in the ideas of architectural functionalism, Haffmans considered himself as part of the Rietveld and Le Corbusier school, because he preferred buildings that had a clear structure, and were open and connected to the outside. This was contrary to earlier design schools, which Haffmans thought made use of ‘walls encompassing an inside,’ and he wanted to create an architecture without walls or limitations. And, like Wiebenga, Haffmans wanted to apply his particular ideas on architectural modernity to the subject of mosque design. For that, he resorted to a book in which the author, a Turkish architect, aimed to establish an interior spatial analysis of what she defined as the three major spatial types of mosques: the pillared, the fourIwaned, and the domed. In this, she chose to leave out such formerly muchstudied ‘non-spatial’ elements like particular forms and decorations, and decided to focus on the spatial functions of structural elements such as columns, portals and domes.33 Basically, she categorized the world’s inconsistent varieties of mosque architecture from a clearly functionalist viewpoint, positioning herself against the approach of using only ‘decoration’ as an Islamic essence, since the importance of elements such as columns in opening up spaces was, not coincidentally, greatly stressed by architects of the functionalist school. In fact, in contemporary functionalist thought, outward appearances were sometimes not only seen as irrelevant, but thought of as something that could be done away with altogether. In consequence, this book gave Haffmans the theoretical opportunity to relate his own design ideas to his mosque commission: he did what Wiebenga had done before him, although he deliberately used a different literature and did not regard Islamic architecture merely as a decorative layer to superimpose over a ‘modern Dutch’ style. Instead, Haffmans started looking for certain functional elements of mosques that con-

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stituted an Islamic essence and could thus be put into a contemporary Dutch idiom. Since his commissioner had repeatedly mentioned the mosques of Mecca and Medina, Haffmans focused on how his literature treated the pillared type that the Turkish author imagined to be characteristic of all ‘early mosques in Arabia.’ By referring to Arab Bedouin housing, trading and travelling practices, she explained the ‘development’ of the Arab mosque from a conspicuously functionalist perspective. From this, Haffmans extracted what he presented as the basic characteristics of Islamic architecture in the early years of Islam, to be translated into his Taibah design.34 So, in his first section sketch, we see that Haffmans translated the functional-typological findings from his literature creatively into a design that included a forecourt, covered as protection against the Dutch climate, with a domed fountain in the centre. The prayer hall consisted of barrel-vaulted naves, supported by columns, running parallel to the Kiblah (figure 2). In effect, the Umayyad or Arabian mosque-type, as it was referred to in his literature, was taken as an ideal by Haffmans in representing his ideas on architecture in general and on mosque design in particular, in answer to his commissioner’s request for a mosque that was ‘similar to the Prophet’s holy mosques’ in Arabia. Introducing the Sufi Quincunx as the Axis Mundi of Brelwi Islam This was, however, apparently not what Lachman had meant when he referred to Mecca and Medina. In fact, the architect subsequently made a series of sketches in reaction to comments that may arguably be characterized as continuous attempts by Lachman to incorporate completely different building elements. First, he wanted four corner minarets and a central dome. Interestingly, the architect remembers that the community leader explained his desire by referring specifically to the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, because to him this was also supposed to have four minarets around Mohammed’s centrally located tomb. Although the mental foundation by commissioners of a purpose-built prayer hall on what they see as the Primeval Mosque is common usage, in this case the relevant tradition was not a usual, but vaguely referred-to, principle of ‘an arcaded courtyard’ or ‘a pillared prayer hall,’ but instead was the actual construction which stands on the very spot of what is often thought of as Mohammed’s former house and mosque. In fact, the site has always been visited and worshipped by pilgrims, not so much because of some ‘original mosque’ idea, but mainly because of the actual presence of Mohammed’s tomb, although the Saudis have been doing everything they can to oppose this – in their eyes, blasphemous – cult of the grave. The building on this particular spot had been founded by the Umayyad Caliph Al-Walid, and additions to it had later been made by Abbasid, Mamluk and Ottoman rulers. As a consequence, the structure, as it was largely visible prior to the major Saudi extensions, consisted primarily of a Mamluk-built mausoleum with a dome and one

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Fig. 2 Pillared Mosque Type (Vogt-Göknil 1978, p. 31); sketch for the First Taibah Mosque, Haffmans, undated (Archive Haffmans).

accompanying minaret on the spot of the Prophet’s grave, and with three differently shaped minarets on the corners of a rectangular complex around an open court, that had been built and rebuilt in succeeding periods. Nowadays, of course, the oldest dome does not constitute the centre of the court, since the Saudis started renovating the structure in the 1950s, adding a huge complex with multiple minarets in the 1980s. However, although the WIM-NL seemed to prefer the pre-Saudi part of the structure as much as possible in its images, Lachman’s quincunx around the Prophet’s grave was never clearly visible in the original building either. Like the WIM-NL imagery that refers to the Light of Mohammed, it can be connected to Sufi cosmological ideas, with a central point surrounded by four arches or pillars representing the celestial garden on earth.35 In effect, the community leader’s quincunx formed a representation of an ideal Sufi shrine scheme, and it was as clear an example of a shorter-cycle Axis Mundi tradition as there had ever been. We have already noted that the Hindustani region had come into contact with Islam mainly through Sufi teachers, and their shrines had become the focal points of powerful, estate-owning Pirs. These mausoleums, often consisting of a hemispherical dome on a square substructure with arches on all four sides and with non-ascendable turrets that marked its four corners, were effectively used as houses of prayer. They invariably had an orientation in the direction of Mecca, and large mausoleums almost always featured a Kiblah niche in the appropriate wall.36 They had taken their basic structure and signification from their religious predecessors, the Hindu Quincunxial Shrines or pan˜cayatana.37

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In fact, for many Hindustani Muslims, worshipping at a holy shrine, seeking the mediation of the Pir that lay buried there and partly continuing existing Hindu religious rituals, was the main means of coming into contact with God before reformist movements began their attempts to further Islamize the practices.38 When Brelwi Islam reinstituted the reverence for saints and their saintly shrines in the 19th century, it meant that saintly tombs came to dominate the Hindustani countryside even more.39 Whenever, in the course of this research, Brelwi commissioners from Surinam were asked to describe their architectural reference points of ‘mosques in India and Pakistan,’ they mainly seemed to admire Hindustani mausoleums like the Taj Mahal. The latter, with its cosmic garden scheme and pools, is a perfect and quite literal example of the Sufi concept of the tomb as a celestial garden on earth.40 As we will see later, its pools were even used, together with the Prophet’s holy places, as a direct reference for the construction of Noorani’s SMA mosque in Paramaribo. In fact, there is no trace of the triple-domed and courtyarded Mogul mosque type – so confidently associated by Dutch typologists with the Hindustani-Islamic culture group – having been used in Surinam at all.41 Similarly, once in the Netherlands, Brelwi publications and images rarely ever referred to Mogul mosques, whereas they frequently referred to the radiating shrines of Sufi saints and Mohammed. Reza Khan, the initiator of the Brelwi school of Islam and reviver of Mohammed’s sanctity, was specifically mentioned. At the yearly celebration of his Urs, he was represented as a radiating light and a sweet-smelling rose from the garden of the Prophet, with his domed mausoleum in Bareilly prominently printed as an illustration of his wondrous life story.42 Near the saintly tomb in Bareilly, significantly enough, a

Fig. 3 Pictorial Representations of Sufi mausoleum mosques (Archive Taibah Mosque; www.ala-hazrat.org).

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mosque had been built that conspicuously used the pre-Saudi dome and minaret of the Prophet’s grave (figure 3). Noorani actually presented the Prophet as the spiritual ancestor of a line of almost 40 generations of holy men, culminating in the Siddiquis.43 For his new mosque in Amsterdam, Noorani explicitly chose the name ‘Taibah,’44 not simply in its linguistic form of ‘pure’ – Lachman seems to have informed his architect as much45 – but in order to represent the immaculate location in Medina where Mohammed was buried.46 As we will note later on, after Noorani had died in the course of the construction of the second Taibah Mosque, its commissioner not only associated it with the Prophet’s tomb but also with the shrine of Reza Khan. Moreover, the Brelwi commissioners of the WIM-associated Noeroel Islam Mosque in The Hague even requested their architect Oppier to insert a stone from their spiritual leader’s grave into their own Mihrab.47 All in all, although it seems correct to point out that Brelwi centres in the Netherlands liturgically have more in common with an ordinary mosque than with a Sufi centre or convent, the subsequent conclusion that ‘the tombs of their founders and deceased leaders cannot play a role as a centre of the organization, as they are too far away (in India or Pakistan),’48 is too constricted in an architecture-representational sense. It seems that sanctity and the spiritual presence of a holy man, with Mohammed as the ultimate, sanctifying ancestor, formed a very important value for Dutch Brelwi community leaders. Consequently, the production of their religious constructions architecturally culminated, not in a generalized ‘Indian building style,’ but in a Sufi shrine quincunx as the ultimate representation of Islam as it was meant to be. However, this particularly Brelwi representation, as it was projected onto the Medina empirical field by Lachman, was not an outspoken one. At that time in Amsterdam, the Prophet’s Mosque, and nothing Hindustani, was explicitly mentioned by the commissioner as the most important building and example for his future prayer hall. In Haffman’s memory, Lachman merely represented the Medina dome as Mohammed, while the four corner minarets were said to symbolize the companions of the Prophet; here as well, we see as clear an example of a Long-Cycle Anthropomorphic Tradition as there ever has been. Moreover, it seemed as if his representation was nominally meant to transcend all ‘cultural’ building styles. In fact, this was in line with Noorani’s outspoken aim of a universal Islam, with Muslims identifying themselves as Muslims and not as citizens of some arbitrary nation or culture.49 Noorani’s WIM actually saw itself as the real commissioner and the Taibah as the first in a long line of WIM mosques.50 However, despite this nominal universalism, the WIM still stood for a very particular Islamic construction. The transformation of specific building elements from the ultimate Saint’s tomb, combined with the transformation of specific building elements from venerated shrines associated with Sufi sanctity, was a way of representing Brelwi Islam, spreading the Nur of Mohammed throughout the world in opposition to Wahhabi and Ahmadiyya reformist tendencies.51 In that sense, it is important to recall that the earlier Qadiani commissioner in The Hague had chosen to represent Ahmad’s dome-

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less prayer hall in Qadian, in effect avoiding any associations with the saintly cults and holy men’s powers that the Qadiani-Ahmadi wanted to have replaced by their own Prophet. The choice for the quincunx in Amsterdam and especially the later – as we will see – enhancement of that representation, through even more direct and detailed references to the Tomb in Medina can only be fully understood with the contested varieties of Hindustani Islam and architecture in mind. All this was not something that the commissioner ever clearly communicated to the architect, with both parties basically working from – and attempting to represent – different realities. In reaction to Lachman’s outward generalization, Haffmans started seeking a way to represent the first mosques of Islam as they had been built by Mohammed and his successors in Arabia insofar as they conformed to his own ideas of modern Dutch design principles. In accommodating his commissioner’s wish to represent the Prophet’s Mosque, Haffmans took a functionalist view of constructional and liturgical reasons behind pillared shades and broad rows of believers as a starting point, while it was the cosmic, Sufi shrine scheme that mattered most to the community leader himself as the representation of his very own Axis Mundi. In Haffman’s memory, when confronted with the pillars in his future prayer room, the imam found they would be ‘in the way of visibility’ and subsequently suggested getting rid of them by rethinking roofing structure and form, to which the architect answered that, in his view, ‘any roofing needs the support of columns.’ It seems that what was presented by architect and the commissioner as a purely functional element to be included or rejected for purely functional reasons was actually a representational element that was to be included or rejected for representational reasons. Continuing the Design Process In Lachman’s particular construction of Islam, the notion of light as the allpervading ‘Nur of Mohammed’ also played an important role and the community leader specifically wanted it incorporated into his mosque.52 Haffmans subsequently translated the notion into the functionalist idea of openness as a basic characteristic of architecture in general and mosque architecture in particular. In addition to the four corner minarets and central dome, he placed transparent domes on the roof over the columns, he devised transparent, spared-out corners at each of the four minarets, and he drew transparent domes over the minarets. Lachman later requested that rings be added around his minaret shafts and he insisted upon an onion-shaped central dome; elements that were almost invariably visible in Hindustani Sufi shrines. The commissioner had his Brelwi contacts come up with a drawing of an onion-shaped, vertically segmented dome ‘as Coventry’ in the UK, where this dome had apparently been devised. The dome also had to be green; a feature which Lachman presented as generally Islamic, but which to the commissioner himself particularly represented the green dome of the Prophet’s Tomb in Medina.53 Admirably, whenever Lachman asked for building elements that

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were considered indispensable components of his particular representation, Haffmans consistently reacted successfully by adjusting, including and interpreting these building elements according to his own notions of functional design while keeping them recognizable for his commissioner. When the municipality offered the SWM an open plot of land directly adjacent to the Kraaiennest metro station, both Lachman and the architect agreed. Haffmans would continue to adjust his design based on the chosen location.54 In light of the limited amount of floor space (850 m2) municipally approved,55 Haffmans had to relocate the non-prayer-related functions from a forecourt to a first floor, with the prayer hall on a second, since the commissioner was adamant about praying under a dome. As in other aspects, the difference with the Mobarak Mosque is striking, as the latter’s commissioner had his prayer hall built on the first floor and did not need to pray under a central dome at all. The dome, provoking associations with saintly shrines and a powerful representation of Sufi sanctity, apparently formed an indispensable element in the architectural representation of Islam as embraced by the Brelwi commissioner. On 11 January 1985, after Friday prayers in the building led by Noorani, the official opening of the mosque was announced to the Dutch press. It was said that the mosque was to be used by all of Amsterdam’s Muslims and that the existing prayer halls in the older buildings would be of less importance. Lachman called it a ‘victory of the Muslim community in the Netherlands.’ An imam who had arrived from Pakistan that week stated that everybody who believed in God would be welcome. The reporter noted that about 300 Javanese, Surinamese, Turkish, Moroccan and African worshippers attended the service that day. He also stated that this piece of Amsterdam had gained ‘an Arabian atmosphere.’ Moreover, he presented Noorani as an ‘Arabian Muslim leader.’56 In a later interview, Noorani was also described as ‘the leader of the Arab-speaking Muslims in the world.’57 Importantly, the overall impression the community leaders had apparently chosen to present to the press was one of general, Sunni Muslimness, and not one of a particularly Brelwi belief system. At the opening on 18 January, Noorani also inaugurated the mosque with a prayer and a speech.58 The press reported on the occasion by calling Noorani ‘the spiritual leader of all Sunni Muslims in the world.’ Noorani expressed that he was content with the opening of the mosque ‘in this part of the world,’ and also wished that every Dutch town would get its own mosque – which, of course, immediately made headline news in several newspapers. According to Lachman, Muslims from all over the world had been approached for funding, although donations by governments, like Libya’s, had been rejected, ‘because one did not want to become involved in politics.’ The Saudi Prince Abdul Aziz, however, and Yusuf Islam, a.k.a. Cat Stevens, one of the guests of honour and speakers, had given ‘an inappropriately large amount.’ Bishop Bomers had also been invited to speak, and he said that ‘thanks to the Christians, the Muslims can practise their faith here’. However, he regretted the fact that ‘there is such a small Christian community in Saudi Arabia.’ The next day, the 4th World Islamic Mission Conference in the Netherlands was held in this new mosque (figure 4).

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Fig. 4 Amsterdam, the First Taibah Mosque, Haffmans, 1985 (Archive Haffmans).

The First Architectural Critiques of Mosque Design in the Netherlands After the opening, an interesting new development occurred. The Mobarak Mosque had been aesthetically evaluated by municipal officials and journalists; while in the Taibah’s case, the architectural critiques were written by professional architects themselves. Here, we can discern the first public attempts of architecturally essentializing the ‘modern Dutch’ and the ‘traditionally Islamic,’ simultaneously introducing the need to dichotomize them and bring the two together again. Maarten Kloos, who established ARCAM (the Amsterdam Centre for Architecture) the following year, noted that in the Taibah Mosque the ablutions were done inside, while ‘in the Middle East’ one washed oneself ‘out in the open.’ He considered this one of the thought-provoking differences between mosques ‘there’ and ‘here’. ‘Islam has elsewhere, under completely different circumstances than the Dutch, already been materialized in many buildings. Does a mosque in Amsterdam have to refer to those mosques, or is there room for thought about what a mosque could mean in a Dutch environment? … A number of issues are intriguing here. If the mosque is the place for a Muslim to find his place in Dutch society without becoming estranged from his own culture, then the position of women becomes unavoidable. It is hoped that a women’s mosque will soon be built next to the Taibah Mosque, but, in the meantime – and this is particularly startling to a non-Muslim – women can only slip in through a side door, via the storage room to the unused library, which they have made their temporary prayer room. Islamic conviction states that man is ‘the supervisor’ of woman, but the question remains how long women are going to accept that here. The architect, in an explanation, sta-

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ted that he only wanted to give a special form to foreign aspects, but he did not fully live up to that promise. The structure of the side and back fac¸ades using a number of planes is an unnecessary decorative element, and the convex balustrades of the balcony and the fire escape demand too much attention while the arched windows seem a little childish. That is a pity, because these details together take much away from what seems very essential: the simplicity of the building. Islam is based on religious concentration, purification and meditation. The mosque is a sheltered place where the direction towards Mecca can be found and where peace and harmony rule. An inconspicuous white volume without any fringe would essentially form the best answer to the question.’59 Stephen Goth and C. Cantrijn pointed out that ‘Building a mosque is building inside an already centuries-old tradition in a culture that is different from the Dutch. A great problem here is finding a balance between the recognizable, typical mosque and the Dutch building tradition. Architects daring to take on this design task will run into the strict tradition of Islam and its specific building typology. Paul Haffmans, who designed the mosque in the Bijlmer, has solved this problem well. … The first impression of the mosque is a cliche´d image of a mosque, a basically cubic mass with a minaret at each corner and a dome in its centre. It is, in abstraction, that which one imagines to be a mosque. The dark turquoise dome and the four minarets give it more of an Efteling-like impression than one of thought and culture. … The minarets have been used correctly to accentuate the corners of the main building. Two external balconies have been nicely detailed. Further detailing and the use of materials have been successfully applied … The Mohammedan will wash his feet, hands and head ritualistically before prayer. The space designed to that end recalls a toilet area more than of a place where a ritualistic event will take place. … Haffmans did an excellent job inside the prayer hall of integrating his sensibility as a Western architect with the Eastern examples from which he drew his inspiration … The Mihrab has been very simply tiled. The upper part of the niche is covered in two concrete slabs in a stylized Eastern motif. With a solution like the one for the Mihrab, we are confronted anew with the tension between the Islamic tradition and contemporary Western architecture. Looking at the Taibah Mosque in its entirety, one can conclude that architect Paul Haffmans has succeeded in finding a good balance between the various demands of the commission. The exterior is perhaps a little too extravagant. The inside is a building with its very own character, the result of a combination of tradition, contemporary construction techniques and architectural ingenuity.’60 These critiques brought the concepts of ‘typology,’ ‘contemporaneity’ and ‘design task,’ – common usage in the world of architectural education and applied in design and evaluation – into the world of Islamic architecture in the Netherlands. This meant that there was no room for the design process as an ongoing series of intensive negotiations between an architect and his influential commissioner. The level of brilliance of the artist and his creative search for a

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solution to a program of practical requirements within a specific urban context was the main aspect in interpretation. Interestingly, ‘modern Dutchness’ was introduced onto the Islamic scene as if it was some unambiguous concept rather than a body of divergent design preferences, while any outwardly Islamic aspects were confirmed as un-Dutch and un-contemporary. The categorization, constructed a century before within technical faculties, of Islamic architecture as a system of overly decorative style-characteristics placed over non-Islamic structures, was now combined with the contemporary belief that outer appearances could be merely derived from practicalities with no deeper meaning than function. This combination led to the regret that a mosque in the developed world, where things had presumably been reduced to their bare essence, should have to look like anything more than a white box. At the same time, the ‘Efteling type’ was established as an undesired category of modern Islamic design. Effectively, these first evaluations linked any ‘Oriental’ recognizability to the irrationality of the ‘childish’ mind, establishing extant Islamic architecture as a type different from – and not suited for – the real, grown-up, educated and modern world. Basically, it was not the architect who used an ‘Efteling’ perspective but his critical opponents who were busy promoting modern Dutchness, confidently but uninformedly projecting their own Orientalist view of Islamic architecture onto the object of interpretation and evaluation.61

THE SECOND TAIBAH MOSQUE, AMSTERDAM The Need for a New Representation As one might have expected, the building was soon considered too small, especially for religious festivities. According to Lachman, the community had been growing rapidly and, during Ramadan in 1987, they had ‘some 1000’ believers attending the mosque every day. Expansion plans were deliberated over with Haffmans, who even made a preliminary sketch.62 However, since some community members believed that a mosque could only be built on purchased land (some find the basis for this belief in the Koran and hadith), the rent for the land had been paid off for 100 years as soon as the municipality made it possible and the mosque could raise enough money by collection and a mortgage.63 As a consequence, the motivation for donations for the extension began to wane. That is, until the arrival of Mohammed Junus Gaffar, who had been chairman of the SMA in Surinam from 1980 to 1990. He had come to the Netherlands at the age of 18 to follow a technical education, after which he returned to Paramaribo and accepted a chemical engineering job at the Suralco mining company. During one of Noorani’s lectures in Paramaribo he had been inspired by the WIM religious philosophy, whereupon he subsequently became active in the mission, and was eventually elected and several times re-elected as chairman of the SMA. As leader of the Sunni community and as an engineer with an interest in construction, he had been the driving force behind several

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SMA mosques in Surinam, raising awareness, motivation and funds for their construction. In fact, Noorani had commissioned Gaffar to rebuild the old SMA mosque built in 1957, in an apparent attempt to re-unite the dispersed SMA communities. After its construction in 1985, he visited Mecca and Medina, after which he resigned from his job at Suralco and decided to give his full attention to Noorani’s mission. In 1990, he moved to the Netherlands to join his family, who had moved there five years earlier, and became active in the SWM and WIM-NL. In the Netherlands, Brelwi communities in The Hague, Rotterdam, Zwolle, Utrecht, Lelystad and Eindhoven had distanced themselves from the old SMA organization even more than they had in Surinam. Gaffar, under the guidance of his Pir, continued the quest of reassembling the communities under Noorani’s leadership, by emphasizing that the Wahhabi and Ahmadi were the enemy. Not all of the community leaders seemed willing to immediately give up their newfound independence, so Gaffar, had to use all of the means available to him, from friendly persuasion and financial support to legal procedures.64 In Eindhoven, the Brelwi Anwar-e-Medina had encountered financial problems during construction, leaving the building unfinished. In response, the municipality threatened to appropriate the land and demolish what had been built thus far. The Eindhoven community eventually turned to Gaffar for help. He managed to persuade them to become a wing of the SWM under Noorani’s WIM-NL. He then managed to raise enough funds to recommence with construction, and the mosque was finally completed in 1997. Since the drawings had already been completed and approved before he came on the scene, Gaffar was only able to control the look of the interior. He then began concentrating his attention on renovating the Taibah Mosque in the Bijlmer, which effectively was meant to architecturally stimulate the unity of all Dutch Brelwi communities under Noorani’s guidance. Because experiences with Frank Domburg and Peter Scipio, the designers of the Anwar-e-Medina, from the Eindhovenbased architectural firm Ruimte 68,65 had been so good, he decided to approach them for the Amsterdam commission as well. In the ensuing talks with Taibah community leaders, several ideas were discussed. Those who had been involved in the development of Haffmans’ mosque wanted to keep the old building and hire Haffmans to add an extension.66 In their opinion, Islam forbade the demolition of mosques. Gaffar, however, argued against the process of ‘gluing,’ as he saw it, opting instead for the complete demolition of the old mosque and the construction of a new one. Although this was presented as a necessary process of practical improvement mainly in terms of an increase in capacity, he actually thought that the old building was ‘an ugly white box with fake minarets and too many columns impeding the view’. As far as he was concerned, the community needed a completely different architectural representation, and he did not think Haffmans was suited for what he had in mind. As a compromise, some parts of the old mosque would be kept, specifically the characteristic stairway, the prayer hall floor and some of its columns. Gaffar, intent on improving on his experiences

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in Paramaribo and Eindhoven, would have preferred that the mosque gain a compound with separate functional spaces instead of the placement of these on a first floor underneath the prayer hall. This would allow the domed prayer space, possibly spread over two floors, to create the impression of greater height and ‘exaltedness’ (‘verhevenheid’). In fact, the domed hall rising from ground level had been something that his predecessor preferred as well, although he had been restricted by limitations regarding space. Haffmans’ twofloor concept was saved for that same reason and to appease the older community members. The dome and minarets would, however, have to be relocated and re-designed. Starting the Design Process Gaffar showed the architects a picture of his 1985 SMA mosque in Paramaribo, which had also used the two-layered quincunx scheme. Gaffar had used arcaded galleries in the fac¸ades that referred to the Taj Mahal, although he did not inform his designers of this. He had even enhanced the Taj Mahal representation by designing a basin underneath the stairway to the second floor, explicitly referring to its meaning as a celestial garden on earth, and by incorporating its monumental entrance portal as well (figure 5). As we have already noted, one of the major recognizable features for expressing a Brelwi vision of Islam had been the idealized Sufi shrine scheme, signifying the mosque as an earthly paradise. In fact, Gaffar never tired of referring to paradisical traditions in the Koran and hadith, suggesting that only a community of true Muslims would be allowed into paradise; that the builder of a mosque would automatically have a place in paradise; and that, on Judgment Day, only mosques would rise to heaven. However, since the Taj Mahal and other Hindustani tombs, were inspiring reference points for the Lahori communities

Fig. 5

Paramaribo, SMA Mosque, Gaffar, 1985 (Archive Ruimte 68).

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as well, in this case, Gaffar had placed the main mutual contrasting aspect in the transformation of completely different building elements than were usual in Paramaribo. His minarets were based on the minarets of the Kaaba Mosque in Mecca, although the contractor had abstracted these more than Gaffar wanted. Moreover, while other Paramaribo mosques had chosen the conspicuous Taj Mahal-like onion-form, the dome had been based on the Prophet’s mausoleum in Medina – its materials were even planned to turn green. Here, we see that Gaffar began to represent an even more specifically Brelwi construction of Islam, composed of the transformation of chosen forms from the Prophet’s mosques, transcending the shrine-quincunx and onion domes. In the Netherlands, in his ongoing attempt to unite the various Brelwi communities under Noorani’s leadership, this ongoing representational process was even more visible in mosque design. On 15 April 1997, Scipio and Domburg made a drawing that was partly based on Gaffar’s Paramaribo picture and partly on their own study of what they saw as the culmination of Hindustani-Islamic architecture, the Taj Mahal, although Gaffar had not himself specifically mentioned that building (figure 6).67 Apparently, the structure forms an image of Hindustani Islamicness to various groups, although each one represents it using different motivations and interpretations, with varied results in the design choices. Unlike Wiebenga and Haffmans, the architects chose not to work in a pre-determined school, preferring to simply react creatively to individual commissioners and local contexts.

Fig. 6 Sketch for the Second Taibah Mosque, Scipio & Domburg, 15 April 1997 (Archive Ruimte 68).

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However, during their Eindhoven commission, they started out with a basically Ottoman dome as derived from the local Turkish Fatih mosque in a conscious attempt to create a proper ‘Eindhoven mosque type.’ The designers had subsequently been requested by their commissioner to change it into an onion-dome instead. As a matter of course, they assumed that the current community was ‘culturally linked’ to Eindhoven, and would thus also prefer a ‘Hindustani’ dome, as they also – correctly – identified elements of the Taj Mahal in the Paramaribo fac¸ade scheme and plan. In their first sketch, they based the minarets on the SMA mosque while fac¸ade schemes were partly based on Paramaribo and partly on the Taj Mahal, and the multiple domes on the Taj Mahal’s. Their first design included two minarets, as the architects argued that a symmetrical fourfold scheme would have been impossible due to the cut-off west corner. This corner could not be demolished as it had been agreed that this side of the old design would be kept to appease those members of the community who had not wanted to say goodbye to Haffmans’ design. However, it appeared that Gaffar did not only have the Paramaribo mosque or the Taj Mahal in mind, and his preferences for building elements from the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina came increasingly to the fore. During a meeting with the architects, Gaffar requested three, ‘simpler’ and higher minarets.68 At this time, he also thought a fourth minaret would be impossible due to the cut-off west corner. Domburg and Scipio made a crude drawing of what he had in mind: a three-tiered, octagonally planned minaret, similar to the one next to the Prophet’s Tomb as he had seen in Medina and as he showed them on a poster he had brought with him (figure 7). Importantly, the other minarets around the Prophet’s Mausoleum in Medina had divergent forms, but Gaffar imagined that his multiple Amsterdam minarets would be based on that single, oldest, Mamluk-built specimen that he associated with Mohammed’s grave and the Prophet himself. Whereas the Saudis – or Wahhabi as Gaffar consistently referred to them – had replaced several other minarets with their own ‘Arabian’ version, the Amsterdam community leader conspicuously reverted back to the pre-Saudi original. It was completely irrelevant to the commissioner that it was generally referred to as ‘Mamluk’ and that it had been built long after the Prophet’s funeral. It is thus not relevant to us because it was his choice, his associations and his subsequent transformation which we need to understand in order to fully understand the meaning of the mosque as it was eventually built in Amsterdam. On 5 June the architects drew their newly designed, threefold minarets into a second plan (figure 8). A Municipal Intermezzo Meanwhile, the municipality decided that the project in general fit in very well with a new municipal development plan for the Kraaiennest area in that it provided central and social functions for the entire neighbourhood. As a result, the required extension of the plot was possible.69 However, it then set the urban delimitations (‘stedelijke randvoorwaarden’) of the extendable plot in

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Fig. 7 Medina, the Prophet’s mausoleum (Archive Ruimte 68); Sketch for the Second Taibah Mosque, Scipio & Domburg, 31 May 1997 (Archive Ruimte 68).

Fig. 8 Sketch for the Second Taibah Mosque, Scipio & Domburg, 5 June 1997 (Archive Ruimte 68).

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terms of sight lines.70 In effect, the municipality required that the mosque be completely – one could even say extremely – adjusted to its physical environment. It seemed that the basic square plan that the commissioner had in mind would have to be reduced on almost every side. In order for the mosque not to be reduced back down to Haffman’s mosque, the extension would have to follow the precise limitations that the municipality had established, making the plan multi-faceted and in effect destroying the entire rectangular concept. On 16 April, 3D images of the mosque plan were produced, showing a white building with green domes, colours that Gaffar used to associate it with Mohammed’s tomb in Medina (figure 9). One of these 3D drawings was shown in a series of poster, together with the Anwar-e-Medina as a new WIM member in Gaffar’s quest for the unification of the Brelwi communities, under three images of Mohammed’s mausoleum mosque in Medina and mentioning Noorani as the spiritual leader of the world’s Sunni community.71 Gaffar then proposed his wish for a fourth minaret,72 subsequently requesting that the dome as well as the four minarets be ‘more like those of Medina,’ in support of which he again brought with him the poster of Mohammed’s Tomb.73 Clearly, the association with Mohammed’s holy sites, especially his tomb in Medina, was becoming increasingly obvious. On 29 May, a new 3D image was produced (figure 10). Strikingly, in March 1999, the municipal restrictions were done away with as part of a new government programme for large cities and involving social integration, providing municipalities with funds for restructuring problematic urban areas, while stressing the participation of local communities. The Bijlmer had been classified as a socially problematic and unsafe neighbourhood within the framework of this programme. It was eventually concluded that a

Fig. 9 3D sketch for the Second Taibah Mosque, Scipio & Domburg, 16 April 1998 (Archive Ruimte 68).

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pleasant and safe Kraaiennest Square was going to be essential and that in the current situation and in the existing plans these aspects had not been taken into account. Instead, the municipality, now provided with state funds, considered demolishing the fly-over on the square and of building a new shopping mall – in short, the entire area was in flux. The restrictions on the mosque had been lifted and earlier municipal suggestions were suddenly no longer valid.74 The new restrictions established the following month basically reintroduced the rectangular plan of the architects’ and commissioner’s very first proposal. It was specifically noted that ‘the recognizability of the mosque … is important, independent of the development of a new Kraaiennest Square.’75 In effect, the consistency and recognizability of the plan to its community, as opposed to the earlier municipal requirements of physical adaptation, was now considered an indispensable and stimulating factor in the search for harmonious cultural cohabitation. So, the architects returned to their original ideas. On 19 April, they presented their new plan (figure 11). The following day, the municipality reacted very positively to the design, especially since Gaffar had stated that the mosque would have ‘a modern appearance.’76 On 31 August, the choice was made to maintain the first and second floors, and the columns on the first floor as much as possible to save on costs, besides the fact that this would also be a reminder of Haffmans’ design that some community members still liked. Gaffar’s notion of the pillars on the first floor were that they hindered visibility of the old podium under the Mihrab, which would be addressed by turning the direction 90 degrees and reusing part of the old stairway into a new podium on the west wall. Gaffar also thought that Haffman’s conspicuous prayer hall columns on the second floor affected visibility of the Mihrab and openness in general, and therefore a

Fig. 10 3D sketch for the Second Taibah Mosque, Scipio & Domburg, 29 May 1998 (Archive Ruimte 68).

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Fig. 11 Sketch for the Second Taibah Mosque, Scipio & Domburg, 19 April 1999 (Archive Ruimte 68).

solution for reducing the number of pillars was to be investigated.77 Later, a light roof construction was created that could be supported by the walls alone, so that the columns in question could be significantly reduced. The concept of the ‘pillared mosque’ that Haffmans had devised in response to his commissioner’s wish to have the mosque visually refer to the Prophet’s mosque, in the process translated as an Arabian type, was now rejected in favour of a more open, widely domed prayer hall which more closely expressed the basic Sufi notion of ‘exaltedness,’ in accordance with the new commissioner’s more manifestly Brelwi representational requirements. Continuing the Design Process The architects, together with Gaffar and Noorani, subsequently presented their latest plans to the municipality,78 and on 21 October their plans were approved.79 On 8 February 2000, Aesthetics also reacted positively to the Taibah project, pointing out that it appreciated the plan as a whole.80 Gaffar used the occasion of the meeting with the commission’s members to express his desire to have a larger dome.81 In his eyes, the Medina representation would be further enhanced by inclusion of a windowed dome-drum that was similar to the one at the Prophet’s grave. However, he did not mention this to his architects or to the municipality, explaining his preference mainly by stating that a higher dome would be more visible from the street level. While the drum of the actual Medina structure only

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contained a few small holes, with the new design the shape of the windows would be modelled on the silhouette of the Prophet’s dome. On 21 March, the final plans, which included the new drum, were drawn up, and a model and an axonometry were made. On 30 March a 3D model was also constructed (figure 12). An official permit application was filed which included these drawings.82 The Aesthetics Committee then gave a positive reaction on the adjusted dome.83 Since no valid objections were filed, the provincial authorities approved the plan, and on 8 November, the construction permit was issued.84 On 6 May 2001, Noorani laid the cornerstone. The first pole was driven on 20 February 2002, also in the presence of the spiritual leader. Despite the regret of some community members about the demolition of their cherished mosque, a new phase in the life of the Taibah Mosque was begun. Gaffar eventually managed to develop enthusiasm by holding the community’s celebrations around the Prophet partly on the construction site. Moreover, he gave his community members the opportunity to contribute financially to their new mosque via donations and loans, or by adopting a pillar or a Musallah – a prayer space within the mosque. The latter could be done ‘in the name of your dear, departed ancestors.’85 During construction, Gaffar also came up with the idea of adding extra windows in the back fac¸ade at each side of the Mihrab. The shapes of the windows were to be modelled on the silhouette of the Prophet’s dome. On 18 February 2003, the architects sketched out his idea (figure 13). By introducing these extra windows and the ones in the dome drum, Gaffar wanted to provide for more light in the building. Light was a particularly important aspect for the community leader; he was also the one who insisted

Fig. 12 Sketch, model, axonometry and 3D sketch for the Second Taibah Mosque, Scipio & Domburg, 21/30 March 2000 (Archive Ruimte 68).

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that the glass-windowed arches be as large as possible in the fac¸ades of his mosque. He wanted to keep the building ‘as transparent as possible,’ since to him light stood for the Nur of Mohammed, and represented the Prophet’s spiritual presence in the mosque. This brings to mind the spiritual presence of the Prophet believed to exist during the standing prayers at the yearly celebration of his birthday, a feature typical of the Brelwi communities. Gaffar stated: ‘We believe that on Judgment Day everything will disappear from the earth; the mosques, however, will rise to heaven. The light of heaven that falls from the windows on the inside of the mosque and fills everything, symbolizes the fact that to us our prophet Mohammed is a light.’86 Also, but secondarily, Gaffar presented the transparency of his mosque’s outer walls as a way to show the community’s modernity and openness to Dutch society, with ‘nothing to hide’. In the end, the Aesthetics Commission approved the extra windows.87 Unfortunately, however, the contractor went bankrupt and the community could not access their money, which had been frozen by the bankruptcy curator, for some time. After the legal process, the situation was resolved, but construction was very much slowed down. Gaffar managed to get permission to use the mosque before it was finished for celebrations provided that the necessary safety measures were taken.88 A new contractor was hired to continue with construction, but a shortage of funds threatened the construction of the minarets. After Noorani and some of the other community members suggested several options, with suggestions ranging from no minarets to only one or two at the front, Gaffar managed to cut a deal with his suppliers. They would build the four minarets, but the ones in the back fac¸ade would only have two layers instead of three, making them

Fig. 13 Sketch for the Second Taibah Mosque, Scipio & Domburg, 18 February 2003 (Archive Ruimte 68).

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shorter but still recognizably Medina-like. Other Brelwi community leaders in the Netherlands sometimes had to reduce their ideal of four minarets to only one or two because of pressure from municipalities and/or the architects, but Gaffar never considered this an option since it would have meant the total destruction of his representation of the Prophet’s Tomb. Importantly, the fact that it was he who had insisted on keeping the ideal quincunx means that it was not a ‘fundamentalist’ influence from outside that had pushed for a ‘traditionalist’ design in the face of an ‘obedient’ Dutch Muslim commissioner. Severing the financial ties with foreign sponsors may therefore not have the effect on mosque design in the Netherlands that some expect it to have, as it proves to be Dutch Muslim commissioners themselves who construct these architectural representations and as there is, in a representational sense, nothing traditionalist about their designs in the first place. Noorani’s Death Then, on 11 December, Noorani died suddenly. In a memorial publication produced by the WIM-NL, he was described as having radiated light during a lecture just before his death. He was buried in Karachi ‘at the foot of his mother’s grave,’ which brings to mind a much-quoted hadith saying that ‘paradise lies at the feet of the mother,’ and which therefore seems to form part of an ongoing, literal construction of Brelwi Islam. There, he was ‘surrounded by Wali’s [saints],’ in the cemetery at the domed shrine of the saint Wali Hazrat Shah Abdullah Ghazi. The description of the funeral procession said that ‘it looked like the day of Eid Milaadoen Nabie [the Prophet’s birthday].’89 The cover of this publication showed an image of Noorani with a halo and a sun rising above him, next to the illuminated tomb of the Prophet in Medina, and in another memorial publication he was depicted as looking at a bright light that radiated out towards him from Mohammed’s mausoleum dome.90 Strikingly, on the back of the latter publication, the image of the Taibah mosque was printed underneath, and therefore likened to, a cut-out of the central, domed part of Reza Khan’s saintly shrine in Bareilly (figure 14).91 The already much-revered Brelwi Pir had effectively attained an even greater sanctity at death to his mourning followers, as would his son and successor Maulana Shah Anas Noorani at some time in the future. The basic construction was completed by the end of 2004, after which, a period of interior construction was begun by community members. In the detailing of the Taibah’s interior decoration, Gaffar represented the Brelwi construction of Islam against lesser versions even further by providing the inner dome with a multitude of sparkling lights in reference to, in his own account, Mohammed’s Nur. In effect, they remind one of the Sufi cosmological notions of the radiating dome and revolving stars as they were depicted in the memorial image of Aleem Siddiqui. As was shown earlier, Brelwi verbal representations of Islam compared the saint-successors to Mohammed to sparkling stars, channelling His light from the heavens to the earth. However, Gaffar told his architects and the press that

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Fig. 14 Pictorial representations of Noorani and the holy light, next to a comparison between the Sufi Mausoleum Mosque of Reza Khan and the Second Taibah Mosque (Message International, special editions 2003/2004).

his lights were merely meant to remind people of ‘the starry skies over Surinam’ (figure 15).92 This was yet another example of commissioners presenting themselves publicly as Islamic in general with only some cultural or other non-religious characteristics responsible for any divergences with other mosque designs. When interviewed in the course of this research, however, Gaffar stated that he was referring to the Prophet’s shrine as he had seen it during Haj down to the choice of marble plating. At the time of writing, the mosque’s dome materials had yet to turn green as planned and the building had still not officially opened because the interior construction was not yet finished (figure 16).

THE TAIBAH MOSQUE AS AN ARCHITECTURAL REPRESENTATION OF REALITY Design Interpretation and Diverging Realities As a first, general conclusion, it can be stated that the complex empirical field of Hindustani-commissioned mosque design in the Netherlands lends itself only with great distortion to reduction to a single typological scheme. Only highly selective perception would allow the observer to see a progression from a monolithic ‘Indian’ building style towards a ‘Dutch’ building style, to conceptualize an evolution from ‘traditionalist’ designs via ‘Efteling’ designs towards a ‘modern’ design, or to observe a shift from ‘shelter’ mosques, ‘nostalgic’ mosques and ‘emancipation’ mosques towards ‘integration’ mosques. If earlier observers have made such observations, they did so by focusing on exactly those architectural representations and representations of architecture that would seem to sup-

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Fig. 15 Amsterdam, Second Taibah Mosque dome interior, 2007 (author).

port such a scheme while unknowingly or pragmatically leaving out those that would confuse it. If typological labels such as these are upheld as analytical concepts, the Mobarak Mosque could be called ‘an embarrassing shelter mosque for an oppressed Muslim community eventually leading to the second Taibah Mosque as the modern result of Dutch Muslim emancipation successfully com-

Fig. 16 Amsterdam, Second Taibah Mosque exterior and interior, 2007 (author).

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pleted,’ with as much right as it could be called ‘a successfully adapted modern Dutch design eventually leading to the second Taibah Mosque as a traditionalist sign of Muslim homesickness in a failed process of social integration.’ Any analyst of architecture who wishes to surpass a plain morphological exercise without interpretation has to realize that his possible focus and personal perspective on aspects of culture, nationality, modernity and/or integration might, but does not need to be, a reality as represented in the design. To make things even more complicated, different building elements within one object of research might very well have been introduced from different realities and therefore have to be analyzed as different reality representations. If not, the analyst will project the wrong intentions onto the wrong parties, in no small way assisted by the many pragmatic reinterpretations and strategic self-attributions of the parties involved. First of all, municipal bodies, for all their differences, mainly looked towards their future mosque as an opportunity for Hindustani Muslims to show their stance on incorporation into Dutch society. Existing cultural building styles from the Hindustani home countries were generally seen as un-Dutch, to be rejected, adjusted or stimulated according to the relevant municipal body’s ideological position on a scale ranging from total assimilation to untouched cultural diversity. Not surprisingly, they were basically concerned with the relations between Muslims and non-Muslims as social groups within a shared political unit. They reacted to mosque applications by constructing ideas about the particular architectural forms to be seen as a suitable expression of these relations and subsequently used these ideas in location proposals, the interpretation of zoning plans, the setting of urban delimitations, the evaluation of aesthetic qualities, the reaction towards neighbourhood objections and in architectural advices. Before anything else, in the municipal reality a mosque was a representation of the manner in which ‘non-Dutch’ Muslims were to be socially integrated into ‘the Netherlands.’ On the other hand, the designers mainly saw their future mosque as an opportunity for Hindustani Muslims to construct a new building style that would creatively overcome the presumed clash between Islamic architectural traditions and the Dutch physical context. It could be done by blending a Dutch cultural building style with a Hindustani cultural building style, it could be done by reducing cultural forms to general functional or religious principles, and it could be done by somehow combining these activities. However, all involved heavily subjective abstraction since in the chaotic field of the built environment no such things as objective ‘cultural’ building styles or ‘deculturalized’ functional or religious principles were to be found except in the mental constructions of the designers in question. The rejection and selection of building elements from the Dutch and the Hindustani architectural fields was primarily based on an architect’s pre-existing design preferences in the face of contesting visions of architectural contemporaneity. During this creative process, a presumably shared Islamic liturgy was seen as the untouchable essential whereas the assumed cultural building styles were seen as the variable suppliants of outer imagery, to be rejected, adjusted or stimulated according to the

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architect’s own stance on typological progress. Before anything else, in a designer’s reality a mosque was the representation of the manner in which ‘traditional’ Muslims were to be incorporated into the diaspora ‘modernity.’ Diverging from these issues of nationality and modernity as they were projected onto Hindustani mosque designs by municipal bodies and architects, however, the commissioners themselves mainly looked towards their future mosque as an opportunity to define their religious vision towards opposing versions. By selecting particular building elements from the complex field of Islamic architectural history, elements whose contemporary associations had a certain meaning to them, they distinguished an individual construction of Islam. They were not always imams or Islamic specialists versed in religious dogma, but they invariably took a specific interest in expressing their religious construction by strategically focusing on its diacritica, meaning, those of its elements that in their perception made it recognizable against contesting versions. It was a matter of focusing on the outer fringes of Islam, of producing boundaries between Muslimness and non-Muslimness, but what steered their design preferences was not any obvious divergence with the larger non-Islamic context but the intrinsic divergence of the own Islamic boundary definition with those upheld by other Muslim community leaders. As a consequence, ‘cultural’ building elements were used but only to the degree and in the manner that the commissioners found them to suit the religious construction they had produced first, and this completely depended on the way that the ‘cultural stuff ’ was used in the architectural representations of commissioners embracing those views of Islam that were regarded to be particularly false. Before anything else, in a commissioner’s reality a mosque was the representation of his specific construction of Islam as opposed to contesting versions circulating within his own culture group. However, where the municipal bodies and the architects were reasonably straightforward in the presentation of their architectural constructions of nationality and modernity towards each other and towards the commissioners, the latter were much less direct towards their municipalities and architects in that the particularity of their religious construction was invariably completely downplayed. Since the main purpose of a commissioner’s building activities was to represent his own construction of Islam as the ultimate over other versions, the ‘constructional’ aspects of his Islam could not be admitted. As a mosque is, in fact, an Axis Mundi and a genuine cosmic centre to its commissioner, any explanation reducing its cosmic meaning would be deemed highly inappropriate, if not unthinkable, by him. Therefore, he would only explicate, when asked, the obviously ‘constructional’ aspects of his architectural representation in terms of objectified but very subjective and flexible variables like culture, style, aesthetics and function. To Mekking, as we recall, one of the most important characteristics of architecture as a representational medium was that it enabled a commissioner to make a profound statement towards particular target groups without resorting to rationalization or verbalization.

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To put it more concretely, it simply could not be directly communicated towards the architect or the municipality why a Hindustani mosque commissioner required some very particular building elements indeed. At the point of being asked, a commissioner would never say ‘that dome from that building and that minaret from that area combined and transformed in that way represent this version of Islam against that one,’ generally confirming already critical observers in their evaluation that most Muslim commissioned mosque designs in the Netherlands have been a matter of cheap nostalgia, misplaced pride, architecture-historical ignorance, incorrect functional choices, or plain bad taste. However, within the complex empirical field of Hindustani mosque design in the Netherlands as it eludes consistent typologies of Hindustani style and culture, the commissioner’s all-pervading drive to create the ultimate cosmic centre actually is the only valid comparative criterion that can both consistently explain the stylistic inconsistencies of the architectural objects researched as well as the argumentational inconsistencies of their Hindustani commissioners. In the case of the The Hague Mobarak Mosque, commissioners insisted on the inclusion of building elements from the Qadiani holy places without ever clearly mentioning that, and especially why, they wanted them to be included. In their reality, the mosque was meant to be the representation of Qadiani Islam, a continuation of the world-wide Islamic Renaissance that had begun with the construction of their promized Messiah’s mosque and minaret in Qadian. As much as the latter, it was to be a genuine cosmic centre, specifically designed in reaction to contesting Islamic visions circulating within the own culture group. Towards their architects and municipal departments, however, the commissioners merely claimed their choices for certain building elements to have been either generally Islamic, specifically Pakistani or aimed at blending in with Dutch society. In the case of the first Taibah Mosque in Amsterdam, the commissioner essentially projected a Sufi shrine quincunx with a central dome and four corner turrets over Mohammed’s grave in Medina, with the Prophet forming the ultimate holy man, the source of all Sufi sanctity and the main identifying value for his Brelwi community. His mosque was to represent the ultimate, Brelwi Islam in opposition to particularly false versions like the one in The Hague. To the architect, however, the commissioner only spoke of the quincunx and Mohammed’s holy places as carrying general Islamic meaning, whereas to the municipality the commissioner chose to present his prayer house as a general socio-cultural centre in which all Muslims could participate. The commissioner of the second Amsterdam Taibah Mosque kept the old Sufi shrine quincunx but turned attention even more towards Medina, introducing particular building elements from the minaret and dome of Mohammed’s grave and combining them with his own creations of lighting and transparency. The latter were a representation of the Holy Prophet’s Light as the most important identifying and unifying characteristic of scattered Brelwi communities and as the only legitimate source of Islam. In his reality, the mosque was to be a cosmic centre, the materialization of Mohammed in the face of those heretics denying the Prophet’s unique and finalizing position in the cosmos. To his

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unsuspecting architects, however, he explained his combinations and transformations with arguments of Surinamese culture, general aesthetics and everyday practicalities of visibility, whereas towards the municipality he explained the more transparent of his building elements to be aimed at social adaptation. Towards a Dutch Mosque? Any proposed ‘solution’ to the perceived ‘problem’ of mosque design in the Netherlands that negates the reality of Muslim commissioners themselves and merely projects issues of nationality and modernity onto their architectural preferences, might raise public admiration and expectations but is bound to miss the point and fail when actually confronted with the diverse field of religiously contesting community leaders. For one, Dutch Muslim mosque commissioners do not seem to have been looking to express their stance on social integration into Dutch society in their designs as much as has been thought by municipalities or even as much as they themselves have claimed from time to time. All in all, it could be said that a commissioner’s main representational motivation, his particular construction of Islam, was invariably imagined to be more general than it was, and variably imagined to be more socially integrating than it was meant to be, with Dutch society having been much less of an actual target group during the design process than those fellow Muslims who embraced contesting views of Islam. The latently or at times even manifestly presumed connection between physical and social integration of Muslims in the Netherlands as upheld in the municipal reality quickly works out to be a downright fallacy. Moreover, Muslim commissioners have also been shown to have been much less occupied with showing their stance on architectural incorporation into the diaspora modernity than previously assumed by architects, even if some commissioners later claimed such. The New Construction style of the Mobarak Mosque, the Functionalist style of the first Taibah Mosque, or the Mogul style of the second Taibah Mosque: all these ‘styles’ prove to have been as good as nonexistent in the realities of commissioners themselves. As long as their own religious construction was recognizably incorporated in the form of certain combinations and transformations of building elements, whatever their designers verbally made of them or physically added to them was of minor importance as long as it did not disturb the overall construction of Islam as produced in the face of contesting versions. However, before that basic layer of required building elements was reached, even the most phlegmatic architect could be condemned to a lengthy trial-and-error process if he did not grasp his commissioner’s particular Islamic construction. Mostly, the tendency to start directly from a list of practical requirements, a budget, and some seemingly vague images towards a sketch proposal proved to be counterproductive. Forms invariably gained priority over costs and practicalities in the course of the design process, although the latter were often introduced as the most important factors during first contact. Even if the commissioner claimed to have only very general requirements of

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architectural imagery, he proved to think with a very particular religious construction in mind requiring a very particular architectural representation. And even if the architect thought he had more or less thoroughly studied Islamic architecture in its religious or cultural aspects, chances were that the commissioner ‘had not read that book.’ Although the procedure, generally followed by socially engaged designers when creating an alternative mosque typology, of researching the history of Islamic architecture and studying the new urban context and the programmatic requirements of a particular commission genuinely aims to be very contextual, from the commissioners’ perspective it could not be less so. As we have seen, an architect’s pre-existing design philosophy will have ultimately determined how he looks at architectural history. Inevitably, from the inconsistent flux of ‘Dutch’ and ‘Islamic’ architecture, he will have had to extract a limited number of building elements, events, rules, values, principles, and developments. He may present these as having been objectively present in the empirical field and to have neutrally determined his proposed design alternative, but they will in fact have been subjectively selected and adapted to fit a stylistic preference already there. As a result, in practice there is a good chance that the particular Muslim commissioner will react by completely dismissing the proposal. To him, the architectural representation of Islam has nothing to do with seemingly detailed typologies or morphologies to be extrapolated from the built environment by a detached architectural researcher, but everything with the specific religious construction as he chose to oppose it to contesting versions, and with the associated building elements as he selected and transformed them in the mental creation of his ultimate cosmic centre. The ubiquitous ‘domes and minarets’ will not disappear from the architectural requirements of Muslim commissioners anytime soon, not because the latter lack the knowledge of new approaches to old functions, or need to be reminded of home, or want to defy Dutch society, or choose Orientalist architects, or live in paternalistic municipalities, or connect to fundamentalist sponsors. Domes and minarets will continue to be built, because they will remain indispensable in providing the most obvious means for incorporating the very specific architectural diacritica needed to identify a commissioner’s ultimate Islam against lesser versions. In order for the Dutch public to understand the representational processes in Muslim-commissioned architecture without getting tangled up in these paradoxical discourses of social and physical integration, or nationality and modernity, there is much to be gained from consistently and publicly uncovering what has generally been deemed uninteresting until now: the very first design proposals as they were actually put to real commissioners and the latter’s subsequent reactions to these in the series of intensive negotiations that constitute design processes. Perhaps then it will be noticed that existing mosques have not by definition always been designed by architects who prefer ‘retro-styles,’ many of whom already attempted to incorporate their own ideas on ‘modern Dutch’ design. Perhaps then it will be discovered that Muslim commissioners in the branch of mosque architecture may wish to have an

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enormous amount of influence on the design of their future prayer hall, and that only those architects who accept this are maintained during the process whereas architects who cling too much to the concept of the autonomous artist may just as easily be brushed aside. Perhaps then it will be accepted that Muslim mosque commissioners are much more than the sum of a general liturgy, a specific location and a limited number of functions waiting to be pleasantly surprised by a supposedly objective formal improvement. And, lastly, perhaps then energy will be put into the creation, not merely of an ‘integrative’ or ‘progressive’ design, but of a concrete methodology with which architects and municipalities are provided with the means to lead their given Muslim commissioners through the difficult process of explicating their specific religious realities and concurrent representational requirements. Whereas the Mubarak Mosque, the Minaret of the Messiah, the Prophet’s tomb, the Taj Mahal and Reza Khan’s shrine can hardly be made to look otherwise, the religious realities underlying their introduction into the Netherlands just might. To set up the necessary method of analysis for everyday architectural practice, breaking senseless boundaries between architectural design and architectural history, establishing which are the long-cycle and short-cycle traditions involved, avoiding the self-dug trap of representational miscommunication, exploring which questions should be asked, when and what kind of references should be asked for or presented, how basic requirements can be translated into alternative building elements and at what stage an actual design proposal should be introduced, could be as rewarding a design task as trying to introduce the supposed mother of all modern-Dutch mosques without ever having grasped the motivations of Muslim commissioners in the Netherlands.

NOTES 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

8 9

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E. Roose, ‘50 years of Mosque Architecture in the Netherlands’, in: EJOS (Electronic Journal of Oriental Studies) VIII, no. 5, pp. 1-46. B.D. Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860-1900, Princeton, 1982, pp. 25-26. M. Zafeerudin, Mosque in Islam, New Delhi, 1996 [Translation from Urdu, Nizam-e-Masajid, 1956], pp. 7-8. G.R. Al-Qadiri, ‘Hoofdimaam van de Surinaamse Moeslim Associatie’, Het Wahabisme. De Pseudo-Islamitische Ondermijnende Beweging, Amsterdam, 2004, pp. 203, 237-239. Metcalf, 1982 (2), pp. 264-314. N. Landman, Van Mat tot Minaret. De Institutionalisering van de Islam in Nederland, Amsterdam, 1992, p. 221. I. Adamson, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, London, 1989, p. 62; A.M. Khan (ed.), Mosques Around the World: A Pictorial Presentation, Ahmadiyya Muslim Association USA, 1994, p. 11; Since few of the Surinamese Muslims in the Netherlands are associated with Wahhabism, objections to the worship of Sufi saints and Pirs are still mainly found among the Ahmadiyya. Landman 1992 (6), p. 221. R.A. Chaudhri, Mosque: Its Importance in the Life of a Muslim, London, 1982, pp. 40, 55; Khan 1994 (7), pp. iix, 20. Y. Friedmann, Prophecy Continuous: Aspects of Ahmadi Religious Thought and its Medieval Background, Berkeley, et al., 1987.

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10 E.g., in Ahmad’s speech for the Second Conference of Great Religions in Lahore, December 26th-28th 1896, as printed in M.G. Ahmad, The Philosophy of the Teachings of Islam, Tilford, 1996 [Lahore 1896]. 11 Friedmann 1987 (9), p. 147-162. 12 http://aaiil.org/text/articles/light/qa_promizedmessiahmujaddidrevelationahmadismuslims. shtml. 13 C.J.M. de Klerk, De Immigratie der Hindostanen in Suriname, Amsterdam, 1953, pp. 41-45. 14 H. van de Kerke, De Taibah-Moskee te Amsterdam in de Geschiedenis van de HindoestaansSurinaamse Moslims, in: R. Kloppenburg and L. Pathmananoharan-Dronkers (eds.), Religieuze Minderheden in Nederland, Utrecht, 1986, pp. 33-45; pp. 33-34. 15 E.g., N. Boedhoe, ‘Hindostaanse Moslims’, in: C. van der Burg, T. Damsteegt and K. Autar, Hindostanen in Nederland, Leuven; Apeldoorn, 1990, pp. 107-123; p. 107. 16 According to Landman, in the Hindustani region where most workers had been recruited, the Brelwi school would have been the most popular at that particular time, although he finds that in the literature on Islam in Surinam the Brelwi connection is only mentioned after 1950. Landman 1992 (6), p. 221, footnote 73. 17 M.S.A. Nurmohammed, Geschiedenis van de Islam in Suriname, Paramaribo, 1985, p. 15 and further. 18 Noorani Memorial Editie 2004, WIM Nederland, Amsterdam, November 2004. 19 The Message International, special issue 2003, Noorani Editie, WIM Youth Circle, Amsterdam, pp. 11-16. 20 The Message International, special issue 2003, Noorani Editie, WIM Youth Circle, Amsterdam, pp. 4-8, 21-22. 21 Nurmohamed, 1985 (17), p. 21. 22 Landman 1992 (6), p. 221. 23 Landman 1992 (6), p. 223. 24 They still do not seem to own any purpose-built mosques themselves. 25 The Message International, 2003 , p. 23. 26 E.g., see S. Akkach, Cosmology and Architecture in Premodern Islam: An Architectural Reading of Mystical Ideas, Albany, 2005, pp. 129-140, 177-179. 27 Al-Qadiri, 2004 (4), e.g., pp. 51, 58-59, 95, 99-100, 162, 324. 28 Van de Kerke, 1986 (14), p. 41. 29 Landman, 1992 (6), p. 223. 30 Akte van Statutenwijziging, 21 November1997. 31 Van de Kerke, 1986 (14), p. 42. 32 Since Lachman is dead, the following has largely been based on interviews with Haffmans, Amsterdam, 3 and 29 August 2006, current Taibah community leader Mohammed Junus Gaffar, Amsterdam, 16 August and 14 September 2006, and Lachman’s former WIM-NL colleague Kasiem (by telephone), 26 November 2007. 33 U. Vogt-Go¨knil, Die Moschee. Grundformen Sakraler Baukunst, Zurich, 1978. 34 P. Haffmans, ‘Een Nieuwe Moskee in de Bijlmermeer. Minaretten terzijde van de Metrohalte Kraaiennest’, in: Architectuur/Bouwen, 1 (3), March 1985, pp. 29-32; Moskee en Cultureel Centrum te Amsterdam, in: Bouw, no. 9, 27 April 1985, pp. 81-85; Moskee en Cultureel Centrum in Amsterdam, in: Bouwen met Staal, 19-3, no. 73, September 1985, pp. 35-37; and the original notes for these articles, Archive Haffmans. 35 Akkach, 2005 (26), p. 95. 36 C.W. Ernst, ‘An Indo-Persian Guide to Sufi Shrine Pilgrimage’, in: C.W. Ernst and G.M. Smith (eds.), Manifestations of Sainthood in Islam, Istanbul, 1993, pp. 43-67. 37 J. Pereira, The Sacred Architecture of Islam, New Delhi, 2004, p. 144. 38 A.F. Buehler, Sufi Heirs of the Prophet: The Indian Naqashbandiyya and the Rise of the Mediating Sufi Shaykh, Columbia, SC, 1998, p. 170. 39 S.F.D. Ansari, Sufi Saints and State Power. The ‘Pirs’ of Sind, 1843-1947, Cambridge et al., 1992, p. 9; Buehler 1998, p. 169. 40 E.g., see C.B. Asher, Architecture of Mughal India, Cambridge, 1992, pp. 209-215.

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41 See the photographs in Nurmohammed 1985 (17), pp. 33 and further, and the drawings in J.L. Volders, Bouwkunst in Suriname. Driehonderd Jaren Nationale Architectuur, Hilversum, Lectura Architectonica, 1966, pp. 82, 126-127. 42 E.g., see The Message International, vol. 2, no. 5, 2001, pp. 23-29. 43 The Message International, 2003, pp. 8-10. 44 Taibah News. ‘Speciaal Nummer in verband met de Officie¨le Opening van Masdjid Taibah op 19 januari 1985, en de ‘4th World Islamic Mission Conference’ op 20 januari 1985’, p. 6. 45 See Haffman’s speech at the opening ceremony, on DVD Taibah Moskee, Amsterdam ZO. Bouw en Opening 1985, 2006, Archive Haffmans. 46 Interviews with Gaffar, Amsterdam, 16 August and 14 September 2006, and Kasiem (by telephone), 26 November 2007. Other Brelwi mosques in the Netherlands have names that evoke similar connotations, like Gulzar-e-Medina (Garden of Medina, Zwolle), Anwar-eMedina (Light of Medina, Eindhoven), Al Medina (The Hague), Noeroel Islam (Light of Islam, The Hague), Anwar-e-Quba (Light of the Dome, Utrecht), and Shaan-e-Islam (Majesty of Islam, Rotterdam). 47 Telephone interview with Hamid Oppier, 28 November 2007. The architect declined their request. 48 N. Landman, ‘Sufi Orders in the Netherlands. Their Role in the Institutionalization of Islam’, in: W.A.R Shadid and P.S. van Koningsveld (eds.), Islam in Dutch Society. Current Developments and Future Prospects, Kampen, 1992b, pp. 26-39; p. 38. 49 See http://www.wimnet.org/articles/identity.htm. 50 See http://members.tripod.com/~wim_canada/wimintro.htm. 51 On several WIM websites, the logo of a sun rising above and lighting a dark globe is shown next to images of the prophet’s tomb. 52 Telephone interview with Kasiem, 26-11-2007. 53 Telephone interview with Kasiem, 26-11-2007. 54 ‘Afsprakenlijst Bouwteam Gebedsruimte Moslims Bijlmermeer d.d. 12-8-’82’, HdV/AB/nr.1254/ 6-9-1982, Archive Haffmans. 55 Letter from Gemeentelijk Grondbedrijf to SWM, 22-10-1982, Archive Haffmans. 56 ‘Een Overwinning voor de Moslims’, in: Het Parool, 12 January 1985. 57 ‘Eerste Vrouwenmoskee ter Wereld in De Bijlmer,’ in: De Telegraaf/Nieuws van de Dag, 17 January 1985. The position of women remains one of the main mutual differences in distinguishing Brelwi and Ahmadiyya constructions of Islam in the Netherlands. 58 Program of Official Opening, Taibah News 1985, p. 17. 59 M. Kloos, ‘Reinheid in een Kuil van Beton’, in: De Volkskrant, 8 March 1985. 60 S. Goth and C. Cantrijn, ‘Taibah Moskee in De Bijlmer. Islamitische Traditie in Westerse Context’, in: De Architect, vol. 16 (3), March 1985, pp. 64-67. 61 For other, more recent critiques of Dutch mosques by Maarten Kloos, see F. van Lier, ‘Zonder Minaret is het net een Planetarium’, in: KRO Magazine, 2007,http://reporter.kro.nl/ uitzendingen/2007/0402_moskeeen/moskeeen_in_nederland.aspx. 62 ‘Moskee Taibah is te klein geworden’, in: De Nieuwe Bijlmer, 4 June 1987. 63 ‘Taibah Moskee na Jaren uit de Brand’, in: [unknown], 1990 (?), and ‘Moskee verkeert weer in grote Geldnood’, in: [unknown], 6 December 1990, Archive Haffmans; Before, the collection of money for the monthly payments had proposed a huge problem in the community up to the point that the mosque was almost to the point of being publicly auctioned by the Afdeling Grondzaken. ‘Moskee niet bezorgd over aflopen Ultimatum’, in: De Nieuwe Bijlmer, 17 August 1989. 64 See also H. Mu¨ller, ‘Zo’n Fundamentalist maakt alles Kapot’, in: De Volkskrant, 16 October 1998, p. 13. Note that parts of the content of this article have been contested by Noorani in a legal procedure. 65 Ruimte 68 is currently run by Peter Scipio. 66 E.g., see the report of a meeting between Scipio, Domburg, Gaffar and Imandi, 31 May 1997, Archive Ruimte 68. 67 Interviews with Scipio and Domburg, Eindhoven, 22/30 August 2006.

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68 Internal Memo, 31 May 1997, Archive Ruimte 68. 69 Internal Memo, 23 June 1997, and Letter from Ruimte 68 to the Stadsdeelraad Zuid-Oost, 22 July 1997, Archive Ruimte 68. 70 Fax from Stadsdeel Zuidoost to Ruimte 68, 11 November 1997, Archive Ruimte 68. 71 Archive Ruimte 68. 72 Internal Memo, 19 April 1998, Archive Ruimte 68. 73 Internal Memo, 21 April 1998, Archive Ruimte 68. 74 ‘Verslag Gesprek Moskee Taibah 3 Maart 1999’, Projectgroep Kraaiennest, and Internal Memos, 3/11 March 1999, Archive Ruimte 68. 75 Fax from Stadsdeel Zuidoost to Projectgroep Kraaiennest, ‘Stedenbouwkundige Randvoorwaarden Moskee’, 6-4-1999, Archive Ruimte 68. 76 Internal Memo, 28 April 1999, Archive Ruimte 68. 77 ‘Notulen Bouwvergadering d.d. 31 August 1999’, Archive Ruimte 68. 78 ‘Verslag Gesprek Moskee Taibah 15 September 1999’, Projectgroep Kraaiennest, Archive Ruimte 68. 79 Internal Memo, 18 November 1999, Archive Ruimte 68. 80 Letter from the Aesthetics Commission to Ruimte 68, 1 March 2000, Archive Ruimte 68. 81 Internal Memo, 8 February 2000, Archive Ruimte 68. 82 Construction Permit Application, 27 March 2000, Archive Ruimte 68. 83 Letter from the Aesthetic Commission to Ruimte 68, 19 April 2000, Archive Ruimte 68. 84 Construction Permit No. 200000086, Dossier No. ZO69929, Archive Stadsdeel Zuidoost. 85 See http://www.taibah.nl/nieuwbouw/Forms/. 86 ‘Surinaamse Moslims willen openheid’, in: Eindhovens Dagblad, 19 November 1997. 87 Letter from the Aesthetics Commission to Ruimte 68, Archive Ruimte 68. 88 Letter from Stadsdeel Zuidoost to Gaffar, 10 October 2003, and Letter from Stadsdeel Zuidoost to Bestuur Moskee Taibah, 30 September 2004, Archive Stadsdeel Zuidoost. 89 The Message International, 2003, pp. 17-20. 90 Noorani Memorial Editie 2004, WIM Nederland, Amsterdam. 91 This publication also explicitly mentions, again illustrated by an image of Reza Khan’s shrine, that Noorani had continuously referred to the saint’s name in his lectures and in his mission, and that he had always showed him much respect and love. Noorani Memorial Editie 2004, WIM Nederland, Amsterdam, p. 8. 92 As he also did in Eindhoven, where he had installed similar lights. ‘Eigen plek voor Eindhovense Surinaamse Moslims’, in: Groot Eindhoven/Valkenswaards Weekblad, 19 November 1997.

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3

The Architectural Representation of Paradise Sufi Cosmology and the Four¯ıwa¯n Plan Elena Paskaleva

¯ N PLAN THEORIZING ON THE FOUR-I¯WA The Four-ı¯wa¯n Plan in Current Architectural Theory Current architectural theory analyzes the existence of the four-ı¯wa¯n compounds only within the local historical scope. This leads to a misinterpretation of the architectural plan, which is associated only with local architectural heritage symbolism and superficial interpretations of Islam. The building tradition of the four ı¯wa¯ns has remained virtually unchanged since the 11th century. No attempts have been made to explain the invariable use of the four-ı¯wa¯n scheme, since the structure has been widely used for open courtyard mosques, madrasas and caravansarays and for centrally domed tombs and kha¯naqa¯hs. Although the debate on their aesthetic appeal is not paramount, aesthetics has been put forward in the existing scholarly architectural analysis by O’Kane,1 Golombek and Wilber,2 Pugachenkova,3 Ettinghausen, Grabar and JenkinsMadina.4 Godard5 explains the ubiquitous utilization of the four-ı¯wa¯n plan as a tool for representing Iranian national identity and attributes the origin of the four ı¯wa¯ns to the private houses of eastern Iran. This justification, used previously by Van Berchem6 and Herzfeld7 cannot be sustained when applied to sacred buildings such as mosques and madrasas. It merely shows the scholarly inability to track down the deep religious and social changes that lead to the establishment of the four-ı¯wa¯n plan. Representational Analysis of the Four-¯ıwa¯n Plan Although the cosmological aspects of the four-ı¯wa¯n structures have been analyzed by Hillenbrand,8 Vogt-Go¨knil,9 Ardalan and Bakhtiar,10 they have never been explored in detail. Furthermore, the relationship between the Sufi tradition and the four-ı¯wa¯n plan has never been regarded as the driving force behind the widespread usage of the four-ı¯wa¯ns, i.e., as a representation of a Sufi reality. A plausible explanation that can shed more light on the ‘stale’ evo-

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lution of the four-ı¯wa¯n building tradition is the link between the Sufi community and its growing influence on the selection of building patterns, representing Sufi cosmological concepts in Central Asia. These patterns can be analyzed within Mekking’s11 worldwide ‘Axis-Mundi & Cosmic Cross’ shorter-cycle theme, whereby the intersecting cross-axial design represents the four realms of the celestial garden, which is, in turn, also a representation of the Sufi worldview. Students and scholars will have to be aware of the representational character of architectural heritage in order to avoid providing mere stylistic descriptions of buildings. Therefore, they should analyze the ways in which the existing built environment represents cosmological concepts. Awareness of cosmological paradigms and correct interpretation of their hoc-et-nunc architectural representation is a prerequisite for a better understanding of the architectural heritage worldwide. Axis Mundi: Passage to Paradise

The Axis Mundi is a mythopoetic concept that is visualized and instrumentalised as an architectural tool in the frame of the ‘Axis-Mundi & Cosmic Cross’ shorter-cycle theme. This tool can be applied to represent most of the cosmic realities in any built environment, regardless of their religious character. The most characteristic aspect of the Axis Mundi is that it marks the centre of the world. By designing a building, based on the Axis Mundi, the whole compound – both the building and the site – represents specific sacred connotations. The ubiquitous characteristics of the concept lie in the fact that the central architectural space is vertically accentuated, which creates an invisible bridge between the higher realm, usually associated with paradise, the earth and the underworld; the Axis Mundi thus becomes a passage to paradise, which can be analyzed within the shorter-cycle theme ‘Holy & Unholy Zones’. The vertical aspect of the Axis Mundi coincides with the geometrical centre of the compound and creates a representation of cosmogenic creation: the single point of all creation (as static dimension). The axes, radiating from the centre as a Cosmic Cross, mark the created world in its totality; they can be analyzed as cosmogenic evolution. The concept of Axis Mundi can, thus, be interpreted as a clear spatio-temporal representation of the built environment as it defines space, vertically emanating from the centre and spreading along the horizontal axes of the Cosmic Cross. Since the geometric centre is atemporal and defined by the two intersecting axes, it can be ubiquitous, without any direct reference to a certain point in time or space. As such, the centre is identified with the primordial unity of the creation.12 On the other hand, the radiating axes from the centre represent the multiplicity and plurality of the world as a divine, time-governed manifestation by using the human coordinates as an architectural tool. This building tradition is based on the long-cycle Anthropomorphic representational theme as proposed by Mekking.13 The anthropomorphic architectural elements – the geometric centre and the radiating axes – define the world in its conceivable

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Fig. 1 Centrifugal and centripetal movement after Akkach (79, p.152).

totality. Within the framework of the shorter-cycle theme ‘Axis-Mundi & Cosmic Cross’, they represent, as such, the divine creation on earth in its multiple manifestations. The vertical axis, i.e., the Axis Mundi, linking the three cosmological realities, defines the connection between the ‘Holy & Unholy Zones’: the underworld, the tangible world as we perceive it (the earth) and the intangible realm of paradisiacal perfection (the heavenly realm). Furthermore, the centre evokes movement in two complimentary directions: spreading from the centre to the axes (centrifugal) and radiating from the axes to the centre (centripetal) (figure 1). In this way, the unity spreads towards multiplicity and the outward turns back to the inward. These two movements play a crucial role in the perception and definition of interior and exterior in a building or architectural compound, analyzed as a representation of any built reality. The two intersecting

Fig. 2 Geometrical centre-radiating axes after Akkach (79, p.156).

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axes define the created world in its totality. This aspect is underlined when the axes mark the four cardinal points (figure 2). In this case, gates, wall openings or staircases are located exactly along the axes and face the geographical directions north, south, east and west. The architectural principle of denoting the world directions can be further underlined by stressing the half-cardinal points.14 The relationship ‘geometrical centre-radiating axes’ can be also metaphorically regarded as a microcosmic representation of the macro-cosmos. The microcosmos of the architectural site gains the status of a macro-cosmos, as the marking of sacred territory stretches to all corners of the world along the intersecting axes, based on the Anthropomorphic long-cycle tradition. Furthermore, the individual perception of architectural scale, defining the micro-cosmos as a human being, automatically acquires divine dimensions when the individual inhabits the centre of the site. This principle of ‘staging’ oneself in the centre of the world can be observed in every built environment when a certain reality is represented by using anthropomorphic coordinates. It is most widely used in tombs, palaces or royal capitals as a representation of political connotations, underlining the divine origin of power. By representing one’s ruling domain according to cosmological models of two intersecting axes and by staging one’s authority and hegemony in the centre of the communal life, the dwelling of the ruler represents the divine nature of his power. In this setting, the ruler acts as a mediator between the material and the divine world. When sitting at the crossroads of the two intersecting axes along the four cardinal points, representing the macro-cosmos, the ruler acts as a cosmic column that connects the underworld, the earth and the upper world. By placing his throne in the centre of the compound, the ruler asserts his divine and hegemonic authority connecting the three ‘Holy & Unholy Zones’ of the cosmos. The emperor himself becomes the Axis Mundi and his omnipotent power stretches along each corner of the world. The current article focuses on one single building tradition based on the four-ı¯wa¯n plan, which represents paradise on earth using the concept of the ‘Axis-Mundi & Cosmic Cross’. The Ulugh-Beg Madrasa and Kha¯naqa¯h on the Registan Square in Samarkand, Uzbekistan will be analyzed, whereby special emphasis will be put on the relationship between the representation of royal Timurid power and the growing influence of Sufism, particularly of the Naqsbandiyya order. Registan Square in Samarkand

The Registan15 Square in Samarkand was built over a period of three centuries from the 15th through 18th century. The Timurid architectural ensemble is formed by the Ulugh-Beg Madrasa (1417-1420) to the west, the Shir-Dor Madrasa (1619-1636) to the east, the Tillya Kari Madrasa and Mosque to the

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north and the 18th century Chor-Su domed market, which is behind the Tillya Kari complex. The most characteristic feature of the Registan Square is that it utilizes the four-ı¯wa¯n plan as an urban architectural principle. The square consists of three four-ı¯wa¯n madrasas with central courtyards, organized along two intersecting axes. Each of the three madrasas, totally restored in the 1990s, presents its main entrance ı¯wa¯n to the square. The ı¯wa¯ns are flanked by minarets, which reinforce the symmetry of the entrance fac¸ades. In Registan, we can observe a double utilization of the four-ı¯wa¯n concept on two scales: single building and urban ensemble. The monumental ı¯wa¯ns contribute to the representational function of the square (figure 3).16 The choice of the four-ı¯wa¯n plan can be explained not only by the function of the buildings as religious schools, in the case of the madrasas, but also by an attempt to recreate a holy space on an urban scale. The different architects who have worked on the Registan Square have managed to achieve this by marking the four cardinal points within each of the buildings by placing ı¯wa¯ns along their main axes and incorporating the three madrasas into a square, formed by the three entrance ı¯wa¯ns of the madrasas. What is very interesting is that the imaginary position of the fourth ı¯wa¯n in the urban setting of the square to the south is left open and it constitutes the most prominent public access to the square. Thus, people (worshippers, theology students, traders, etc.) are given the importance of the fourth element. With their anthropomorphic presence on the square they fulfil an architectural role by combining the existing strictly religious complex with the human element. In this way, the religious contemplation and prayers are conceived as an inseparable part of the human being, who is in turn also adorned with divine presence by being part of the holy setting. The co-existence of the divine world (represented by the religious complex of the three madrasas and a mosque) with the human world (represented by the human presence and activities on the square) is one of the basic philosophical concepts of Islam. Thus, the urban utilization of the four-ı¯wa¯n plan on Registan fulfils not only a representational function but also a deeply philosophical concept represented by the combination of human and divine presence on an urban scale. However, the spatial division between the solid volumes of the buildings and the miniature scale of the human being marks the division between the two levels of existence: the timeless (the divine) and the temporal (the human). Yet, the Registan Square went through many architectural changes before its current layout was formed. In the 14th century, the Registan was the main market place (chaha¯r su), which was the centre of trade in Samarkand during the reign of Timur (1360-1405). Six main streets radiated out from the square,17 making it the main trading place in the city. The first building, a domed passage, was erected by Timur’s wife, Tuman-Aka, at the beginning of the 15th century. It was during the reign of Timur’s grandson, Mı¯rza¯ Mohammad Ta¯regh bin Sha¯hrokh, widely known as Ulugh-Beg (1394-1449), that the trad-

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Fig. 3 Samarkand, Registan Square, plan after Pugachenkova (3, p.96), axonometry after Herdeg (15c, p.55), present view of the three main ¯ıwa¯ns after Paskaleva (15b) and bird’s eye view (15d).

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ing role of Registan was replaced by a representational function, including military parades and official occasions. Throughout his 40-year reign in Samarkand (1409-1449),18 Ulugh-Beg tried to establish the city as the new Timurid capital and used the Registan Square as an emblematic architectural setting to represent his identity as an educated, liberal governor, who cherished the fine arts. The oldest building to the west of the square, which has survived to the present day, is the Ulugh-Beg four-ı¯wa¯n Madrasa built between 1417 and 1420, which was originally two-storied with ‘four lofty domes and four minarets’ (figure 4).19

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Fig. 4 Samarkand, Ulugh-Begh Madrasa, plan after Golombek and Wilber (2, vol 2, fig.28), entrance ¯ıwa¯n, exterior from the south-west, and courtyard after Paskaleva (15b).

Fig. 5 Registan Square in the 15th century according to Pugachenkova and Rempel after Brandenburg (43, p.157).

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Opposite the Ulugh-Beg Madrasa, was erected the Ulugh-Beg Kha¯naqa¯h, on the site of the current Shir-Dor Madrasa. The Mirzoi Caravansaray was built to the north of the square and housed the tradesmen (figure 5). In 1647, Samarkand needed a new congregational mosque, since the Bibi Khanum Mosque was almost in ruins. That is why the Tillya Kari Madrasa and Mosque were built on the site of the Mirzoi Caravansaray. To the south, the Alik Kukeltash Mosque was erected in 1430, replacing the old pre-Mongol Friday Mosque. Next to it, a small mosque Mukatta with beautiful carvings was built.20 Since the building history of the Registan Square is not the prime subject of this article, we will focus mainly on the relation between the Ulugh-Beg Madrasa and Kha¯naqa¯h as a representation of his ambitions as a Timurid ruler. What is relevant is that, according to Barthold,21 the Ulugh-Beg Madrasa was the ‘centre of learned theology as opposed to dervishism’. That is why, it is very surprising that Ulugh-Beg himself commissioned a kha¯naqa¯h for dervishes opposite his madrasa on Registan. In Samarkand, in the time of Ulugh-Beg,22 it was the aristocracy that enjoyed the support of the supreme power and not the Sufi shaykhs. The interests of the popular masses were defended by the dervish shaykhs of the Naqshbandiyya order, who were outspokenly hostile towards Ulugh-Beg and the Shaykh al-Islam in Samarkand.23 Since the learned theologians, according to Barthold,24 had become the leaders of the aristocracy, the struggle of the dervishes against the learned theology in Turkestan was different from the one in Western Asia. In the latter, the dervishes had a more liberal interpretation of the Shari’ah, as opposed to the theologians who preached a strict interpretation of the religious laws. That is why, in the West, Sufism became a ‘synonym for religious free-thinking’. In Turkestan, however, the dervishes advocated the Shari’ah and preached against both the ruling elite and the Muslim clergy officials, by accusing them of not abiding the divine laws. In Samarkand, the dervish shaykhs even attacked Ulugh-Beg25 and the official head of the Muslim clergy because they disregarded the Shari’ah. Why did Ulugh-Beg then choose to build a kha¯naqa¯h facing his madrasa, when the two buildings would have housed opposing religious schools? The madrasa was a centre of Islamic religious studies and strict theology while the other, the kha¯naqa¯h, housed Sufi scholars, presumably of the Naqsbandiyya order. This presumption is based on the fact that the Naqsbandiyya order was the most widespread Sufi order in Transoxania at that time. Information on the Ulugh-Beg kha¯naqa¯h is very scarce. Barthold26 states that it is not known what exactly happened to it. Blair27 writes that ‘nothing is known about the kha¯naqa¯h’. Golombek and Wilber28 also stress that ‘nothing remains of the kha¯naqa¯h, which Ulugh-Beg erected opposite the madrasa.’ Pugachenkova29 mentions that the kha¯naqa¯h was built in the main axis of the madrasa in 1424, which is only four years after the madrasa was completed. Barthold30 quotes Babur, who points out that the kha¯naqa¯h ‘was famous for its lofty dome, the like of which there were few in this world’. Thus, we can conclude that the Ulugh-Beg Kha¯naqa¯h had a huge dome, which means that it was not an open-courtyard building.

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Arapov31 sheds some more light on the history of the Ulugh-Beg Kha¯naqa¯h by noting that in the 1620s, during the period of the Astarkhanids, the powerful governor of Samarkand, Yalangtush renewed the construction activities on Registan, but attempts to restore the kha¯naqa¯h failed, due to its ‘ponderous’ dome. As a result, the Shir Dor Madrasa was built on its site over the period between 1619-1636. Arapov32 and Pugachenkova33 also point out that the tomb of Imam Mohammed-inb-Djafar (9th-10th century) was located in the kha¯naqa¯h or right next to it. So to sum up, the Ulugh-Beg kha¯naqa¯h had a huge and structurally-challenged dome, it most likely incorporated the tomb of an imam and it was built in the main axis of the Ulugh-Beg Madrasa in 1424.

Fig. 6 Bukhara, plan of the Labi Hauz Square after Gangler, Gaube and Petruccioli (35, p.115), 1. Madrasa Kukaltash, 2. Madrasa Nadir Dı¯wa¯nbaigi, 3. Nadir Divanbaigi Kha¯naqa¯h, 4. Hauz, exterior of the domed four-ı¯wa¯n kha¯naqa¯h of Nadir Divanbaigi after Paskaleva (15b).

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Unfortunately, we can only speculate about the existence of any ı¯wa¯ns in the Ulugh-Beg kha¯naqa¯h. However, the examples of other kha¯naqa¯hs we are familiar with, most of them being in Bukhara,34 have a square plan with four ı¯wa¯ns on each side.35 Here, we will mention only two of the kha¯naqa¯hs that are relevant to the current article: the kha¯naqa¯h of Nadir Dı¯wa¯nbaigi from 1620 on the Labi Hauz Square in Bukhara (figure 6), which also faces a madrasa (the two-ı¯wa¯n Nadir Dı¯wa¯nbaigi Madrasa from 1622-1623) and the kha¯naqa¯h of Bahauddin Bliss Bukhari (1318-1389), the widely venerated founder of the Naqshbandiyya order (figure 7). According to Petruccioli,36 the development of the Labi Hauz Square can be ascribed to the rise of Sufism; the domed kha¯naqa¯h of Nadir Dı¯wa¯nbaigi being ‘the pivot of urban planning on a monumental scale’. The increasing political and religious importance of the Naqshbandiyya order in Bukhara led to the construction of several monumental kha¯naqa¯hs, however, only on the Labi Hauz Square can we trace back a similarity to the ‘kosh’ principle applied on the Registan Square in Samarkand and in particular with the axiality of the entrance ı¯wa¯ns in his present organization. The Labi Hauz Square, similar to Registan, is formed by two two-ı¯wa¯n madrasas and a domed kha¯naqa¯h with their entrance ı¯wa¯ns towards the square. The ‘kosh’ principle is an urban layout unique to Central Asia, consisting of two large buildings that face each other, leaving enough space for the creation of a square. Gangler, Gaube and Petruccioli37 date back the origin of the ‘kosh’ to the mid 16th century and name as a prototype the Kalan Mosque and the Mir‘Arab Madrasa in Bukhara. However, the first ‘kosh’ in Central Asia should be the Gur-i-Amir Madrasa and Kha¯naqa¯h from around 1401, followed by the Ulugh-Beg Madrasa and Kha¯naqa¯h from around 1420, which were both originally conceived as two buildings facing each other. Furthermore, the ‘kosh’ principle is not unique to Central Asia and the first prototypes of it can be found in Anatolia and date back to the 13th century as shall be seen later in this article. In Anatolia, the ‘kosh’ consists of a madrasa facing a dervish lodge. The other kha¯naqa¯h relevant to the current study is of Bahauddin Bliss Bukhari, it dates back to 1594 and is situated in the big memorial complex of Bahauddin, in the vicinity of Bukhara. It is mentioned here because of its four ı¯wa¯ns and central domed space (figure 7). This choice of the ground floor plan for the Bahauddin Kha¯naqa¯h could not have been random, since the kha¯naqa¯h is situated on one of the holiest sites for Sufi pilgrims and must have followed some distinguished architectural examples from the past. Yusupova38 attributes the four-ı¯wa¯n plan of the kha¯naqa¯h to the new earthquake-proof techniques that were used during the Timurid period, in the second half of the 15th century. She explains that: … four powerful arches overlapped the space, leaving some distance in the corners. They rested on eight massive buttresses located on the side of each axis of the construction. This made deep niches in

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Fig. 7 Bukhara, kha¯naqa¯h of Bahauddin Bliss Bukhari, exterior view after Paskaleva (15b), isometry after Gangler, Gaube and Petruccioli (35, p.150).

the hall axes at the sides that gave the structure of the building its cross shape and enlarged its square. Although this constructional explanation seems convincing, we cannot interpret the choice of the four-ı¯wa¯n plan only in terms of earthquake-proof solutions. What is important to us is that the Bahauddin Kha¯naqa¯h obviously had a considerable endowment and it was situated near the tomb of the most renowned Sufi saint in Central Asia. The large ceremonial hall, the domed zikrkhana has a cross-shaped plan, formed by the axes of the four ı¯wa¯ns. The huge dome may have followed the example of the Ulugh-Beg Kha¯naqa¯h, but we do not have any direct proof of that. However, there is an obvious link between the choice of the ground plan and the Sufi paradisiacal cosmology, which will be analyzed in the following paragraphs.

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There is very little data concerning the remaining kha¯naqa¯hs in Samarkand. Furthermore, there is not enough evidence whether these kha¯naqa¯hs had a central domed space and four ı¯wa¯ns. Golombek and Wilber39 list the Khvajeh Ahrar Kha¯naqa¯h, built around 1490. Khvajeh Ahrar was the leader of the Naqshbandiyya order and the most powerful politician and landlord in the second half of the 15th century in Transoxania. It is plausible that his kha¯naqa¯h might also have followed the architectural examples of Ulugh-Beg and Timur, but there is not enough evidence to prove this statement. Another kha¯naqa¯h, built in 1430, that has survived till present is located to the south of Samarkand, within the ‘Abdi Darun complex.40 The kha¯naqa¯h faces a later mosque and is flanked by a madrasa erected in 1899. It has a large entrance ı¯wa¯n, built during the reign of Ulugh-Beg41 in the 15th century and it is situated in front of the 12th century mausoleum of the Islamic lawmaker Abd-alMazeddin,42 which has a square domed hall with four recesses in each side.

Fig. 8 Samarkand, ‘Abdi Darun complex, sketch of the complex after Brandenburg (43, p.156) and plan of the ‘Abdi Darun kha¯naqa¯h after Golombek and Wilber (2, vol 2, fig.30).

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Although the kha¯naqa¯h is part of a ‘kosh’ ensemble, it cannot be compared to the Registan Square, since the buildings were constructed during different periods and there is no axiality of the main entrances, apart from the fact that all of the entrance fac¸ades are oriented towards an octagonal pool (figure 8). The only other example of a Sufi kha¯naqa¯h facing a madrasa, which UlughBeg most certainly was aware of was Gur-i-Amir (the Tomb of the Amir), the tomb memorial built by his grandfather Timur. The complex consists of the tomb, in which Timur was buried in 1405, a two-ı¯wa¯n madrasa and a Sufi kha¯naqa¯h (figure 9).

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Fig. 9 Samarkand, Gur-i-Amir, plan reconstruction after Golombek and Wilber (2, vol 2, fig.27), present situation, fourth ¯ıwa¯n, remains of the madrasa to the east after Paskaleva (15b).

It was Ulugh-Beg who established the tomb memorial as a dynastic mausoleum of the Timurids. In 1424, the same year that the Ulugh-Beg kha¯naqa¯h on Registan was built, he carried out extensions to the tomb and built an extra chamber, which was probably meant for him.43 Ulugh-Beg further commissioned the spectacular main entrance to Gur-i-Amir, i.e., the fourth ı¯wa¯n to the south, which completes the compound as a four-ı¯wa¯n square (see figure 9).44 This means that he consciously chose the layout and attributed extra importance to the four-ı¯wa¯n plan in the Timurid dynastic mausoleum. The Gur-i-Amir Sufi kha¯naqa¯h to the west and the two-ı¯wa¯n madrasa to the east of the compound were constructed as a spiritual centre at the end of the 14th century45 on behalf of Muhammad Sultan, Timur’s grandson and heir-pre-

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sumptive. According to Blair46 the two were built before 1401. The tomb itself was later added by Timur in 1404. Brandenburg’s statement47 that the madrasa and the kha¯naqa¯h can be attributed to Ulugh-Beg is, therefore, untrue. The Gur-i-Amir Madrasa (figure 9) had two storeys and was, according to Arapov,48 most likely attended by children of the Timurid royal family and of the amı¯rs. Pugachenkova49 explicitly points out that the madrasa was not a spiritual academy but trained students from the most prominent aristocratic families to become future governors. She also underlines the fact that the Guri-Amir Kha¯naqa¯h was not a residence for dervishes but offered shelter to renowned guests and floor for mystical discussions. Thus, we can conclude that the tolerance of the Sufis and their explicit presence close to the royal heirs already existed at the end of the 14th century in Samarkand. The fact that Timur chose the site for the tomb of his heir, and was later buried there, further corroborates this statement. In the Baburnama50 from 1501, Babur (1483-1530), the founder of the Mughal Empire and a direct descendent of Timur, writes: ‘After I entered the city and took up my station in the kha¯naqa¯h…’. The fact that Babur, as a distinguished guest to Samarkand, stayed at a kha¯naqa¯h, implies that it was not simply a residence for wandering dervishes, but for the aristocracy, including members of the royal family. What details lead us to assume that he is referring to the Gur-i-Amir kha¯naqa¯h? Babur himself said that upon ‘entering through the gate, I proceeded straight to the madrasa and khanagah and sat down under the khanagah arch.’ By ‘arch’ he may have meant the entrance portal of the kha¯naqa¯h, which was most likely in the form of an ı¯wa¯n. The gate, he refers to, is probably the fourth ı¯wa¯n Ulugh-Beg built at Gur-i-Amir (see figure 9). The above descriptions of Babur could not have been of the Ulugh-Beg Madrasa and Kha¯naqa¯h, since there was no – or at least there is no record of an extra gate; their entrance ı¯wa¯ns faced the square. So, Babur’s stay at the kha¯naqa¯h verifies the above statement of Pugachenkova that it was built to shelter distinguished royal guests. As far as Ulugh-Beg is concerned, we can summarize that in 1424 he commissioned the kha¯naqa¯h on Registan, while he was also busy with the refurbishment of Gur-i-Amir. On Registan, Ulugh-Beg followed the ‘kosh’ prototype of Gur-i-Amir, repeating the urban organization and building a kha¯naqa¯h along the main axis of the madrasa. However, he mirrored the orientation of the two buildings on Registan Square, his madrasa was built to the west and the kha¯naqa¯h to the east. It is plausible that the Ulugh-Beg’s Kha¯naqa¯h on Registan may have had similar functions as the kha¯naqa¯h of Gur-i-Amir, i.e., it offered floor for mystical discussions and welcomed prominent guests, such as Babur. So we can safely say that it was not a sanctuary for wandering dervishes of the lower classes. By repeating the urban layout of Gur-i-Amir (the Timurid dynastic mausoleum complex) on Registan, Ulugh-Beg obviously wanted to be associated with the building activities of his grandfather Timur and to put his own architectural stamp on Samarkand’s most prestigious square, by revitalizing Samarkand

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as the capital of the Timurid Empire. His madrasa and kha¯naqa¯h exceeded by far the architectural heritage of Timur with their remarkable dimensions and decorative merits. The madrasa’s entrance ı¯wa¯n is the largest in Central Asia.51 Even the ratio between the main fac¸ade of the madrasa to the width of the square, i.e., 5:6, according to Bulatov,52 may have been used to determine the proportions of the entire square. It should also be pointed out at this point that Ulugh-Beg, the ‘astronomerking’53 chose to build a madrasa and a kha¯naqa¯h to outdo his predecessors and not a mosque or a mausoleum. He probably wanted to be remembered as a renowned scholar, since the madrasa attracted the most prominent scholars of the time.54 If he had built a mosque, he could not have exceeded the grandeur and the splendour of the congregational Bibi Khanum Mosque (13991404), built by Timur. It would have been structurally impossible as well. Furthermore, Ulugh-Beg was not a particularly pious ruler; he was a scholar with an affinity for music and the pleasures of life, which earned him the disdain of the Naqshbandiyya shaykhs.55 Besides, Barthold56 presumes that the kha¯naqa¯h was less patronized than the madrasa though both were generously endowed with waqfs. We can make two assumptions from the latter statement. First, the kha¯naqa¯h was not built for direct Naqshbandiyya followers, including peasants and urban merchants, but for the upper echelons of the order and for distinguished royal guests. Second, it might have had a more strictly political function, i.e., by positioning a kha¯naqa¯h along the main axis of the madrasa on the most prestigious square in Samarkand, Ulugh-Beg definitely acknowledged the importance of Sufism and placed it metaphorically next to the main theological school, represented by the madrasa. This was a smart political move to appease the tensions that had arisen between him and the Naqshbandiyya shaykhs, who overtly disapproved of his lifestyle.57 Where else can we find earlier similar examples of the ‘kosh’ principle of a kha¯naqa¯h, facing a madrasa? In the following we will analyze the gradually increasing importance of the Sufi orders in the 13th century in Anatolia and will try to draw parallels between the political impact the ‘kosh’ principle had on the relations between the emerging urban aristocracy, the Sufi mystics and the ruling elite.

REPRESENTATION OF SUFISM BY ARCHITECTURAL SETTINGS IN 13TH CENTURY ANATOLIA Social Importance of Sufism and Sufi Architecture The spread of Sufism was initiated by the religious elite who came to Anatolia from Iran and Central Asia during the first quarter of the 13th century. The Mongol invasion in the cities of north-eastern Iran forced large numbers of religious scholars to flee to Anatolia. For example, Ru¯mı¯ and his father settled in Seljuq Anatolia and belonged to a larger group of theologians who followed

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a popular itinerary that included leaving Balkh (Afghanistan), visiting Damascus and Mecca and finally arriving in Anatolia. These scholars settled in cities such as Konya, Kayseri, Sivas and Tokat. The new Sufi tradition had a drastic effect on the cultural life of these cities and eventually on the building activities, related to Sufi ordinations (kha¯naqa¯hs, tekke monasteries, etc.), since demand had increased with the spread of the belief. The second half of the 13th century and the second half of the 14th century experienced the rise of largely independent local aristocracy with huge land possessions and the collapse of the centralized state rule in Anatolia.58 Gradually, Sufi buildings acquired increased importance among local leaders and became a visual representation of their divine power and religious prestige, combined with the growing political and economic influence of the Sufi elite. Rulers who supported Sufi institutions were eligible for tax benefits and thus had an interest in investing in Sufi structures and in appointing their close family members to different positions at these Sufi institutions. By endowing Sufi buildings, the local landed aristocracy tried to establish itself at regional level, in contrast to the ruling dynasties that operated at national level. As a result, three types of building patrons emerged in Anatolia: amı¯rs, wazı¯rs and beylerbeys. These were the leading building patrons during the 13th and 14th centuries. The amı¯rs59 were able to secure extra income to remain beyond state control by using a waqf foundation that supported a Sufi lodge. Since the amı¯rs could no longer rely on the Seljuq forces to protect their cities, they had to form alliances with local groups. Building less expensive dervish lodges, compared to the considerably more costly madrasas, ensured their popularity among the ethnically mixed population, especially among the nomadic Turkmen tribes from Central Asia who were increasingly influenced by Sufism. Each Sufi lodge housed different Sufi masters and provided a centre for communal activities, such as praying, studying, religious discussions, ritual activities, accommodation of travellers, feeding the poor, etc. The languages of the Sufi masters and their institutions were Arabic and Persian. Institutional support from local leaders and the evolution of Sufi orders meant that the Sufi buildings gained an enormous amount of importance in the spread of Sufism, the sanctification of Sufi saints and they significantly changed the urban fabric of the cities, they were built in. In a way, the Sufi beliefs regulated communal life, social activities and religious practice in the cities. The trade interactions between the different ethnic groups and the attempt to lead a peaceful urban cohabitation, lead to the wide spread of Sufi buildings. Sufism acted as the religion of the populace. As such, it should be pointed out that Sufism played an important role in the cities as centres of international trade and along the trading routes across Asia. Thus, although Sufism originated as a religious belief of the secluded helmet in the 9th century, it developed into the preferred belief of the merchants and craftsmen of the 13th through to the 14th centuries. As such, Sufism formed a framework for the creation of new self-regulating urban communities, independent of centralized governmental structures.

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Furthermore, Sufism acted as a binding religious form in heterogeneous, multicultural communities, in which Christians, Jews and Muslims lived together. Patrons of the dervish lodges60 tried to form communities among all of the various religious groups and classes. The Sufis preached alternative religious practices, which appealed to recent Muslim converts and representatives of other religions. Christian practices were incorporated into Sufi rituals, Christian sanctuaries and sites were reused as building sites for Sufi lodges.61 Wolper62 summarized that ‘for dervishes, Christianity was often seen as a transitional phase between a corrupt Islam and the true mystical path’. Moreover, some dervish lodges made Christian relics or Byzantine frescoes the focal point of the new Sufi structures, for the Christian genealogy was widely recognized and cherished. Wolper63 suggests that the main reason for the emergence of the madrasas linked to dervish lodges goes back to the conversion of churches into caravansarays after the Seljuq conquest. Ibn al-‘Arabı¯64 had advised the Seljuq sultan Kay-Ka¯‘u¯s (1210-1219) to make churches provide every Muslim with three nights of lodging and nourishment. Thus, churches had to be transformed accordingly. Wolper further points out that the remains of a church can be seen in the Go¨k Madrasa lodge in Amasya and a caravansaray prototype can be observed in the Go¨k Madrasa in Tokat and Sivas. As a result, the existence of a dervish lodge distinguished the different madrasas from each other and implied that diverse activities and ethnic groups could be associated with a madrasa, linked with a lodge. Since many of the patrons of the dervish lodges of the 13th century came from Seljuq Iran, the Anatolian dervish lodges built before 1240 were similar to those in Iran. At that time, dervish lodges acted as stations that accommodated pilgrims and tradesmen and offered shelter for the night. Those built along the borders were also used for defence purposes and military operations. Wolper65 clusters the Anatolian dervish lodges built after 1240 in three chronological groups. The first one consists of buildings built adjacent to the madrasas between 1240 and 1275, as was the case, for example, in Sivas (the Go¨k Madrasa), Tokat and Amasya. These were connected with the madrasas and were dependent upon them for endowments. The second group comprised independent buildings of one or two chambers erected between 1288 and 1302. The result was that in Tokat, where most of these independent lodges were built, the majority of the madrasas disappeared, since they were no longer needed. The third group features the multi-unit complex, which spread widely in the 14th century. The formation of independent Sufi complexes can be explained by the increasing power of the shaykhs, who were trying to attain more communal leaders as disciples and thus ensure larger congregations. The ‘Kosh’ Principle

In the above paragraphs, we discussed the ‘kosh’ principle, in which two buildings face each other across a square. As we pointed out earlier, this principle is not indigenous to 16th century Central Asia66 and can be first seen in Anatolia as early as the 13th century. Here, we should emphasize the fact that the Go¨k

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Madrasa and the C¸ifte (double) Minaret Madrasa built in 1271 in Sivas were four-ı¯wa¯n madrasas. The C¸ifte Minaret Madrasa was endowed by the Ilkhanid Vizier Semseddin Cuveyni (Shams al-din Juwayni). It was erected in the centre of Sivas, which had been dominated by the Seljuq madrasa, and formed a clear architectural statement of shift in power from the Seljuqs to the Ilkhanids. The C¸ifte Minaret Madrasa was probably built on what might have been remains of a Seljuq palace,67 thus reinforcing the dominance and legitimacy of the Ilkhanid new rulers. This fact is very relevant to the current article, because the Seljuq Izzeddin Keykavus hospital, a three-ı¯wa¯n building, organized along a central courtyard from 1217, is situated across the C¸ifte Minaret Madrasa. The C¸ifte Minaret Madrasa and the Izzeddin Keykavus hospital form a ‘kosh’, as their

Fig. 10 Sivas, map of Sivas showing the location of dervish lodges after Wolper (58, p.41), and the Çifte Minaret Madrasa (left) with the Izzeddin Keykavus Hospital (right) (15d).

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entrance ı¯wa¯ns face each other across the street. The second Ilkhanid madrasa in Sivas from 1271, the Burujirdi Madrasa, also had a four-ı¯wa¯n plan and oriented its entrance ı¯wa¯n towards the C¸ifte Minaret Madrasa and the hospital (figure 10).68 The situation of these three buildings resembles very much the lay out of the current Registan Square. However, the political context is completely different, as it represents the transition of power from the Seljuq rule to the Ilkhanid sultans. We can conclude, that the organization of four-ı¯wa¯n compounds along a ‘kosh’ principle has been used as an architectural tool to represent new political realities as early as the 13th century. Although we cannot prove that Timur or Ulugh-Beg were familiar with this architectural ensemble in Sivas, we can use it as a prototype for the ‘kosh’ principle and as an emblematic architectural setting, that could have influenced the spatial orientation of the buildings on the Registan Square in Samarkand. Another similarity between Sivas and Samarkand, and in particular between the Ulugh-Beg Madrasa and Kha¯naqa¯h, is the fact that the four-ı¯wa¯n Go¨k Madrasa (of which only three ı¯wa¯ns remain) built in 1271 had a neighbouring dervish lodge. The Go¨k Madrasa, oriented towards one of the gates of the citadel and the market place, was endowed by the Seljuq vizier Fakhr al-Din ‘Ali and was actually built to compete with the Ilkhanid C¸ifte Minaret Madrasa. The fact that it faced the citadel, underlined its affiliation with the old Seljuq rulers. Here, however, we will not discuss the urban impact and the choice of building site for the two madrasas, but will focus on the relation between the Go¨k Madrasa and the dervish lodge, constructed four years later in 1275 and endowed by the same Seljuq vizier (figure 11). The Go¨k Madrasa in Sivas continued training ulama¯ and local Muslim aristocracy, who could support the vizier in his growing dynastic ambitions.69 He could protect the building by waqf endowments that maintained other buildings in trading centres such as Kayseri and Konya. The dervish lodge (da¯r aldiya¯fa) was used to shelter the poor and mystics. The waqfiyya (1278), quoted by Wolper,70 explains that the Go¨k Madrasa housed the fuqaha¯‘ (specialists in religious law) and the dervish lodge provided food for the fuqara¯‘ (the mystics and the poor), the 40 fuqaha¯‘ of the madrasa and for some other guests among the sayyids and Alevis. In this way, the lodge catered not only for the dervishes, but also for the local aristocracy that studied in the madrasa. Furthermore, it offered shelter to a broader audience and thus gave a special status of the Go¨k Madrasa, compared to the other madrasas in Sivas. The support of the different social strata perfectly suited the attempts of the Seljuq vizier Fakhr al-Din ‘Ali to establish his own dynasty. He could rely on both his aristocratic allies and on the Sufi mystics. Similarly, by erecting a kha¯naqa¯h opposite his madrasa, Ulugh-Beg could win the sympathy of the proponents of religious law and the Sufi mystics of the Naqshbandiyya order, thus securing himself the status of a sovereign ruler in Samarkand. From an architectural point of view, the interrelationship between the madrasas and the dervish lodges in 13th century Anatolia can be best exemplified

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Fig. 11 Sivas, Gök Madrasa, entrance ¯ıwa¯n and floor plan after Michell (15d).

through the differences between their interiors and exteriors. The madrasas were in general larger than the lodges but had fewer windows. The exterior of the madrasa prevented outsiders from looking inside and thus participating in its activities. The few windows were too high to look through and thus provided restricted access to the interior of the buildings. This aspect can be best under-

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stood by analyzing it within the framework of the shorter-cycle theme of ‘Including & Excluding Structures’, as proposed by Mekking. Several madrasas had high tomb chambers, visible from afar but impossible to see amongst the dense urban fabric. As a result, the only way to observe the activities in the madrasa was through the main entrance ı¯wa¯n (see figure 11), which was very imposing in size, compared to the rest of the madrasa. Meanwhile, the dervish lodges had huge windows, most of them being tombchamber windows. Most of the lodges contained tomb chambers, which were the largest attraction for Sufis. These ‘prayer windows’ (niyaz penceresi) became a standard feature of the Ottoman dervish lodges and allowed pedestrians to look in and listen to discussions in the lodge. In a way, the lodges were open to the public or at least audibly incorporated into it. Furthermore, mainly rulers were entombed in the madrasas, while the tombs of the dervish lodges honoured Sufi holy figures with a humbler origin but exceeding popularity among the streaming pilgrims. The differences between the exteriors of the madrasas and the dervish lodges can be further explained by pointing out that they had been sponsored by different social groups. The madrasas, as Wolper71 explained, supported an emerging stratum of ulama¯ that allied itself with the political elite and tried to reinforce the social distance between the local population, in particular Christians, and the governing elite. The Muslim code, taught in the madrasas was meant to regulate social life and control administrative matters. Thus, the madrasas became institutionalized with the Seljuq elite and were seen as a representation of their religious power. Meanwhile, the kha¯naqa¯hs or the dervish lodges were endowed by the local aristocracy as an alternative to the madrasas and they offered religious, educational and social services to a broader public, that differed from the ruling elite and included a broad mix of social strata. They represented the religious piety of different Sufi saints and shaykhs, and also asserted influence on the rivalry between local Sufi communities. In this way, the patrons tried to form alliances that minimized the strict religious and class distinctions between the various urban communities in Anatolia. The lodges were erected in easily accessible, densely populated areas, usually in close proximity to the market place. It is obvious that each building represented a special social strata, as can be seen from the following remarks, made by the biographer of Ru¯mı¯‘s father and quoted by Wolper72: shaykhs reside in kha¯nqa¯hs, ima¯ms (prayer leaders) in madrasas, dervishes in za¯wiyas, amı¯rs in sarays (palaces), merchants in kha¯ns, the runud (street gangs) on street corners, and strangers on the mista¯ba (bench). Based on the above account, we can conclude that there was a strict social hierarchy, which was represented by the types of buildings, occupied by the different members of society. Obviously, the kha¯naqa¯hs are associated with Sufi

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shaykhs, as opposed to the ulama¯, who inhabited the madrasas. Thus, the two types of religious leaders are also spatially differentiated as they occupied different types of buildings and the two groups did not interact. Details about the buildings were incorporated into the texts on Sufi saints (hagiographies) and were consequently associated with their deeds. In these texts, buildings were related to Sufi charismatic figures, which promized immediate popularity among believers and regular visits from foreigners, streaming from the trade routes. Pilgrims and Sufi adherents could recognise these buildings from afar and could interpret their architectural programmes. As such, the buildings contributed to the establishment of the Sufi identity within the urban landscapes and served two important purposes: they represented the new Sufi identity and spread it beyond the urban borders. Origins of the Four-ı¯wa¯n Plan If we go back to the Ulugh-Beg four-ı¯wa¯n Madrasa on Registan Square in Samarkand, which was the most prominent building in his capital, we should ask the following question: Why did he choose the four-ı¯wa¯n plan? One explanation might be that he followed the representational four-ı¯wa¯n architectural heritage of his grandfather Timur, and thus wanted to be associated with the glorious past and assert himself as the new Timurid emperor. The largest building commissioned by Timur was the Bibi Khanum Mosque (1399-1404), which is based on a four-ı¯wa¯n plan. According to Godard,73 the model for all four-ı¯wa¯n madrasas in Turkestan is the Bibi Khanum Mosque. Furthermore, the choice of four minarets, as in the Ulugh-Beg Madrasa, is also exceptional for Timurid madrasas, since only the Bibi Khanum Mosque had four minarets (figure 12).74 Thus, Ulugh-Beg consciously adopted the architectural plan of the largest Timurid Congregational Mosque by using it for his own madrasa in Samarkand.

Fig. 12 Samarkand, reconstruction of the Bibi Khanum Mosque after Peter (72b).

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The court of the Ulugh-Beg Madrasa forms a 30-metre square, the four ı¯wa¯ns are situated along two intersecting axes. The ı¯wa¯ns are not located precisely along the ideal cardinal points, however. The south-western ı¯wa¯n, which marks the entrance to the mosque, is 256 to the southwest. The entrance ı¯wa¯n is 70 to the northeast. The two side ı¯wa¯ns are respectively 340 to the northwest and 170 to the southeast. The coordinates of the ı¯wa¯ns are measured by a compass75 from the centre of the courtyard in September 2006. All measurements are provided in degrees, counted clockwise from the north. Yet, slight deviations in the measurements are possible. It is remarkable that the orientation of the Ulugh-Beg Madrasa’s ı¯wa¯ns are almost exact copies of the orientation of the Bibi Khanum Mosque’s ı¯wa¯ns. The entrance ı¯wa¯n of the Congregational Mosque is 70 to the northeast. The largest ı¯wa¯n to the sanctuary, in which the mihra¯b is situated, is 260 to the southwest, compared to 256 to the southwest in the Ulugh-Beg Madrasa. The Bibi Khanum’s side ı¯wa¯ns, also leading to mosques, have the following coordinates: 170 to the southeast and 350 to the northwest, respectively. Based on these measurements, we can conclude that Ulugh-Beg commissioned his madrasa not only according to the four-ı¯wa¯n plan of the Bibi Khanum Mosque and its four minarets but also meticulously copied the orientation of the ı¯wa¯ns along the cardinal points. Additionally, we can also compare the orientation of the Ulugh-Beg Madrasa to Gur-i-Amir. Measured from the centre of the courtyard, the coordinates of the ı¯wa¯ns in Gur-i-Amir are as follows: the entrance of the madrasa is 60 to the northeast, the entrance of the kha¯naqa¯h is 252 to the southwest, the entrance of the tomb is 160 to the southeast and the majestic fourth ı¯wa¯n, i.e., the entrance to the complex is 338 to the northwest. However, we cannot verify whether Ulugh-Beg also followed the coordinates of the Timurid dynastic mausoleum in his madrasa on Registan, since the comparison between the geographical orientation of the Ulugh-Beg Madrasa and Gur-i-Amir do not overlap exactly. Furthermore, the situation of the mosque at the rear of the Ulugh-Beg Madrasa in Samarkand is unique compared to all previous examples of Timurid madrasas, in which the mosque was situated along the entrance ı¯wa¯n as part of two symmetrical rooms, and it was distinguished only by the mihra¯b. In the Ulugh-Beg Madrasa, the symmetry is carried out throughout the building. Whereby the mosque is situated in the south-western ı¯wa¯n at the back end of the courtyard, which is a new architectural solution that provides more space for religious worship. Although Golombek and Wilber76 list this detail as an innovation in the building history of Timurid madrasas, we should not consider it solely within that group of buildings but also regard it as an attempt to follow the plan of the Bibi Khanum Mosque, the greatest Congregational Mosque, built by Timur. As we have seen above, Ulugh-Beg followed its plan and spatial orientation closely, which allowed him to situate the mosque and the mihra¯b of his Samarkand madrasa in the south-western ı¯wa¯n.

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Fig. 13 Bukhara, Ulugh-Beg Madrasa, plan after Golombek and Wilber 1988 (2, vol.2, fig.4), north ¯ıwa¯n, Paskaleva (15b).

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To further illustrate this phenomenon, we can compare the Ulugh-Beg Madrasa in Samarkand with the Ulugh-Beg Madrasa in Bukhara (figure 13). Both madrasas were built during the same period between 1417 and 1420. The major difference between the two is that the madrasa in Bukhara is smaller and has only two ı¯wa¯ns, while the madrasa in Samarkand has four ı¯wa¯ns. Given Ulugh-Beg’s preference for Samarkand as the new Timurid capital, it makes sense that he built the larger and more representative madrasa in Samarkand. Here, we should point out that the number of ı¯wa¯ns must have also played a role. The four ı¯wa¯ns were probably considered to be more monumental and illustrated a better connection to the Timurid architectural heritage, e.g., with the Bibi Khanum Mosque and Gur-i-Amir as noted in the above paragraphs. Another difference between the two Ulugh-Beg madrasas is the location of the mihra¯b. In Samarkand, the mihra¯b is situated in the south-western ı¯wa¯n, while the Bukhara’s mihra¯b is situated in a room to the left of the entrance ı¯wa¯n. However, both mihra¯bs are oriented at approximately 250 to the southwest. The ı¯wa¯ns of the Bukhara Madrasa follow exactly the geographical orientation of the side ı¯wa¯ns of the Samarkand Madrasa, i.e., 340 to the northwest and 170 to the southeast.77 These coordinates are also measured from the centre of the courtyard. We can conclude from the above measurements that the Ulugh-Beg Madrasa in Bukhara followed all earlier examples of placing the mihra¯b next to the entrance ı¯wa¯n. It was only in the madrasa in Samarkand that Ulugh-Beg decided to place the mihra¯b in the south-western ı¯wa¯n, most likely following the example of the Bibi Khanum Mosque. For the sake of clarity, all of the above measurements are presented in a table below (figure 14).

Name

Gur-i-Amir Mausoleum

Bibi Khanum Mosque

Ulugh-Beg Madrasa

Ulugh-Beg Madrasa

Location South-western ¯ıwa¯n North-western ¯ıwa¯n South-eastern ¯ıwa¯n North-eastern ¯ıwa¯n Mihra¯b Plan

Samarkand 252 338 160 60 252

Samarkand 260 350 170 70 260

Samarkand 256 340 170 70 256

Bukhara – 340 170 – 250

Fig. 14

Samarkand and Bukhara, geographical orientation of the ¯ıwa¯ns: Gur-i Amir Mausoleum,

Bibi Khanum Mosque, Ulugh-Beg Madrasas.

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Earlier, we explained why Ulugh-Beg particularly wanted to be associated with the madrasa as a learning institution and not with a religious site, such as a mosque. It is most probable that he followed the four-ı¯wa¯n plan since it offered a close representation of the Timurid and Ilkhanid architectural heritage, and at the same time, represented paradise, with which the Ulugh-Beg Madrasa in Samarkand was associated. Over the entrance ı¯wa¯n of the mosque on the south-western side of the court, the following inscription can be found.78 This suffeh [i.e., portal or vaulted masjid] is built to resemble Paradise … in it are teachers of the truths of sciences useful to the religion, under the direction of the greatest of sultans … [at end of small script] in the months of the year 822/1419. To continue, another reference to the heavens is made on the imposing entrance ı¯wa¯n.79 The building of this madrasa was completed, whose magnificent fac¸ade is of such a height it is twice the heavens and of such weight that the spoke of the earth is about to tremble … in the year 823/ 1420. Given these two references to paradise and to the heavens, we should try to analyze the choice of the four-ı¯wa¯n plan within the scope of the architectural representation of paradisiacal realities. In the paragraphs below, we will follow the emergence of the four-ı¯wa¯n plan, based on symbolic paradigms much older than Islam. Since the differentiation between the madrasa type and the mosque type was, according to Hillenbrand,80 not very clear during the medieval period we will focus on the mosque introduced during the 11th century as it best exemplifies the fourfold paradisiacal representation within the framework of the shorter-cycle theme of the Axis Mundi. Hillenbrand points out that one reason for that was that the four-ı¯wa¯n madrasa emerged first and then the four-ı¯wa¯n plan was later adopted for the construction of mosques. This process can be explained by the fact that communal prayers and worship, both in the madrasa as a religious school and in the mosque, were integrated and were inseparable parts of the communal life. In this respect, although we are here focusing on the Ulugh-Beg Madrasa, we should not forget that it also has a mosque, similar to all other madrasas; since some portion of the formal education of a young Muslim have always been acquired in mosques. So, the architectural characteristics of the two buildings: the mosque and the madrasa can be analyzed as interchangeable. The mosque is a representation of the cosmos and the locus of the encounter between man and the divine word. That is why, the mosque represents the work of God and reminds worshippers of his creation. By quoting Ibn Arabi’s

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Fig.15 Ashur, first known four-ı¯wa¯n usage, Parthian palace 2nd century A.D., plan after Kleiss (80b, fig.22).

treatise on Transcendent Unity (Risa¯lat al-Ahadiyya), Akkach81 argues that the orientation of the mosque towards the qibla can be interpreted as initiating a horizontal link with the centre of the world and a vertical link with the celestial centres, thus interpreting the building as one of those belonging to the shortercycle themes of the ‘Axis Mundi & Cosmic Cross’. Going back to the first Zoroastrian fire temples from the 5th century BC, the ı¯wa¯n was a gate or an archway into a sanctuary. In the 2nd century AD the four ı¯wa¯ns were used for the first time to represent the reality of Parthian kingship in the palace at Ashur82 (figure 15). In the 12th-14th centuries, the ı¯wa¯ns were constructed to mark a sacred passage to a holy site that was related to crossing the border between the sacred83 and the profane. Although the religious reality, represented, among others, by the ı¯wa¯n in the four-ı¯wa¯n mosque, is very different from the one seen in the Zoroastrian fire temples, the motive of the holy gate, which transpositions the human being from his or her temporal realm into the divine realm, has remained intact. The religious strength of Islam can be found exactly in this interconnection of the two worlds, which makes the ı¯wa¯n the most appropriate choice to represent the transition from the sacred space of the mosque to the outside world. The four-ı¯wa¯n setting can be also interpreted as a representation of a non-historical and a-temporal/eternal truth.

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Fig. 16 Zavareth, floor plan of the four-ı¯wa¯n mosque after Godard (5, p.248).

Previous statements that the four ı¯wa¯ns were meant to house the four schools of Sunni Islam law have gone unsubstantiated, as the four major madhhabs were never united under the same roof. Furthermore, the assertion by Irwin84 that the four ı¯wa¯ns were used according to the position of the sun during the day, by giving shelter to the students, also sounds a bit farfetched. The only author who has attempted to discuss the spiritual importance of the four-ı¯wa¯n plan is Vogt-Go¨knil.85 She regards the open courtyard as an architectural space, which combines both the functions of an exterior and an interior.86 The inner space of the courtyard is metaphorical and its hypothetical ceiling is the sky itself. Moreover, the sky, open to human beings, is seen as the lowest of the seven spheres of paradise. The sky is also regarded as the domain of the divine and the openness of the courtyard is related to the omnipotence of God, whose presence cannot be fixed within confined spaces. By praying in the open courtyard, the worshippers have direct access to the sky as a divine realm. The compound of the mosque, remains separated from the urban fabric and yet open to the sky. The interior feature of the courtyard is determined by its position within the mosque itself, whereby it also has an exterior nature as it is revealed to the elements. To stress this concept, the sky is reflected in the open water pool in the centre of the courtyard. Thus, the sky is mirrored on the ground by creating a double projection and communication channel: between the deity communicating with the worshippers in a top-down fashion by supplying them with an open visual access to his divine realms and in a bottom-up fashion by receiving their prayers and allowing them to flow unhindered in the open courtyard space.

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Godard87 provides a plausible explanation for the existence of the first fourı¯wa¯n mosque in Zavareth, built in AD 1135-36 (figure 16). Considering both the political and architectural situation at the time, he draws the following conclusions: In der seldschukischen Periode war Iran also im Besitz aller wesentlichen Elemente der großen iranischen Moschee mit zentralem Hof und vier ¯Iwa¯nen. Man kannte den Tschahar taq, also den weit geo¨ffneten quadratischen Raum mit Kuppelgewo¨lbe, den ¯Iwa¯n, sowie die Kombination eines ¯Iwa¯ns mit einem Tschahar taq, sogar den Hof mit vier ¯Iwa¯nen. Anderseits lehnte Iran in dieser Periode eines extremen Nationalismus es ab weiterhin Moscheen arabischen Typus zu bauen, und trachtete vielmehr danach, seine eigenen Sakralbauten zu vervollkommen und den großen, gutausgestatteten abbasidischen Moscheen anzugleichen. Man ko¨nnte also denken, die große iranische Moschee habe auf ganz natu¨rliche Weise einem glu¨cklichen Zusammenspiel ihrer damals bekannten Elemente entspringen mu¨ssen. To summarize, Godard points out two very important aspects of the introduction of the four-ı¯wa¯n mosque plan. The first one refers to the use of the ı¯wa¯n as architectural vocabulary by tracing it back to the Iranian chahar taq. The second one is the representation of a political reality: the four-ı¯wa¯n mosque tradition was introduced to assert the new Iranian national-religious identity, as opposed to the identity as represented by the Arabic hypostyle mosque. However, the ubiquitous utilization of the four-ı¯wa¯n plan can be traced back not only to the representation of the new national identity, an explanation, widely used by many authors when one is unable to trace back the deep religious and social changes that led to the establishment of the new four-ı¯wa¯n plan. A more plausible explanation for the popularity and widespread use of the four-ı¯wa¯n compounds can be found in the advent of Sufism and its impact on the introduction of new architectural plans. This aspect of Sufism has not been discussed previously by the existing architectural theory and the current article attempts to illustrate the ways in which it stimulated the building of four-ı¯wa¯n architectural ensembles as representation of Sufi cosmic realities. The Four-¯ıwa¯n Plan as a Representation of Sufi Paradisiacal Cosmology Islamic tradition sustains the unified character of society while elaborating its exoteric and esoteric dimensions. The exoteric dimension concerns the Divine Law (Shari’ah) and man’s behaviour, but it is not directly related to the creative principles of traditional man. Instead, it is the Gnostic aspect of Islam, the Way, (Tariqah), where the principles that govern Islamic Art can be found. Sufism may be defined as the mystical movement of an uncompromising Monotheism. Sufi mystics, such as al-Halla¯j, Ru¯mı¯, al-Ghaza¯lı¯ and Ibn ‘Arabı¯

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extended the Quranic-prophetic model and integrated the existing Islamic terminology into their cosmological doctrines. By doing so, they created a sophisticated semi-religious and semi-cosmological set of beliefs, partly based on the hadı¯th (prophetic sayings), and in part on Gnosticism. Thus, Sufis created their own cosmological codes that appealed to the audience at large, which consisted of various ethnic groups with mostly pagan beliefs. In Sufism, every external form is complemented by an inner reality, which is its hidden, internal essence. The za¯hir is the sensible form, which is most readily comprehensible, such as the shape of a building. The batı¯n is the essential or qualitative aspect, which all things possess. In order to know a thing in its completeness, one must not only seek its outward, ephemeral reality (the za¯hir) but also its essential, inward reality (the batı¯n).88 These concepts of inward and outward expression, i.e., as a representation of internal reality, go back to a deeper spiritual significance of man’s verticality, which is regarded as a spatial representation of the eternal presence of man as an Axis Mundi. The 9th century Sufi Sahl al-Tusturı¯89 refers to the creation of man by divine light and explains: When it [man] reached the veil of the Majesty (hija¯b al-‘azama) it bowed in prostration before God. God created from its prostration (sajda) a mighty column (‘a¯mu¯d) like a crystal glass (zuja¯j) of light that is outwardly (za¯hir) and inwardly (batı¯n) translucent. The unique verticality of man and his spiritual essence, derived from his close connection to God (in order to create Muhammad, God projected his own light), is, in the Sufi tradition, opposed to the existence of the human reality on earth. The notion of a ‘column of light’ represents the vertical axis and denotes its close relation to the creation of man. Man, in his spatial manifestation, is represented as an Axis Mundi, as a divine creation who mediates between the two worlds of paradise and earthly existence. In other words, man is the primordial representation of the micro-cosmos, which connects earthly life to the heavenly macro-cosmos. As such, man carries within himself the two complementarities: the za¯hir and the batı¯n. Man inhabits the divine world and perceives it in its tangible three-dimensionality (the za¯hir); at the same time, he attributes a new rendering of personalized meaning to this world, which is qualitative and mystical (the batı¯n). The representation of the four cardinal points by the ı¯wa¯ns in their directions as part of the representation of the celestial garden can be also referred to the four rivers of Paradise, i.e., the four rivers of esoteric knowledge in terms of Sufism. These rivers include the following: the river of unchanging Water (ma¯‘ ghayr a¯sin), representing the science of life (‘ilm al-haya¯t); the river of Wine (khamr), representing the science of the spiritual states (‘ilm al-ahwal); the river of Honey (‘asal), representing the science of the divine revelation (‘ilm al-wahı¯) and the river of Milk (laban), representing the science of the

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secrets (‘ilm al-asra¯r), the essence of all science, revealed by God only to those, who devote themselves entirely to him. In the mysticism of Ibn ‘Arabı¯, this fourfold pattern of sciences, related to the four rivers of paradise is connected to the tripartite structure of the human (sensible, spiritual and imaginary) and together they generate 12 different types of Sufi knowledge. In architectural terms, these four rivers of Sufi esoteric knowledge can be represented by the four recesses in the Sufi tombs (see figure 8) or with the four ı¯wa¯ns of Sufi kha¯naqa¯hs, e.g. the kha¯naqa¯h of Bahauddin (see figure 7). Apart from cosmological representations, Sufism also introduced another aspect of personal experience during times of prayer, which places the individual in a special position while communicating with God. By canonizing the al-waqt,90 seen as spatial and temporal exercises, Ibn ‘Arabı¯ argues that they are meaningful only in reference to man’s centrality in the world and his own perception of the sun’s movements:91 But when God designated in the atlas sphere the twelve divisions, which were precisely timed, and called them ‘signs’ (buru¯j)…, set an individual standing [in the centre] about whom this sphere revolved. Since the representation of the cosmos is based on the human body and its proportions, any other representation of the micro/macro cosmos is thus also based on it. In terms of the representational paradigm used in this book, this aspect can be analyzed within the Anthropomorphic long-cycle tradition proposed by Mekking. The design of the ı¯wa¯ns is subjected to the level of the eyes, so that the views open up before the worshipper in order to be fully enjoyed and appreciated. In the four-ı¯wa¯n mosque, the ı¯wa¯ns are over-dimensional, compared to the human scale, and are meant to be perceived as such. Their intricate geometric decorations and Quranic inscriptions show that they are conceived as gates to the holy realm. The human being entering the gate is rather small compared to the giant ı¯wa¯ns. The ı¯wa¯ns can be regarded as a representation of the cosmic and paradisiacal landscape and gazing upon them is like looking at the gates of paradise. Conceived as gateways to the celestial world, the ı¯wa¯ns combine intimate spiritual experience with architectural manifestation. Sufi scholars, such as al-Ghaza¯lı¯, Ibn Sı¯na¯ and Ibn ‘Arabı¯, have written about the delight of contemplating God’s design and thus formed a sense of pseudo-real, first-hand experiences with God’s creation. The basic compositional feature of the four-ı¯wa¯n plan is its stable geometry. Islamic art is predominantly a balance between Anthropomorphic long-cycle traditions (Mekking) based on pure geometrical forms and Physiomorphic longcycle traditions (Mekking) based on shapes. This polarization has associative values with the four philosophical qualities of cold and dry as represented by the crystallization in it geometric forms; and hot and moist as represented by the formative forces behind the vegetation and the vascular forms. These four qualities are related to the universal four directions.

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In Sufi cosmology, the fortification of the four world directions has cosmic dimensions, whereby the four spiritual masters (awta¯d, ‘pegs’ or ‘pillars’) are related to the east, west, north and south.92 Ibn ‘Arabı¯ postulates that God preserves one pillar for every direction and one central ‘pole’, al-qutb, which can be interpreted as the cosmic axis (in terms of the representational themes, the equivalent of the Axis Mundi). Along the central axis, humans can transcendent through the three Cosmic Zones: starting from the underworld, the Unholy Zone (as in the case of tombs, in which the sarcophagus is placed underground, as for example in the Ishrat Khaneh in Samarkand), then experiencing the horizontality of the earthly world, the first Holy Zone, where the earth meets the heavens (i.e., the building itself, the intersecting axes of the four ı¯wa¯ns marking its centre), and proceeding to the verticality of the heavens, the second or heavenly Holy Zone (which can be associated with the dome, rising above the point of the intersecting axes as in the kha¯naqa¯hs). Akkach93 argues that verticality in Sufi teachings is an expression of human uniqueness, while the emphasis on geographical directions represents the comprehensiveness of human reality. This proves again that the representation of the cosmos is based on the Anthropomorphic long-cycle tradition. In the four-ı¯wa¯n plan, the four cardinal points are marked not by pillars but by four monumental ı¯wa¯ns, whose bulky architecture cannot be defined as tectonically aesthetic and is meant to represent the fortification of the earthly world. In terms of the cosmology of Ibn ‘Arabı¯, the ı¯wa¯ns serve as fortifications against Satanic attack, which weakens human nature and places obstacles on the way to divine revelation. Therefore, the four-ı¯wa¯n compound represents a stronghold of God’s domain, a place where humans can strive for direct contact with God, secured by remodelling the compound according to the principles used by God while creating the world. This representation belongs to the realm of the ‘Excluding & Including’ shorter-cycle theme, proposed by Mekking. Within this framework, the ı¯wa¯ns can be associated with parallels across other temporal and cultural contexts, as for example, in Hindu or Buddhist sacred settings. Due to the limited scope of this article, we cannot dwell in detail on these examples. However, they will be analyzed elsewhere,94 since the parallels are obvious and should be presented to the audience at large. Here, we will only briefly mention the relevant points with regard to the origin of the madrasa and the kha¯naqa¯h. Barthold links the madrasa to the Buddhist vihara, which flourished in eastern Iran and Central Asia just before the Muslim conquest of the region. The structure was a communal one, combining worship, education and burial practices. The vihara consists of several elements and the ones that have been discovered have a four-ı¯wa¯n plan overlooking a courtyard. Barthold95 further explains that Islam was influenced by Buddhism and the original home of the madrasa may have been the region that lies on either side of the Amu-Darya and borders on Balkh, where Buddhism dominated prior to the Muslim conquest. Furthermore, with regard to Sufism, Barthold96 points out that during

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the Mongol period in Central Asia, dervishes belonging to various orders coexisted next to the learned theologians and representatives of the orthodoxy. Their kha¯naqa¯hs were built ‘everywhere’ but especially in the regions bordering the steppe – Bukhara, Kwarazm and the Sir-Darya. From here, the dervish shaykhs were able to spread their beliefs among the nomads, who, for ‘unknown reasons’, as Barthold described it, were more open to their influence than to Muslim scholarship. Islam’s concentration on geometrical patterns and forms can be further explained in its attempt to represent the nature of the inner self in the world at large or the built environment. Whereas the experienced world, the world of divine manifestation, can be perceived in its three-dimensionality; the world of spiritual paradise, or the world of the self, of motivating intelligence, is twodimensional. In other words, according to Critchlow,97 the intuitive mind of the individual tries to explain its existence and is led inward and away from the three-dimensional world, into a two-dimensional realm of ideas and concepts. The attempt to represent the celestial garden on earth (i.e., macro-cosmos) is also an attempt to resolve the philosophical conflict between a two-dimensional world of ideas and a three-dimensional world of reality. The four-ı¯wa¯n plan can be thus regarded as a scheme, which reflects the two-dimensional Quranic descriptions, praising the celestial garden, in a three-dimensional manner, by projecting them onto the ı¯wa¯ns. The intersecting cross-axial design reveals and forms the four realms of the celestial garden, the ı¯wa¯ns, being in line with the axial-spatial orientation, mark the four directions of the world. Another celestial geometrical element is the equal importance of the four cardinal points, reflecting the four directions of the cosmos. As such, the four-ı¯wa¯n plan represents the world as a micro-cosmos in its totality. What is more, it can be analyzed as a geometrical micro version of the macro-world. Whereby, the closed rectangular ensemble, spatially isolated from the urban landscape, is filled in with atmosphere of sacredness and uniqueness: this is done in the field of the ‘Excluding & Including’ shorter-cycle theme as proposed by Mekking. The divine proportions of the four-ı¯wa¯n plan are based on the Anthropomorphic long-cycle tradition. The cosmic order of the four rivers of paradise and the four cardinal points are also based on the anthropomorphic worldview. Furthermore, the number four is derived from the symmetry of the human body, which suggests a four-partite division of the horizon: a front and a back, left and right side.98 That is why the Sufi cosmography, without a directional anthropomorphic alignment, would have been very hard to imagine, especially among the nomadic tribes of Central Asia. There is no doubt that the marking of the surrounding horizon with four cardinal points and the idea of the azimuth were widespread long before organized religion existed. Not to mention the fact that the words ‘azimuth’, meaning ‘way, direction’, ‘zenith’, referring to the highest point in the heavens, directly above the observer, and figuratively also to the greatest development of perfection and ‘nadir’, all have Arabic origins99 and are part of the Anthropomorphic long-cycle tradition.

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But in the earliest religious records of the Middle East, the cardinal points appear as symbols for the four corners of the earth, the four winds100 that blow in the heavens and four rivers that flow through paradise.101 Together with the liturgical alignment with the qibla, the spatial alignment with the cardinal and intercardinal directions, as marked by the sun’s trajectory in its diurnal and annual journeys, places the four-ı¯wa¯n compound in an architectural tradition organized by ancient cosmological practice that is much older than Islam. Based on the above, we can argue that ‘Sufi’ architectural representation was mainly constructed in the ‘working space’ and with the ‘tools’ of the ‘Excluding & Including’ shorter-cycle theme, based on the Anthropomorphic long-cycle tradition. The central organization of the four-ı¯wa¯n plan continues the representation of the waters of paradise and is crucial to the architectural plan of the compound. Within the framework of the intercultural paradise tradition, part of the ‘Excluding & Including’ shorter-cycle theme, this could be associated with the ocean of creation in Hindu cosmology. The centre is at the intersecting point of the two orthogonal axes and is the most mysterious space. The central point of the two intersecting axes is underlined by positioning a fountain or a pool of water: the fawwara. This element was used for sacred ablutions. According to Kuban,102 the taharam, a prerequisite for the salah, which may be achieved by the act of wudu, was an innovation by the caliph Omar. Originally, the water was collected in a pool or birka, situated in the centre of the sahn (courtyard). But the followers of Abu Hanifah refused to carry out ablution with standing water, maintaining that it was impure and instead used a fountain of running water. Later, places for ablution were located near the entrance of the sahn and were called mi’da’a or mavadi’u.103 Generally speaking, it has not been customary for ablutions to take place within the sanctuary. A small basin, sihrij or siqaya, with a water jet, fawwara, was often constructed in the mosque for decorative purposes and/or for drinking water. Kuban states that the pool or fountain may have been both for drinking and ablution purposes, although the two functions of ablution and drinking were probably strictly separated. The existence of two pools, as in the Friday Mosque in Isfahan, for example, can be explained with the two different functions, attributed to each of the pools. Perhaps during the early development of the mosque compound, the central pool with still water had strictly metaphysical and philosophical purposes. The function of sacred ablution was probably brought into the mosque compound at a later stage, since it is secondary to the pool. It emerged with increasing numbers of worshippers, attending the mosque and the need for ritual ablutions. Previously, these functions were carried out either outside the mosque’s compounds or in the second pool. However, in the majority of four-ı¯wa¯n mosques in Iran and India, there is only one central pool with still water. Here, we can compare the four-ı¯wa¯n open courtyard mosque with the domed Seljuq mosque in Bursa, founded by Sultan Bayezid I. The second dome-shaped roof on the central axis is made of glass and there is a large sha-

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Fig. 17 Bursa, Sultan Bayezid Mosque, shadirvan after Mekking (102b).

dirvan immediately beneath it. The doors opening on three sides of the mosque face the shadirvan (figure 17).104 The Sultan Bayezid I Mosque is the most monumental of the multi-domed mosques that form a very special branch of Ottoman architecture. The shadirvan can be interpreted in this case as the source of life or as a vertical element that acts like an Axis Mundi mediating between the Holy Earthly Zone of the mosque (based on two intersecting axes) and the Heavenly Holy Zone of the dome. This displays an extraordinary use of a water pool in the mosque’s interior. The central water tank is usually situated in the middle of the four-ı¯wa¯n open courtyard and functions as a representation of the divine creation by reflecting it on the water’s smooth surface. It is part of the overall concept of creating a sacred space along two intersecting axes (in the case of Isfahan: north-south and east-west) and accentuating the point in which they meet. As such, the pool represents the meeting of the cardinal points and thus creates a visible scheme of the world in its totality – a micro-cosmos with God at its centre and its mirror image reflected in the water pool representing the macrocosmos. In terms of the current article, the water pool creates an invisible Axis Mundi, connecting the underworld (the Unholy Zone), (where the water comes from) with the earth (the first Holy Zone, nourished by water), and the heavenly realm (the second Holy Zone). It can also be regarded as a micro-cosmic version of the primordial sea, from which life originated. The spatial factor underlying all Islamic and basically all cosmological geometric patterns is symmetry. The use of the four-ı¯wa¯n compound based on perfect orthogonal symmetry represents God’s perfection and transcendent purity, similar to other Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cultural traditions. The straight lines are thought to represent tawhid – the divine unity and sacred order between man and nature. This order, created by the geometrical divine patterns

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is based on mathematical regularity. The scheme of the four-ı¯wa¯ns can thus be interpreted as a denotation of the four quarters or directions of the universe. The divine aspect of perfection is also underlined by bilateral symmetry. The intersecting axes form four rectangular spaces, which are identical and mirrored along the main design axis that leads to the mihra¯b. The ı¯wa¯ns are also mirrored along the two axes in a similar manner as the world, which reflects, e.g., as the world that mirrors the divine world. As a result, the whole mosque or madrasa is an example of bilateral symmetrical organization. Another aspect related to symmetry is that God’s perfection, evoked and represented by perfectly organized building and landscape schemes, is in contrast to the imperfections of human beings, who are seen as subordinate to the divine organizational principles. The four-ı¯wa¯n plan, as opposed to the organically grown urban fabric, can be regarded as a perfectly organized system based on geometrical symmetry. In this way, we have two juxtapositions: on the one hand, the human imperfection in contrast to the divine symmetry; and on the other hand, the urban, unstructured frames in contrast to the place of divine presence and worship i.e., the mosque or the madrasa. With regard to the cycles as presented by Mekking, the unstructured urban fabric can be explained and compared within the framework of the shorter-cycle ‘Excluding & Including’ theme as the excluded world, while the symmetrically structured compound with four ı¯wa¯ns is the all-encompassing perfect paradise. The gigantic Quranic inscriptions on the ı¯wa¯ns are another aspect of the represented proportions. According to Critchlow,105 the nature of the letters also has a cosmological explanation. He considers the lunar mansions to be macrocosmic counterparts of the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet, from which the language of the divine word can be articulated as an expression of the divine breath (nafas-al-rahman). That is why, the gigantic inscriptions from the Quran on the ı¯wa¯ns can be regarded as God’s grandeur, compared to the human dimensions. The Quran not only has a spiritual importance, but it is also present in two-dimensional images that appear along the three-dimensional ı¯wa¯ns in the form of superb stuccos in a variety of colours. Since Sufism asserted substantial influence on a number of architectural settings, starting in the second half of the 13th century, we will also analyze the Sufi tomb and its relation to the kha¯naqa¯h in this chapter. After all, the Sufi kha¯naqa¯h became a focus of pilgrimages and four-ı¯wa¯n compounds were later erected around it. The Sufi Tomb and the Sufi Kha¯naqa¯h The role of the tomb is crucial for the conception of the four-ı¯wa¯n plan. On the one hand, the tomb is the last dwelling place of the deceased and it is, therefore, conceived as a gate to paradise. On the other hand, the designs of tombs employed the compact lay-out of the Zoroastrian fire temple, based on a square or octagonal sanctuary with four wall openings, which, for the most part, were oriented along the four cardinal points. What is most characteristic

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of the Sufi tomb (buq‘a) is the dome, which has a conical shape and is usually green. This dome could probably be recognized from far away by the arriving Sufi pilgrims.106 During the 11th through 14th centuries, Sufi complexes emerged as a result of the growing popularity of Sufi shaykhs and, in particular, their graves, which became the focus of the pilgrimages. The tombs of the shaykhs thus formed an inseparable part of the kha¯naqa¯hs, which offered shelter to the pilgrims and floor for mystical discussions. The tomb was sometimes integrated into the kha¯naqa¯h, as, for example, in the Abdi Darun complex in Samarkand (see figure 8). In other cases, the tomb was separated from the kha¯naqa¯h, as in the case of the Gur-i-Amir (although it is a royal tomb, the figure of the ruler has the same Axis Mundi connotations as the shaykh). The shaykh secured direct communication with God during his lifetime by performing sacred rituals and by reading or citing the word of God. Posthumously, his tomb became a place of veneration, in which the four-ı¯wa¯n plan provided a perfect setting for worship and mystical experiences. The figure of the respective shaykh was used to add ‘holiness’ to the complex built as a result of a rich endowment. The ‘holier’ the shaykh, the more people who would come to the site to venerate him and thus further spread the word about it and the patron along the trade and pilgrimage routes. Therefore, the Sufi tombs and complexes were well visible within the urban fabric and brought additional assets to the cities they were built in. Wolper,107 based on the 14th-

Fig. 18 Four Angels supporting the throne of God from ‘Illustrated Guide to Mecca and the Hereafter’, MS Pers. d. 29, fol.66r (photo: Bodleian Library) after Begley (106, p.23).

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century Sufi tomb examples in Sivas, argues that the domed tombs attracted the attention to dervish lodges and could be discerned from a distance by the approaching travellers. In this way, pilgrims could also find the adjacent kha¯naqa¯h. The floor plan of the Sufi tomb and domed kha¯naqa¯h, e.g., the Ulugh-Beg Kha¯naqa¯h in Samarkand or the Bahauddin Kha¯naqa¯h and Nadir Dı¯wa¯nbaigi Kha¯naqa¯h in Bukhara, can also be interpreted as representations of the relationship between heaven and man. In architectural terms, this is done by squaring the circles and moving from the single point of the circular dome to the square tomb chamber or kha¯naqa¯h. The large dome is supported by four ı¯wa¯ns, which can be allegorically read as the four angels, holding the Throne of God (figure 18). In Sufi terms, the four pillars are associated with the four pillars of the temple of righteousness: Pillar one is the Quran as the Word of God, pillar two is the study of the Life of the Prophet, pillar three is the study of the examples and lives of the Saints, while pillar four is personal experience (the spiritual pilgrimage). In later mystical treatises, the four holders of the Throne of God have the four Awtad, or the four terrestrial ‘poles’ in the Sufi hierarchy of saints as their symbolic counterparts.108 Corbin109 explains that, according to esoteric Shi‘ah theology, the spiritual order of the world is sustained by the cosmically hidden Imam, who is metaphorically conceived as the Axis Mundi of the entire created universe and is often called Quth al-Aqtab, or ‘Pole of Poles’. In many Shi‘ah mystical treatises, the four Awtad are symbolically equated with the four archangels, as well as with the four pillars of the Throne of God. In the case of the four-ı¯wa¯n plan, the four angels can be associated with the four ı¯wa¯ns as the most distinguished exterior and interior feature of the compounds. In the domed four-ı¯wa¯n compounds, such as the kha¯naqa¯hs, the

Fig. 19 Natanz, shrine of ‘Abd al-Samad, conical dome of the Sufi tomb and four-ı¯wa¯n mosque after Blair (108, p.37).

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ı¯wa¯ns also structurally carry the load of the dome, which symbolizes the Throne of God. However, in the four-ı¯wa¯n plan this tectonic function is not represented by any visible buttresses. The ı¯wa¯ns have a smooth surface, decorated only by different tiles. In general, the basic frame of the ı¯wa¯ns is not distinguished by any ranks, although the ı¯wa¯ns are of various sizes and have different decorations. The entrance ı¯wa¯n and the sanctuary ı¯wa¯n housing the mihra¯b are sometimes larger and have inscriptions that refer to paradise. However, in most of the cases, the ı¯wa¯ns simply underline the equality of the four cardinal points. In the shrine of shaykh ‘Abd al-Samad in Natanz, the tomb of the Sufi was enlarged with a four-ı¯wa¯n mosque in 1325 (figure 19). According to Blair,110 this was done during one single campaign, which means that the whole compound was supposed to be based on the four-ı¯wa¯n plan. The enlargement of the Sufi tomb can be explained with the spread of Sufi shrine centres in Iran at the beginning of the 14th century. By that time, Sufism had been institutionalized and Sufis had established their social authority. As such, the complex in Natanz can be analyzed in terms of the increasing popularity of Sufi shaykhs and their sites and of the political support of these compounds by the Ilkhanids. The figure of the shaykh was used to attract followers and to recreate ‘holy sites’, which were obviously supported by the ruling elite. Thus the Sufi tombs had a dual function: on the one hand, they secured the tradition of the Sufi pilgrimage and the veneration of the pious figure of the shaykh; on the other hand, they represented an attempt by the Ilkhanid authority to become accepted and recognized by the different ethnic groups as ‘tolerant’ of Sufi mysticism and placing it as equal to religious science. In this sense, we can also analyze the choice of Timur and Ulugh-Beg to build Sufi kha¯naqa¯hs opposite to their most prominent constructions as an obvious example of following the Ilkhanid tolerance of Sufism. Furthermore, both Timur and Ulugh-Beg saw themselves as glorious heirs to Cingiz Han and their reigns were an attempt to revive the great Mongol empire. Even Ulugh-Beg adopted the title of Gurgan111 to underline and acknowledge his affiliation with the Ilkhanids. We should here stress the fact that it was not customary for royals to build kha¯naqa¯hs, so Timur and Ulugh-Beg were exceptions. The majority of Sufi kha¯naqa¯hs were sponsored by the emerging aristocracy and the following arguments can explain the choice of the fourı¯wa¯n plan for these buildings. The patrons chose to invest in Sufi foundations and benefit from their revenues in order to protect their family assets during politically insecure times. Patronage of Sufi architecture was a means to manifest seigniorial power and to hold on to property and was thus connected to the gradual attainment of political power. The four-ı¯wa¯n plan had been a familiar one since the Seljuq period and was used for monumental mosque architecture. At the beginning of Sufism in the 9th century, the Sufi orders were rather poor and numerous individual Sufi mystics inhabited rabats and caravansarays, in which they were trea-

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ted as ordinary guests and not as mystics. With the ever-increasing popularity of Sufism in the 11th and 12th centuries, and the establishment of Sufi orders, which resulted in a boom in building activity in the 13th and 14th centuries, Sufi shaykhs and mystics acquired a prominent role among the ruling elite. It was a question of honour to be related to a shaykh and to patronize a building dedicated to him, especially his tomb. In some cases, even family trees were forged in order to ‘prove’ some remote link to a great Sufi ancestor. As a result, larger Sufi compounds were endowed and the patrons opted for monumental structures, such as the four-ı¯wa¯n plan. In some cases, the fourı¯wa¯n plan was chosen to represent the new ruling power of the Ilkhanids, as, for example, in the above analyzed C¸ifte madrasa in Sivas. In other cases, local aristocrats also opted for the four-ı¯wa¯n plan to represent their legitimacy as followers of past Seljuq glory, as in the case of the Go¨k Madrasa, also in Sivas. Whereas Ulugh-Beg chose the four-ı¯wa¯n plan following the architectural prototypes of his grandfather Timur, with whom he wanted to be associated and whom he wanted to surpass. So, the four-ı¯wa¯n plan fitted into the political agenda of the commissioners and legitimized their aspirations for power.

CONCLUSION To summarize, in terms of Sufi cosmology, the four-ı¯wa¯n plan can be regarded as a representation of the overtly manifested realities. The microcosmic man acts both horizontally and vertically. The horizontal expansion is fourfold and relates to the four cardinal points and the four rivers of paradise. The vertical expansion, combined with individual perception of the architectural space in the horizontal expansion, transcends the quadrate of the earthly world to the unity of the divine world. The idea of the Universal Man, acting as an Axis Mundi, inhabits both cosmic and divine realities and his axiality facilitates the communication between the worlds. Ulugh-Beg built the four-ı¯wa¯n madrasa on the Registan Square in Samarkand to represent his authority as an emperor-scholar, acknowledging both orthodox religious thought and the growing influence of the Sufi Naqshbandiyya order. The four-ı¯wa¯n plan was meticulously chosen since it represents paradise on earth. By erecting a Sufi kha¯naqa¯h facing his madrasa, he followed the architectonic example of the Timurid dynastic mausoleum Gur-i-Amir and paid tribute to the Naqshbandiyya shaykhs, who openly disapproved of his disrespect for the Shari’ah. Both of these moves were overtly political and exemplify the increasing power of the Sufi shaykhs in the 15th century.

NOTES 1

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B. O’Kane, ‘Iran and Central Asia’, in: M. Frishman and H. Khan (eds.), The Mosque, London, 1994, p. 123.

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2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

15 16

17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

36

L. Golombek and D. Wilber, The Timurid Architecture of Iran and Turan, vol. 1, Princeton, 1988, p. 87. G. Pugachenkova, Samarkand, Bukhara, Moskva, 1968. R. Ettinghausen, O. Grabar and M. Jenkins-Madina, Islamic Art and Architecture 650-1250, Yale: Yale University Press, 2001, p. 145. A. Godard, Die Kunst des Iran, Berlin: Grunewald, 1964, p. 245. M. Van Berchem, Mate´riaux pour un Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum, I, Egypte, Cairo, 1899, pp. 265-66. E. Herzfeld, ‘Damascus’, in: Ars Islamica, 9 and 10, 1942 and 1943. R. Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture: Form, function and meaning, New York: Columbia University Press, 1994, p. 19. U. Vogt-Go¨knil, Die Moschee. Grundformen sakraler Baukunst, Zu¨rich: Verlag fu¨r Architektur Artemis, 1978, pp. 41-84. N. Ardelan and L. Bakhtiar, The Sense of Unity, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973, p. 71. See chapter 1 of this volume. A. Snodgrass, The Symbolism of the Stupa, New York: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 1985, p. 22. See chapter 1 of this volume. As in the case of Zoroastrian fire temples or Hindu temples, where the corners of the building face the cardinal points and wall openings are placed in the half cardinal points. However, these architectural examples are not covered in the current article. Registan means ‘place where sand is abundant’. V.V. Barthold, Four Studies on the History of Central Asia, vol. II, Ulugh-Beg, Leiden: Brill, 1958, p. 119. E. Paskaleva, all photographs were taken in the autumn of 2006; K. Herdeg, Formal Structure in Islamic Architecture of Iran and Turkistan, New York: Rizzoli, 1990, p.55; ArchNet Archive, http://www.archnet.org. Pugachenkova 1968 (3), p. 99. H.R. Roemer, Die Nachfolger Timurs, in: Islamwissenschaftliche Abhandlungen. Fritz Meier zum sechzigsten Geburtstag, Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag GmbH, 1974, p. 232. Barthold, 1958 (15), p. 119. Pugachenkova, 1968 (3), p. 102. Barthold, 1958 (15), p. 121. Barthold, 1958 (15), p. 114. According to the ‘History of Central Asian Darvishism’ (Rashahatu ‘ayni-haya¯’t), composed in the beginning of the 16th century and quoted by Barthold 1958 (15), p. 115. Barthold, 1958 (15), p. 115. Barthold, 1958 (15), p. 114. Barthold, 1958 (15), p. 122. S. Blair and J. Bloom, The Art and Architecture of Islam 1250-1800, New York: Penguin Books, 1994, p. 45. Golombek and Wilber, 1988 (2), p. 264. Pugachenkova, 1968 (3), p. 102. Barthold, 1958 (15), p. 122. A.V. Arapov, Masterpieces of Central Asia, Samarkand, Tashkent: San‘at, 2004, p. 42. Arapov, 2004 (30), p. 44. Pugachenkova, 1968 (3), p. 102. This phenomena can be explained by the fact that Bukhara was the stronghold of the Naqsbandiyya order. M. Yusupova, ‘Evolution of Architecture of the Sufi Complexes in Bukhara’, in: A. Petruccioli (ed.), Bukhara: The Myth and the Architecture, Cambridge, MA: Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture, 1999, p. 130. A. Gangler, H. Gaube and A. Petruccioli, Bukhara: The Eastern Dome of Islam, Stuttgart/ London: Edition Axel Menges, 2004, p. 112.

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37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

51 52 53 54 55 56 57

58

59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76

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Gangler, Gaube and Petruccioli, 2004 (35), p. 113. Yusupova, 1999 (34), p. 128. Golombek and Wilber, 1988 (2), p. 270. Golombek and Wilber,1988 (2), pp. 267-268. Pugachenkova 1968 (3), p. 95. Pugachenkova 1968 (3), p. 95. After the ordered assassination of his own son, Ulugh-Beg was buried in Gur-i-Amir at the feet of his grandfather Timur. D. Brandenburg, Samarkand. Studien zur islamischen Baukunst in Uzbekistan Zentralasien, Berlin: Bruno Hessling Verlag, 1966, p. 114. Arapov, 2004 (30), p. 24. Blair and Bloom, 1994 (26), p. 41. Brandenburg, 1966 (43), p. 113. Arapov, 2004 (30), p. 24. Pugachenkova, 1968 (3), p. 76. Zahirudin Muhammad Babur, ‘Mizra: Baburnama’, translated by W.M. Thackston, in: Sources of Oriental Languages and Literatures: Central Asian Sources, vol. 18, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. M.C. Bulatov, Geometricheska garmonizacia v arhitekture Srednej Azii IX-XV vv, Moskva: Nauka, 1978, p. 184. Bulatov, 1978 (50), p. 184. Golombek and Wilber, 1988 (2), p. 263. Pugachenkova, 1968 (3), p. 108. 54. Roemer, 1974 (17), p. 236. Barthold, 1958 (15), p. 122. Another similarly smart political move from the same period, 1416-1418, were the extensive renovations to the shrine of Imam Riza in Mashhad, initiated by Gawharshad, the mother of Ulugh-Beg. Through her intense architectural activity she tried to appease the increasingly powerful Shiites in Iran. Also many amı¯rs from Sha¯hrokh’s court in the capital Herat utilized the ‘kosh’ principle of madrasas and kha¯naqa¯hs during the 15th through 16th centuries. For a detailed overview of Sufi dervish lodges see: E.S. Wolper, Cities and Saints: Sufism and the Transformation of Urban Space in Medieval Anatolia, college Park, PA: Pennnsylvania State University Press, 2003. E.S. Wolper, ‘The Politics of Patronage: Political Change and the Construction of Dervish Lodges in Sivas’, in: Muqarnas, vol. XII, 1995, pp. 39-40. Wolper uses ‘dervish lodges’ as an umbrella term for all Sufi buildings. Wolper, 2003 (57), p. 79. Wolper, 2003 (57), p. 81. Wolper, 2003 (57), p. 62. The harsh tone of this advice stands apart from Ibn al-‘Arabı¯’s tolerance towards Christians. Wolper, 2003 (57), p. 60. As stated by Gangler, Gaube and Petruccioli, 2004 (35), p. 113. Wolper 1995 (58), p. 43. Wolper 1995 (58), p. 43. Wolper 1995 (58), p. 44. Wolper 1995 (58), p. 44. Wolper, 2003 (57), p. 68. Wolper, 2003 (57), p. 20. Godard, 1964 (5), p. 247. Website of B. Peter, 2006, http://www.bernhardpeter.de/Usbekistan/architektur/bibikhanum. htm. Compass type: RECTA DP6. Golombek and Wilber, 1988 (2), p. 87.

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77 The plans in Golombek and Wilber, 1988 (2), cat. no. 4, state that the Bukhara madrasa ı¯wa¯ns were ideally oriented along the cardinal points: entrance ı¯wa¯n to the south and courtyard ı¯wa¯n to the north. However, according to the 2006 measurements, the ı¯wa¯ns deviate by some 20 from the cardinal points. 78 Golombek and Wilber 1988 (2), p. 265. 79 Golombek and Wilber 1988 (2), p. 265. 80 Hillenbrand 1994 (8), p. 106. 81 S. Akkach, Cosmology and Architecture in Premodern Islam. An Architectural Reading of Mystical Ideas, Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005, p. 171. 82 Ardelan and Bakhtiar 1973 (10), p. 70; W. Kleiss, Die Entwicklung von Pala¨sten und ¨ sterreichischen Akademie der Palastartigen Wohnbauten in Iran, Wien: Verlag der O Wissenschaften, 1989, Abb.22. 83 In the current paper the word ‘sacred’ is used to refer to Islamic architecture. The Arabic term for ‘sacred’ is muqaddas, denoting ‘purity’. In pre-modern Islamic texts it signified proximity to the primordial nature (fitra). For further discussion on the usage of the term, please refer to Akkach 2005 (79), p.164. 84 R. Irwin, Islamic Art in Context: Art, Architecture, and the Literary World, New York: Perspectives, Harry N. Abrams Inc. Publishers, 1997, p. 47. 85 Vogt-Go¨knil 1978 (9), pp. 41-84. 86 Vogt-Go¨knil 1978 (9), p.82. 87 Godard, 1964 (5), p. 245, plan of the Zavareth Mosque, p. 248. 88 Ardelan and Bakhtiar, 1973 (10), p. 5. 89 Quoted by Akkach, 2005 (79), p. 93. 90 Akkach, 2005 (79), p. 95. 91 Akkach, 2005 (79), p. 95. 92 E. Paskaleva, The Four-ı¯wa¯n Building Tradition as a Representation of Paradise, Ph.D. dissertation, Leiden University, forthcoming. 93 Barthold, 1958 (15), p. 5. 94 Barthold, 1958 (15), p. 7. 95 K. Critchlow, Islamic Patterns: An Analytical and Cosmological Approach. London: Thames and Hudson, 1976, p. 8. 96 A.J.J. Mekking, ‘Een kruis van kerken rond Koenraads hart’, in: Utrecht. Kruispunt van de Middeleeuwse kerk, Zutphen: De Walburg Pers, 1988, pp. 21-55. 97 Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. 98 D. Kuban, Muslim Religious Architecture, Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1974, p. 12. 99 Kuban, 1974 (100), p. 9. 100 G. Goodwin, A History of Ottoman Architecture, London: Thames & Hudson, 1992, p. 52; see also O. Aslanapa, Osmanli Devri Mimarisi, Istanbul: Inkilap Kitabevi, 1986, p. 22; A.J.J. Mekking archive, http://www.amphion-ul.nl/. 101 Critchlow, 1976 (95), p. 59. 102 The dome in this case becomes a visual representation of belonging to a Sufi order. This is quite different from the Seljuq mosques, in which not the dome above the mihrab but the minaret is seen from afar and recognized as belonging to the Seljuq architectural tradition. 103 Wolper, 1995 (58). 104 W.E. Begley, The Myth of the Taj Mahal and a New Theory of Its Symbolic Meaning, in: The Art Bulletin, 61, 1979, pp. 7-37. 105 H. Corbin, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn-‘Arabi. Bollingen Series XCI, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969, p. 45. 106 S. Blair, ‘Sufi Saints and Shrine Architecture in the Early Fourtheenth Century’, in: Muqarnas, vol. VII, 1990. 107 Roemer 1974 (17), p. 231.

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4

The Architectural Representation of Taboo Toilet Taboos as Guardians of Old Taiwanese Representations of Family Life En-Yu Huang

WHAT IS AN ARCHITECTURAL TABOO AND HOW SHOULD IT BE LOOKED AT? Architectural taboos and Feng-Shui taboos In contemporary Taiwan, numerous traditional principles and rules regarding a building’s site, orientation and layout still exert a great influence on the process of positioning, composing and constructing houses, although they have little to do with modern ‘functionalist,’ aesthetic and technological notions. Dwellers as well as designers and builders are inevitably involved in this process. Some building specialists advise people on what should be done, while others warn them against what should not be done. Normally, people seem to pay more attention to the latter, the things not-to-be-done, because these are considered to be architectural taboos. In Taiwan, as well as in many other regions influenced by Chinese-Han culture, these architectural taboos are usually thought to be the logical consequences of the application of Feng-Shui theories in architectural practice and are therefore mostly called Feng-Shui taboos. In practice, the man-in-the-street seems to care less about any of the relevant Feng-Shui theories being fully applied in architectural practice, and more about how not to offend some of the so-called Feng-Shui taboos directly related to their living circumstances. Most architectural historians regard architectural taboos as by-products of the systematic application of Feng-Shui theories, as a consequence of which, in their eyes, successfully exploring architectural taboos should be based on a sufficient understanding of Feng-Shui theories. Two well-known exponents of that approach, and reputable scholars in the field of Chinese architectural history, are Bao-De Han and Ronald G. Knapp.1 Specifically, they discuss architectural

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taboos as being part of two major Feng-Shui Schools: the Form School and the Compass School.2 Bao-De Han has convincingly demonstrated that most of the existing architectural taboos are related to the Form School,3 while Ronald G. Knapp has argued clearly that some architectural taboos can be seen as ‘situational deficiencies’ in terms of the Form School and the Compass School, and should be avoided during building activities.4 Nonetheless, their discussions do not show how and why these architectural taboos, over time, developed and were transformed within the framework of Feng-Shui theorizing, not to mention the fact that they were already an important part of architectural practice long before Feng-Shui theories came into being. Architectural taboos are far from being exclusively based on ‘Feng-Shui’ theories The term Feng-Shui cannot be found in any text prior to Quo-Pu (郭璞, AD 276-324) who used the term in his book Zang-Shu (葬書) or Burial Book.5 The term Feng-Shui was introduced along with Quo-Pu’s theory, and gradually became the regular indication for a coherent cluster consisting of the acts of siting, arranging and orienting dwellings or tombs. However, in the much older Shui-Hu-Di Ri-Shu bamboo-manuscript (睡虎地日書秦簡), discovered in the 3rd century BC in the tombs of the Qin Dynasty, a multitude of comparable architectural taboos had already been described in detail.6 In addition, the two major Feng-Shui Schools, the Form School and the Compass School, had not been established before the 14th century, much later than the earliest records of architectural taboos.7 Obviously, even many of the architectural taboos recorded in the texts after the 14th century, were not directly relevant to Feng-Shui theories (fig. 1).8

Fig. 1

Hui-tu Lu-ban-jing (reprint Hsinchu, 2000). Many architectural taboos have been

recorded in this 15th-century book.

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As a consequence of all this, the numerous architectural taboos, which are observed in Taiwan as well as in other culturally Chinese areas, today are still mainly called ‘Feng-Shui taboos’. All we can say about the connection between Feng-Shui and architectural taboos is that the development of the first is probably closely related to the development and transformation of the latter, but that the first should never be seen as constituting the latter’s origins. For this reason alone, it is incorrect to discuss architectural taboos merely within the framework of Feng-Shui tradition or as if they are all based on Feng-Shui theories. Architectural taboos as a worldwide and dynamic phenomenon We should be careful about seeing Chinese architectural taboos as an exclusive phenomenon. First of all, we should remind ourselves of the impressive taboo system of the Indian Vaastu Shastra, and, broadening our scope even more, we should be aware of the existence of architectural taboos in completely different cultural contexts, such as, the (Medieval) Christian or the Jewish and Islamic ones. So we may find that the occurrence of the architectural taboo is not restricted to one specific culture, but that it is, on the contrary, a worldwide phenomenon whose characteristics are permanently transforming. This being the case, architectural taboos should be analyzed with an appropriate worldwide scope, using the methodological tools for architectural comparison based on the paradigm as postulated by Mekking, providing us with the necessary mental tools to fruitfully compare culturally different built environments and the ‘realities’ they represent. Moreover, analyzing the ‘life cycle’ of an architectural taboo over time, from its ‘invention,’ elaboration, spread, and, finally, to its loss in ‘popularity,’ it becomes crystal clear that the phenomenon is not static but dynamic, with a ceaseless transformation being one of its major characteristics. Therefore, we should also not restrict our research to the category of the so-called ‘classical’ architectural taboos and remain receptive to all other types as well, whether documented in historical texts or still practiced in everyday architectural activities. In fact, we should treat them all as equally important. The ‘Toilet taboo’ as an important ‘guardian’ of Taiwanese anthropo-cosmic architectural representations

This essay focuses on the architectural toilet taboo as a widespread and very informative Taiwanese architectural taboo. It is mainly about where the toilet should never be placed. For example, many people are very concerned that the toilet never be placed in the centre of the house, on the left side of the building (if the traditional, south-facing left and right sides of a house are still discernable), or in front of any interior door or certain other elements of the house, to name just a few of the most important taboos. All these toilet taboos were prevalent in the past as well as in the present, if we study old books as well as

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listen to current oral traditions. Although every toilet taboo has been – and will always be – in a process of transformation according to the changing spatial and morphological characteristics of the house it belongs to, it will also simultaneously continue to represent some of the dwelling’s most important characteristics and, in doing so, some of the most fundamental realities of the society which gave birth to it. To understand the way that Taiwanese toilet taboos continue to represent fundamental traditional realities under changing social and architectural circumstances, one should first analyze the spatial and morphological characteristics of successive kinds of Taiwanese dwellings, the Sam-Hap-Inn (三合院), the Thau-Tinn-Chu (透天厝) and the modern apartment. Finally, in order to get a better understanding of how Taiwanese toilet taboos ‘guard’ the houses’ basic representational features, we will compare them to those observed in the building traditions of other cultures.

THE SAM-HAP-INN HOUSE AND ITS TOILET TABOOS The spatial and typological characteristics of ‘Sam-Hap-Inn’ houses The Sam-Hap-Inn house,9 characterized by a layout of three major wings grouped around a central courtyard, is the earliest known farmhouse type in Taiwan (fig. 2). This kind of courtyard house should be seen as part of the age-old Chinese courtyard-house tradition. Compared to the other traditional U-shaped building types on Mainland China, the Sam-Hap-Inn house has simpler spatial and typological characteristics, and it is therefore easier to recognize the morphological characteristics of the Anthropomorphic long-cycle tradition that this kind of house, in all its variations, is ultimately based on. In the first place, this can be derived from the anthropomorphic names for all of its building parts. Accordingly, the Sam-Hap-Inn house is a representation of the human body, stretching out its two arms with its head looking straight ahead. The central part is named Ciann-Sin (正身) or ‘human trunk’,

Fig. 2 Houli, Taichung, a traditional Sam-Hap-Inn house (photo: author).

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whilst the direction of the main entrance of the Ciann-Sin is the same as the orientation of the front of the whole housing complex. The two aisles attached to the Ciann-Sin are named the Chunn-Chiu (伸手) or the ‘outstretched arms’, with the left and right aisles respectively called the Toh-Cunn-Chiu (左伸手) (the left outstretched arm), and the Ciann-Chunn-Chiu (右伸手) (the right outstretched arm). The central space of the Ciann-Sin is the Sin-Bin-Thiann (神明廳)10 or family shrine hall where people worship their ancestors and the gods. In some Sam-Hap-Inn houses, the two rooms on the left and right sides of Sin-Bin-Thiann are respectively called the Toh-Hinn-Pang (左耳房) and the Ciann-Hinn-Pang (右耳房), meaning the left-ear room and the right-ear room (figs. 3 & 4).11 The Anthropomorphic long-cycle tradition, as the underlying foundation for the Sam-Hap-Inn housing concept, is, to get a concrete and liveable building, in this case worked out in the framework of two architectural shorter-cycle themes, The Holy and Unholy Zones and The Axis Mundi and Cosmic Cross. This makes it a lot easier to explore and analyze the spatial structures and the different human ‘realities’ this housing concept represents.

Fig. 3 Houli, Taichung , The floor plan for a Sam-Hap-Inn House (drawing: author).

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Fig. 4 Xikou, Chiayi, the altar in the family shrine hall of a Sam-Hap-Inn House (photo: author).

The shorter-cycle theme of The Holy and Unholy Zones in Sam-Hap-Inn houses Throughout the whole of the Sam-Hap-Inn complex it is not difficult to discern its horizontal, tripartite zoning. Firstly, the Sin-Bin-Thiann or family shrine hall, representing the human head, represents at the same time the heavenly Holy Zone, where people can meet their ancestors, their gods and the supreme heaven. In the Sin-Bin-Thiann, an altar should always be present to serve as a ‘throne’ for the ancestral tablets and the gods. Secondly, the other spaces inside the main building of the Sam-Hap-Inn, on both sides of the Sin-Bin-Thiann, also represent parts of the human body, and, at the same time, the Terrestrial Holy Zone, the domain where only family members should live and act. Lastly, the outside area, which surrounds the Sam-Hap-Inn main building, is the Unholy Zone, accommodating storage rooms, pigsties, pens, or toilets. Here, where the cattle live, there are no anthropomorphic names for the building parts. Not surprisingly, because the outside Unholy Zone, which is characterized by chaos and dirt, can only be compared to the underworld and the earth on which all of the labouring people and animals stand with their dirty feet.

THE SHORTER-CYCLE THEME OF ‘AXIS MUNDI AND COSMIC CROSS’ IN THE SAM-HAP-INN HOUSE The Sin-Bin-Thiann as the centre of a house, which enables the inhabitants to discriminate between the human body-based parameters: front, back, left, right As soon as a U-shaped Sam-Hap-Inn house has been founded, it becomes clear that its representation of ‘a-man-looking-forward-with-his-two-arms-outstretched’

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is not only based on the Anthropomorphic long-cycle tradition, but that it has developed more specifically within the framework of the Anthropomorphic shorter-cycle theme of The Axis Mundi and Cosmic Cross, in order to represent a more particular reality. This cosmic reality is most clearly represented by the SinBinn-Thiann or front-facing family shrine hall. It not only represents the heavenly Holy Zone, but undoubtedly the Axis Mundi as well, the centre of the Cosmic Cross. This enables the inhabitants to orient themselves in the micro-cosmos of their home, because only in its utmost centre do the parameters front, back, left and right have an absolute meaning. As mentioned earlier, the front side of the complex is determined by the orientation of the main entrance of the Sin-Binn-Thiann. Because the eyes of the ancestors and gods should be able to look outside, these are represented by the ‘eyes’ of the house. Therefore, the altar must be placed on the central front-back axis and opposite the entrance. If the ancestors and gods cannot look outside through the ‘eyes’ of the house, the dwelling will have no face or fac¸ade, and consequently, its inhabitants will not be able to recognize the cosmic coordinate system of the housing space. The fact that the Sin-Binn-Thiann represents the Axis Mundi is mirrored on the outside by the feature that its roof is higher than any other building part, whereas on the inside two symbolic objects indicate the connection between the Holy Zone of the earthly house and the heavenly cosmos. One of them is the Ba-Gua (八卦), a symbolic image of the cosmic center, placed under the central ridge beam where the cosmic powers are believed to descend into the earthly house, whilst stabilizing it.12 The other is the Thinn-Kong-Lo (天公爐) or incense burner, hanging from the ceiling between the main entrance and the altar, in order to connect mortal men to the immortal Thinn-Kong (天公) or supreme god. The crucial Chinese tradition of the Yin-Yang and Five Elements The representation of reality in the Sam-Hap-Inn house, within the framework of the shorter-cycle Axis Mundi and Cosmic Cross theme, is not only based on the Anthropomorphic long-cycle tradition but also on the Physiomorphic longcycle tradition. The phenomenon of one single shorter-cycle architecture-representational theme being based on two long cycle representational traditions, should be explained by the ancient Chinese habit of trying to unify ‘the way of heaven and human affairs’ on the one hand, with Yin-Yang (陰陽) and Five Elements (五行) on the other hand.13 The philosopher Tung Chung-Shu (董仲書) (2nd century BC) was the first person to systematically and completely apply the abstract Five Elements to the cosmic spatial system, connecting each element to one of the cardinal points. Thus, the east became linked to wood, the south to fire, the west to metal, the north to water, while the centre was linked to the earth itself, as we can read in his remarkable book, Chun-Chiu Fan-Lu (春秋繁露) (fig. 7). Moreover, the

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Fig. 7 The Five Elements. These diagrams represent their mutual spatial positions, interactions and neutralizing relationships (drawing: author).

ideal south or facial orientation on which all spatial recognizability should be based, is also mentioned in this book.14 If the south represents the front then the north represents the back, while the east stands for the left and the west for the right. Based on this space-time system, which is in fact a combination of the human-body-based and the solarsystem-based spatial recognition systems, the spatial centre is connected with the four cardinal directions, establishing the crucial, ideal, south-orientated building layout.15 Like Tung Chung-Shu, many younger Chinese philosophers applied the theory of the Yin-Yang and the Five Elements in their writings to demonstrate the harmony between the cosmic, the natural and the ethical orders, which are based on the Anthropomorphic and Physiomorphic long-cycle traditions. Consequently, the wide variety of Chinese traditional fields of knowledge such as politics, rituals, astrology, mathematics, agriculture, music, medicine, historiography, architecture, urban planning and, of course, the Feng-Shui tradition, were all inevitably deeply influenced by this all-embracing idea.16 The system of the cosmic Four Symbols as a part of the tradition of the ‘YinYang and Five Elements’ The spatial application of the cosmic Four Symbols also became a part of the Yin-Yang and Five Elements tradition. Ancient Chinese astrologists have divided the celestial bodies into four groups according to their positions in the sky, and used the four spiritual animals to represent them. Consequently, the Azure Dragon would from now on preside over the east, the White Tiger over the west, the Vermillion Bird over the south and the Black Tortoise over the north.17 This explains why, ever since, people have often used the four Spiritual Animals to indicate the four cardinal directions. Using the four symbols, the spatial identification of the built environment goes as follows: the Bird represents the front/

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Fig. 8

The cosmic Four Symbols that represent the four cardinal directions (drawing: author).

south, the Tortoise the back/north, the Dragon the left/east, and the Tiger the right/west direction (fig. 8). For example, the old Chinese city of Xi’an (西安), which was called Chang’an (長安) in ancient times, has an obvious south-orientated layout, with its north gate, serving as the back gate, accordingly named the ‘Tortoise Gate’ (玄午門).18 Just because the above-mentioned concept is thought to be ‘ideal’, does not mean that every Chinese building type has such a precise south-orientated layout, since this would make too many ordinary buildings extremely perfect and holy. Only the most honourable buildings such as temples, palaces, public buildings and the residences of high officials were considered to be ‘sacred’ enough to face exactly the cardinal south. Consequently, many Chinese housing types, such as the Taiwanese Sam-Hap-Inn house, mostly inhabited by farm families, should not face exactly south, but at least somewhat south. Nevertheless, the system of the Four Symbols dominates the layout of the SamHap-Inn house, its left side being called the Dragon side and its right the Tiger side. The spatial hierarchy of the Taiwanese Sam-Hap-Inn house According to the concept of the cosmic Four Symbols, the crucial traditional principle that ‘the left side or the Dragon side is superior to the right side or the Tiger side’ dominates the house’s spatial hierarchy. The left/Dragon side, being the east side, from which the Sun and other Celestial bodies always rise, is associated with positive meanings such as beginning, ascent, prosperity and influx, and thought to be auspicious and superior, while the right/Tiger side, being the western one, where the sun and other celestial bodies set, is seen as

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representing negative principles such as ending, descent, decline and efflux, and is therefore thought to be the dwelling’s inauspicious and inferior side. In the main building of the Sam-Hap-Inn, a particular hierarchy is made visible and otherwise perceivable using building traditions, which belong to the shorter-cycle theme of the Axis Mundi and Cosmic Cross. Because the structure of this central space represents the Axis Mundi as well as the Holy Zone, the Sin-Bin-Thiann is undoubtedly seen as the highest-ranking space of the entire compound. The other, flanking parts represent the Terrestrial dwelling zone for the other members of the family. Their hierarchical architectural system is based on both the Anthropomorphic and the Physiomorphic long-cycle traditions. As far as the anthropomorphic tradition is concerned, the parts representing the human trunk, which are near the head, should be ranked higher than those representing the arms, and, accordingly, the Ciann-Sin (central section) is considered superior to the Chunn-Chiu (the two flanks). On the other hand, and in line with the principle that the left is superior to the right, the left part of the Ciann-Sin is thought to be superior to its right part, and the Toh-ChunnChiu (the left flank) is thought to be higher than the Ciann-Chunn-Chiu (the right flank). Therefore, the spatial hierarchy in the Terrestrial zone is as follows: the left part of the Ciann-Sin is the highest ranking space, and, consequently, the first son and his sub-family live here; the right part of the Ciann-Sin is second, thus, the second son and his sub-family live here; the Toh-Chunn-Chiu is the third most important space, and thus, the third son and his sub-family should dwell here; while the Ciann-Chunn-Chiu, being the fourth and lowest ranking space, is reserved for the fourth son’s family. This kind of spatial hierarchy represents the family relationship in the framework of the two shorter cycle themes under consideration, which, as it is based on the Anthropomorphic long-cycle architectural representation of the micro-cosmos, it fully correlates to the solar system. Because this last feature is, of course, a representation of a non-human-based natural phenomenon, one could state that this representation of a familial relationship is also based on the Physiomorphic long-cycle tradition. The Indian ‘Vaastu Shastra’ as a comparable building tradition within the frame of the ‘Axis Mundi and Cosmic Cross’ shorter-cycle theme In this section, we are going to broaden our scope to include another culture, in our considerations of the toilet taboo as a worldwide phenomenon, which it no doubt is. Vaastu Shastra in Indian culture, like Feng-Shui in Chinese culture, can be considered India’s most essential traditional knowledge (or theory) of building and town planning. Both bodies of texts have very significant points in common. Indian Vaastu Shastra, for instance, acknowledges the Panchabhoota or five essential elements, ether, air, fire, water and earth, which are highly comparable to those in the Chinese Yin-Yang and Five Elements. Each of the Panchabhoota (i.e., five basic principles or elements) has its own characteristics, role and meaning, and represents one specific position in the spatial system.

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The earth represents the centre, the water the northeast, the fire the southeast, the ether the southwest, and the air the northwest. Therefore, the Indian architectural representations, based on the ideal spatial system of the five elements, belong to the shorter-cycle theme of the Axis Mundi and Cosmic Cross. Because the solar system plays a crucial role in the architectural representation that uses the five elements, one can say that, like the Chinese case, it is not only ultimately based on the Anthropomorphic but also on the Physiomorphic long-cycle tradition.19 In the practice of Vaastu Shastra, the site for a town or an individual building should be reshaped into a Vaastu Shastra Mandala, an 8x8-division square or 9x9-division square, combined utilizing the above-mentioned spatial system. Each plot of the Mandala has a Hindu god residing on it as well as dominating it. The central plot, on which Brahma, the supreme god, resides, should be seen as the supreme plot and is therefore called the Bindu or Prakara Beejam, where all of the energies from the entire cosmic grid are concentrated, and the source of every shape created on the Mandala.20 The hierarchical order of an ideal site is based on the Mandala’s shape: from the centre to the rim, energy and hierarchical levels diminish plot by plot (fig. 9). In addition to the Vaastu Shastra Mandala, the Vaastu Purusha Mandala should also be mentioned here. This type of Mandala can be seen as a combination of the Vaastu Shastra Mandala and the underlying, spellbound primordial demon Vaastu Purusha, who has been represented in Indian mythology as the cosmic man captivated by the gods under the Mandala’s grid. Vaastu Purusha pivots over time, with the celestial bodies, around the Axis Mundi, which originates from his navel.21 The Indian Vaastu Purusha Mandala is a harmonic space-time system similar to the Chinese tradition of the Five Elements or the cosmic Four Symbols of the Yin-Yang and Five Elements. In both cultures, these cosmic systems combine solar-system- and human-bodybased spatial recognition traditions.

Fig. 9 The 9x9 Vaastu Shastra Mandala and the Vaastu Purusha Mandala (drawing: author).

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Most practitioners of Vaastu Purusha advise that one choose a rectangular or square site to build on, but never an odd-shaped one.22 Thus, the patron will be able to represent the ideal spatial system on a perfect Mandala. Upon commencement of the building activities, the first stone should be placed in the northeast corner, which represents the most auspicious direction from which the future building will be provided with cosmic energy. Subsequently, the building plot should be defined by a fence, wall or pillars, demarcating its boundaries.23 Finally, when the building is completed, four bricks should be placed on its top under the finial.24 This representation of the Axis Mundi is another clear indication that the house is a micro-cosmos of its own, while also representing the macro-cosmos. Therefore, it belongs to the architectural traditions grouped among the shorter-cycle theme of the Axis Mundi and Cosmic Cross.

THE TOILET TABOOS AS OBSERVED IN THE SAM-HAP-INN HOUSE After having analyzed the spatial and typological characteristics of the SamHap-Inn house, the two aforementioned toilet taboos can be analyzed in terms of the two shorter-cycle themes, which we discussed earlier. To refresh our memory: the first taboo is that the toilet should never be placed in front of any entrance to the house, which makes it a part of the shorter-cycle theme representations of The Holy and Unholy Zones. The second taboo is, as we know, that the toilet should never be placed on the left side of the house, but, instead, on its right side. This fits the kind of representations grouped in the shortercycle theme of the Axis Mundi and Cosmic Cross perfectly. The first toilet taboo and architectural representation in the framework of the shorter-cycle theme of The Holy and Unholy Zones The toilet taboo guarding the correct spatial relationship between the outside toilet and the entrance of the Taiwanese ‘Sam-Hap-Inn’ house

How could a mere toilet have the power to menace the holy terrestrial zones, just because it is a somewhat dirty, ‘functional’ element located in the unholy zone? In Taiwan, the equivocal popular term ‘lap-sap’ is usually used to denote dirtiness and, what is more, evil.25 Likewise, the toilet is usually considered to be not only dirty but also a source of evil and harmful events. Moreover, in order to truly understand how people imagine how the harmful evil powers are able to enter the house from the outside, we should take a closer look at the ‘Qi’, another crucial notion of traditional Chinese culture. ‘Qi’ in the tradition of the ‘Yin-Yang and Five Elements’ From the philosophical point of view, thus in the frame of the Yin-Yang and Five Elements tradition, Qi is thought to be the breath of life, ether, cosmic

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energy, or essential forces, with both metaphysical and physical meanings.26 In common people’s opinions however, the physical meaning of Qi, the fluid medium filling the cosmos, seems to be much more alive than its metaphysical one. As a physical phenomenon, Qi can be contaminated by dirt and the latter’s evil qualities, which it subsequently can transmit to other things. It stands to reason that people will try very hard to prevent the dirty Qi from circulating inside the house, where it may do great harm by letting dirt and evil in from the outside, especially via the toilet. In the framework of the Anthropomorphic long-cycle tradition, the entrance of the house is often interpreted as a representation of the human mouth, and consequently, the house breathing Qi is often seen as a representation of a man breathing air.27 That is the reason why people often hang amulets, such as the Ba-Gua, on the door’s lintel, to ward off any evil power that tries to enter.28 Therefore, the toilet, being a source of evil-causing phenomena, should not be placed in front of the entrance of the Sam-Hap-Inn House. Otherwise, the evil quality emitted by the toilet and conveyed by the Qi, may easily enter the house through the ‘mouth’ of its entrance. Comparable toilet taboos recorded in Chinese historical texts This toilet taboo has also been recorded in many Chinese historical texts, for instance, in the Yang-Zhai Ji-Cheng (陽宅集成), a representative 18th-century Feng-Shui text, where it is said, that ‘When the door is opened, it would be better if the toilet cannot be seen.’ (莫對當門并眼見。), and ‘If there is a toilet placed in front of the entrance, the inhabitants will be troubled by litigations’ (門前若有坑廁屋, 官災心痛發幾場).29 Moreover, in the Shui-Hu-Di Ri-Shu bamboo-script compiled in the 3rd century BC, which is, of course, much earlier than the beginning of the development of the Feng-Shui tradition, it is said that ‘Setting the toilet behind the house is auspicious; setting the toilet in front of the house is inauspicious’ (屏居宇後, 吉; 屏居宇前, 不吉).30 Therefore, according to these words, putting a toilet in front of a house can be interpreted as putting it in front of the main entrance, which, as has already been shown, should not be done. Comparable architectural taboos and rules concerning the toilet in ancient Jewish, Islamic and medieval North-/ Middle-European houses The toilet taboos as observed in Taiwanese Sam-Hap-Inn houses or addressed in historical texts definitely makes it clear that the toilet, as part of the Unholy Zone in the mentally constructed space of the house, is thought to be a source of evil powers. In many other cultures, such as the ancient Jewish, medieval European and Islamic cultures, a multitude of architectural taboos, rules and legends also present the toilet as a source of evil. Thus, it is very helpful to broaden our scope to include these other spheres to gain a better understanding of the Taiwanese toilet taboos.

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In the Book of Deuteronomy (23:9-14), a section of the Jewish Torah, God instructs the soldiers not to defecate inside the camp but to do so in a designated place outside of the camp’s confines. Because God supposedly always travelled along with the camp, God should always reside in an unpolluted Holy Zone.31 This toilet taboo was repeated and underlined in the War Scroll, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls from the 2nd BC, which says that where bowel movements take place should be located more than 3000 feet from the camp, lest the filth should contaminate the Holy Zone reserved for Jaweh, his chosen people and his Holy Angels.32 In the ancient Jewish written tradition, especially in the Apocalyptic one, the dualism of clean/dirty, light/dark and holy/evil is clearly defined, which can be traced to various regulations concerning hygiene, food, offering and built environments. The concept of evil has usually been associated with dirt and darkness, and is rightfully considered the cause of many diseases. As God’s chosen people, Jews usually regarded their living space as the Holy Zone that should not be endangered or polluted by evil, because their awe-inspiring God and many of his Angels were supposed to live among them. In Islamic religious culture, twelve significant rules concerning the impure and unholy character of people’s bowel movements in the toilet have been clearly addressed in the Muslim Code of Conduct (‫)ﻓﺘﻮﻯ‬. For instance, during a bowel movement, one should not face Mecca or turn one’s back to Mecca.33 It is not difficult to understand why these rules should be observed. Since the Qibla (‫ )ﻗﺒﻠﺔ‬is the holy Mecca direction that should be faced all over the world when a Muslim prays, this should not be done when a person is having a bowel movement, which is – of course – considered a very unholy or evil action. The same goes for turning one’s back on the Mecca-Qibla during such an activity, because it is regarded as the holiest place of Islam. In medieval Northern and Middle European culture, the toilet hole has often been associated with evil or even seen as the gate to the underworld/Hell. While in Taiwan and the Middle East, a toilet should never be placed near a Terrestrial Holy Zone, on the famous map of the ideal Carolingian Monastery (circa AD 825) for instance, preserved in the library of the Swiss St. Gallen Abbey, the toilet is located at an ‘impractical’ large distance from the main monastery buildings, which was only accessible via a long pathway. The only reasonable explanation for this seems to be to prevent the toilet’s evil from contaminating the Monastery’s Holy Zone.34 According to another conviction from Carolingian times, people had to bring their sick children to a toilet in order to let them ‘pass through the toilet’s hole’, to cast out the evil with the evil, as the Bible (Matthew 12:22-29) notes. They obviously believed, as many other people from many different cultures did, that evil powers caused illnesses.35 Because people throughout history have regarded the toilet as a source of evil, they have at all cost, attempted to eliminate any possible connection between their holy dwelling zones and the unholy zone. Thus they attempted to eliminate this dangerous link by strictly maintaining certain architectural

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taboos, which they established in various building codes or legends that provided the correct spatial distance or directional relationship between the toilet and the holy terrestrial or celestial zones of the house. The toilet taboos as part of the shorter-cycle theme of the Axis Mundi and Cosmic Cross How the taboo to build the toilet on the left (Dragon) side is observed in Taiwanese Sam-Hap-Inn-type houses

The taboo that ‘the toilet should not be placed on the left or the Dragon side but on the right or the Tiger side’ can be satisfactorily explained within the framework of the shorter-cycle theme of the Axis Mundi and Cosmic Cross. The left side of a house, which is based on the ‘ideal south-orientated layout’ as developed in the traditional Yin-Yang and Five Elements concept, represents the east side of the compass and its positive notions, such as beginning, ascent, prosperity, influx and the auspicious. Within the framework of the same layout, the right side of the house represents the western side of the compass and its negative connotations such as ending, descent, decline, efflux and the inauspicious. This means, as we have already explained earlier, that the crucial principle that the left is superior to the right was formulated here. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand why people living in a Sam-Hap-Inn house would prefer not to place the inauspicious toilet on the cosmic auspicious left side. The following example of Mrs. Huang, who has lived for more than 25 years in a Sam-Hap-Inn house, is very illustrative in the way that inhabitants experience the left-side toilet taboo. During our interview, this older woman mentioned that ‘the toilet should not be placed on the left but on the right side’. ‘I’m not sure when our family’s old Sam-Hap-Inn house was built’, she continued, ‘The toilet seems to have always been located on the outside, on the right front-side of the house…. I remember that our sub-family lived in the part of the Toh-Chunn-Chiu (the left flank aisle). For me, using the toilet on wintery nights was always problematic, because it was a long way from the house … I also remember that most of the Sam-Hap-Inn houses in our village seemed to have their toilets on the right front-side, front-left side or back-left side. Usually, the toilets were combined with the pigpens, in order to collect the excrements from both the people and the pigs to use as manure’.36 A second person interviewed regarding the toilet taboo was Mr. Hsu, who has lived for more than 40 years in a Sam-Hap-Inn house in Nantou. He pointed out: ‘We are convinced that the Dragon (left) side is the auspicious side for good things to enter the house. Therefore, we usually place the toilet near the other filthy things like the pigpens, on the right side of the house; otherwise the inauspicious things may easily enter it’.37 Most peasants, like Mr. Hsu who live in rural Sam-Hap-Inn homes with a basically south-orientated layout, can easily recognize the cosmic dualism displayed by the east-to-west motion of celestial bodies. Consequently, the toilet as the most negative housing element should always be placed on the negative side.

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Why the taboo that ‘the toilet should not be placed on the left (Dragon) but the right (Tiger) side’ is ignored in the ‘Feng-Shui’ texts The rule that one should place the toilet on the Tiger (right) or east side seems to have been absent in all of the historical Feng-Shui texts. This goes along with the absence of the opposite, that the main entrance in the wall connecting the eastern and western aisles of the traditional courtyard house should be placed on the Dragon (left) or west side. Why has the obvious Taiwanese building tradition, concerning the left/right side positioning, or east-west cosmic dualism, been disregarded by all of the Feng-Shui practitioners or theoreticians? As we know, the Taiwanese Sam-Hap-Inn House is usually more or less orientated toward the south, and consequently its inhabitants can always be aware of the cosmic order marked by the well-known astronomical phenomena. The awareness of the link between the Dragon (left)/Tiger (right) sides and, respectively, the east/west directions of the compass has never diminished for those who live in a Sam-Hap-Inn House, on the contrary, it has only been reinforced by their daily experiences of the motions and seasonal changes of the celestial bodies. That is to say, only the homes with an ‘ideal south-orientated layout’, which are mostly found in the countryside, enable its inhabitants to fully experience the cosmic east/west order. However, most of the dwellingrelated Feng-Shui texts and theories were written and developed after the 14th century and usually concerned architectural practices in an urban environment.38 Compared to those who have built their mostly free-standing SamHap-Inn houses in the countryside, people living in an urban environment have much more difficulty when it comes to following the ‘ideal south-orientated layout’, because most of these urban buildings have to be arranged according to the limited space of the site and its haphazard orientation on an arbitrary street. Therefore, these buildings may be orientated to any direction, which may not necessarily be the south. Since urban dwellers cannot directly perceive the east-west motion of the celestial bodies, the cosmic dualism of the east/west axis lost its dominant position in the people’s mental concepts and experiences of their homes. As Feng-Shui represents building in an urban context rather than the very different reality of building in a rural one, this explains why Feng-Shui practitioners and theoreticians since the 14th century have ignored, intentionally or unintentionally, the cosmic dualism represented by the Dragon(left)/Tiger(right) side, based on the cosmic east/west solar axis and the ‘ideal south-orientated layout’. Toilet taboos based on the cosmic dualism of individual constellations as recorded in Chinese historical texts Although the toilet taboo, based on the notion of the left/right, east/west principle is absent in old Chinese Feng-Shui texts, this does not mean that the ways to build represented in these texts do not belong to those of the shorter-cycle Axis Mundi and Cosmic Cross theme, which are also rooted in this kind of cosmic

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dualism. For instance, in the Ba-Zhai-Ming-Jing (八宅明鏡), a Feng-Shui book from the Compass School, written in the 18th century, it is said: ‘In a house, it is better to place the toilet on the inauspicious side, determined by the householder’s horoscope. The toilet placed on the inauspicious side will effectively suppress the evil spirit, and free good fortune’s way…. Do not make the mistake of placing the toilet on the auspicious side of the house.’ (凡出穢之所宜壓於本 命之凶方, 鎮住凶神, 反發大福(…)不可混錯, 或誤改於屋之吉方).39 As this text reveals, the auspicious/inauspicious side of a house is not simply based on the awareness of the cosmic left/right-east/west Axis, but more specifically on the homeowner’s horoscope. After a complicated calculation, based on several disciplinary rules of the Compass School, one of which is the owner’s horoscope, the auspicious/inauspicious side can be determined. Consequently, each of the eight principle sides – the four cardinal sides along with the four diagonal ones – can be either auspicious or inauspicious (figure 10). The auspicious and the inauspicious side, though not necessarily being the east and the west sides, are normally also each other’s opposite, because the cosmos is represented by the symmetrical human body, the oldest ‘map’, which belongs to the Anthropomorphic long-cycle tradition.

Fig. 10 Yang-Zhai Ji-Xheng, 18th-century (reprint). According to the principles of the Compass School, the auspicious/inauspicious side can be determined by the owner’s horoscope along with the eight principle sides of a house.40

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Comparable cosmic dualisms in the building practices based on the Indian Vaastu Shastra concepts Sashikala Ananth, an Indian, architect(ural historian) and practitioner of Indian Vaastu Shastra, mentions in her well-known book: Vaastu: The Classical Indian Science of Architecture and Design, the principle of the placement of the toilet and the water inlet, which is comparable to the meaningful dyad of the toilet and the entrance gate to the Sam-Hap-Inn house. According to her, the toilet should not be placed opposite to the water inlet or water tank. These should be placed on the northeastern, eastern or northern side, because the north(eastern) side belongs to the element of water, being its ‘residence’ and therefore is seen as the direction which is best nourished by cosmic energy.41 Like Sashikala Ananth, Talavane Krishna is also a practitioner of Vaastu Shastra, and confirms that the northeast should be seen as the most beneficial direction because positive energy continuously comes from that side. Its opposite compass side, the southwest, should be seen as the most malefic direction because negative energies always come from that side. Knowing this, it seems logical that gates and windows should be placed in the northern, the northeastern or the eastern walls of a house.42 The entrance gate and the toilet are respectively the positive and the negative pole of the Sin-Bin-Thiann or holy centre/holy celestial zone of the Taiwanese Sam-Hap-Inn house, while the water inlet and the toilet have, according to the Vaastu Shastra concept, the same dualist function in relation to the holy centre/holy celestial zone of an Indian house. Sashikala Ananth makes the very meaningful and traditional comparison between the central area of a house and the central square of the Vaastu Shastra Mandala, where Brahma, the supreme Hindu god, resides. This explains why the central space of the house is seen as the holy celestial zone, which always has the most cosmic energy. For that reason, it should not be used for everyday living, but should be arranged as the ceremonial gathering place for family members. Comparable cosmic dualism according to the shorter-cycle theme of the ‘Axis Mundi and Cosmic Cross’ in other worldwide building concepts In addition to the Chinese and Indian building concepts, respectively influenced by the sophisticated Yin-Yang and Five Elements and Vaastu Shastra theories, this kind of architectural cosmic dualism in the framework of the shorter-cycle representational theme of the Axis Mundi and Cosmic Cross can also be readily found in a variety of other comparable worldwide building concepts. For instance, the English architectural historian, Paul Oliver, in his book Dwellings: The Vernacular House Worldwide, analyzed many cases of traditional building concepts which, without exception, represented this significant cosmic dualism.

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THE THAU-THINN-CHU HOUSE AND ITS TOILET TABOOS Spatial and typological characteristics of Thau-Thinn-Chu houses Since the late 18th century, when many smaller villages began to grow into towns and many people moved from other villages to these (new) towns, a different kind of house was developed. A single-story, terraced housing based on a deep and narrow plan began to dominate the (new) towns. Since the early 20th century, this kind of housing has been transformed into a multi-storied one, which is called Thau-Thinn-Chu (透天厝) or the ‘sky-touching house’. This new mixed-usage version simultaneously accommodates shops and housing, and is primarily characterized by a long corridor that runs as a horizontal axis from the front to the rear side connecting all the interior spaces. Moreover, the staircase, as a second and vertical axis, connects the home’s various floors (figs. 11 and 12). The Thau-Thinn-Chu house and the representation of socio-cosmic realities within the framework of The Holy and Unholy Zones shorter-cycle theme Whenever you compare the tripartite zoning of the Thau-Thinn-Chu house and the Sam-Hap-Inn house in the framework of the shorter-cycle theme of The Holy and Unholy Zones, you will see that, apart from some minor changes, the location of the central Sin-Bin-Thiann or family shrine hall has been changed. According to the aforementioned principle that the ancestors and gods in the Sin-Bin-Thiann should be able to look outside, risking losing their heavenly powers, the family shrine hall should not be placed in the centre or at the rear side of such a narrow and deep kind of dwelling as the Thau-Thinn-Chu house.

Fig. 11 Changhua, Thau-Thinn-Chu House façades (photo: author).

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Fig. 12 Changhua, the Thau-Thinn-Chu plans for the house in fig. 11 (drawing: author).

In the older single-storied terraced houses without a courtyard, people started to move the Sin-Bin-Thiann to the front room, making sure that their ancestors and the gods could look outside, as they were used to. However, using this space, which is, as a rule, a shop, at the same time as a Sin-Bin-Thiann, would harm the latter’s sacred character. Hence, in a lot of houses of this kind, the family shrine hall has been placed in the second or next space. In doing so, the ancestors and the gods were given a place that was, on the one hand, not too far from the outside but, on the other hand, inevitably without a full view of the world outside. After the multi-storied Thau-Thinn-Chu was developed, people started to move the Sin-Bin-Thiann to a superior position, in both senses of the word: locating it in the first space on the top floor. Henceforth, the ancestors and the gods would have an excellent view and a place in the upper Zone of the building, which commonly represents the holy zone of heaven. During an interview with Mr. Wu, a Taiwanese architect who has designed many contemporary Thua-Thinn-Chu houses, it became clear how people think of this new Sin-Bin-Thiann position in their new homes: ‘When designing a Thau-Thinn-Chu house, I usually placed the Sin-Bin-Thian on the top

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floor, because people don’t want their ancestors and gods to be under their feet, or otherwise their ancestors and gods might be offended. Besides, the SinBin-Thian must be placed in the front room, otherwise the ancestors and gods cannot look outside, and thus they would not have the heavenly powers they need to protect the house.’ Since the Sin-Bin-Thiann was moved to this new ‘top’ position, the tripartite zoning has changed from a horizontal (= Sam-Hap-Inn house) to a vertical one, which intrinsically belongs to the architectural representations in the realm of the Axis Mundi and Cosmic Cross shorter cycle theme as well. Because the Thau-Thinn-Chu House has a narrow and deep plan, it is almost impossible to maintain the ‘correct’ Anthropomorphic/Physiomorphic long-cycle traditions-based spatial hierarchy on the inside, which presupposes that the left side is superior to the right one. Nevertheless, people still value living spaces which are close to the Sin-Bin-Thiann as higher ranking. Therefore, the spatial hierarchy is reformulated as follows: the rooms close to the front should be ranked higher than those near the rear. According to the Holy and Unholy Zones theme, rooms that are adjacent to the top floor normally have a higher status than those closer to or on the ground floor. However, this kind of spatial hierarchy is not as absolutely and strictly maintained as in the much older Sam-Hap-Inn houses. What about the cosmic ‘entrance gate and toilet’ dualism, which represents the old left-right hierarchical order? As we will see further on, this question can be best discussed within the framework of the shorter-cycle Axis Mundi and Cosmic Cross representational theme.

THE TOILET TABOOS AS REPRESENTED IN THE ARCHITECTURE OF THAU-THINN-CHU HOUSES Re-formulated toilet taboos and the struggle for maintaining old representations in the framework of the shorter-cycle theme of the Axis Mundi and Cosmic Cross Maintaining the cosmic dualism by respecting old taboos in new ‘Thau-Thinn-Chu’ houses

As discussed earlier, representational traditions in the field of the shorter-cycle theme of the Axis Mundi and Cosmic Cross are still present in (new) ThauThinn-Chu houses, although the principle that ‘the left side is superior to the right side’ seems to be losing ground. After having explored many cases, we can conclude that the toilet taboo still exists in Thau-Thinn-Chu houses, and is taken seriously especially by former inhabitants of Sam-Hap-Inn houses. The case of Mr. Hsu’s family is a very convincing example of this phenomenon. During our interview, Mr. Hsu told us that, after the family Sam-Hap-Inn house was destroyed in the 1999 earthquake, they decided to divide the site into six lots, one for each sub-family. Their sub-family built a new ThauThinn-Chu house on the allotted site, and, in doing so, decided to respect the

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old features of the Sam-Hap-Inn house as much as possible: ‘So the orientation of our new Thau-Thinn-Chu to the south represents the old Sam-Hap-Inn’s traditional direction’. They again placed the toilet on the Tiger side (the right side) and the front main entrance of the new Thau-Thinn-Chu house is on the left (Dragon) side as it was in their old Sam-Hap-Inn house.43 Apparently, the cosmic dualism represented by the left and right sides of a south-facing dwelling still dominates Mr. Hsu’s mental construction of a proper housing space, as it continues to rule the notions of many others as well (fig. 13).

THE MODERN APARTMENT HOUSE AND THE TOILET TABOOS The spatial and structural characteristics of modern apartment houses After World War II, some two million Chinese people migrated from mainland China to Taiwan, mainly settling in its cities. A large number of Taiwanese villagers also began migrating from the countryside to the bigger cities. This resulted

Fig. 13 Nantou, façade of the Hsu family’s Thau-Thinn-Chu house, built after the 1999 earthquake. The entrance door traditionally occupies the left side of the façade (photo: author).

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in an overwhelming process of rapid urbanization, an enormous increase in the urban population and, consequently, resulted in tremendous social and economic changes. Since the 1960s, the modern apartment building has gradually become the dominant kind of urban housing. Apartments differ from the traditional Sam-Hap-Inn or Thau-Thinn-Chu houses, because they are mostly designed by modern architects and built by real estate developers (fig. 14). The plans of modern apartment complexes differ much more from one another than those of the U-shaped Sam-Hap-Inn group and the deep and narrow Thau-Thinn-Chu dwellings ever did. Nevertheless, they are very similar in terms of their supposed ‘Modern functionalism’, design and technology.44 How do the residents of modern apartment houses buildings experience their living spaces when compared to the past? If the old, traditional toilet taboos of the Sam-Hap-Inn and Thau-Thinn-Chu houses are represented in today’s Taiwanese apartment buildings, how is this done? In order to be able to answer these questions, one has to analyze and compare the old and new representations of building concepts within the frameworks of the shorter-cycle themes of the Holy and Unholy Zones and the Axis Mundi and Cosmic Cross.

Fig. 14 Taipei, a contemporary apartment building (photo: author).

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Old building concepts represented as part of the reality of modern apartment buildings within the framework of the shorter-cycle theme of The Holy and Unholy Zones Since the ‘boundaries’ between the holy celestial, the holy terrestrial and the unholy zones in the concept of today’s apartment architecture have become fairly blurred, it is difficult to represent the traditionally required tripartite zoning in this context. One of the consequences of this is that fewer and fewer modern apartments have Sin-Bin-Thiann spaces. Even though some families still worship their gods and ancestors at home, they usually confine themselves to erecting an altar instead of designing a Sin-Bin-Thiann inside their apartments. Even though they may still be seen as the focus of the Holy Zone, the altar has usually been reduced to nothing more than a piece of furniture in the sitting or dining room. Consequently, it is almost impossible to discern how the traditional holy celestial and holy terrestrial Zones are architecturally represented, and where they meet. This is all the more so for apartments that do not have a family altar. Do these homes represent the traditional trizonal concepts in any way at all? As a reaction, a new spatial focus or Li-Ji point (立極點) has been conceived to secure the continuity of the architectural representation of the celestial holy zone and the Axis Mundi in the modern living environment. Old building concepts represented as part of the reality of modern apartments within the framework of the shorter-cycle theme of Axis Mundi and Cosmic Cross Losing your sense of orientation in modern apartments

Without either a Sin-Bin-Thiann or the traditional anthropomorphically based plan like that found in the Sam-Hap-Inn or Thau-Thinn-Chu house, apartment dwellers often seem to lose their sense of orientation. Apartment dwellers with a family altar are often unsure of how to orient their altars towards the main entrance (i.e., the door leading to the staircase or elevator lobby) or the main opening (i.e. usually the big French window leading to a balcony). When we interviewed Mr. Gao on this topic, he noted: ‘Of those families who have an altar in their apartments, some prefer to orient the family altar toward the entrance side, treating this direction as the (representation of the) front (of the traditional house), while others prefer to orient the altar toward the French windows, treating this direction as the (representation of the traditional) front because they believe that the ancestors and gods on the altar need to look outside (as they once did in the olden days).’45 In modern housing architecture, the (orientation of the) front has become a variable dependent upon circumstance, which means that the traditional cosmic coordinate system, which indicates the front, rear, left and right sides of the anthropomorphic housing concept, has lost its absolute and fundamental

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Fig. 15 The ground plan of a contemporary Taiwanese apartment. For those who live in these kind of apartments, it is often difficult to keep the traditional sense of orientation towards which direction the family altar should face – the entrance or the main window – and on which this should be based (drawing: author).

character. Consequently, apartment dwellers now need a new architectural representation of this old spatial and mental reality (fig. 15). The Li-Ji point as the representation of both the ‘Axis Mundi’ and the ‘Holy Celestial Zone’ of the modern apartment house The aforementioned new representation of the old cosmic centre is the Li-Ji point, and, of course, the geometric centre of the home’s floor plan (fig. 16).

Fig. 16 The Li-Ji point as the (new) geometrical centre of the home’s floor plan (drawing: author).

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This is a new and important concept in contemporary Feng-Shui practice, which represents the Axis Mundi as well as the focus point of the holy zone in modern apartments. In many contemporary Feng-Shui manuals, we are told that, when designing an apartment building, the Li-Ji point, as the centre of each apartment, should be defined first. Accordingly, the eight important directions, represented by the Eight Diagrams, can also be defined. According to the popular Feng-Shui manual, The Manual of Housing Feng-Shui in the Year of the Pig 2007, many ways to find the Li-Ji point, based on geometrical methods, are taught.46 How the Li-Ji point is related to the toilet taboo will be discussed in the next section.

OLD TOILET TABOOS IN MODERN APARTMENTS Old toilet taboos in modern apartments represented within the framework of the shorter-cycle themes of The Holy and Unholy Zones and The Axis Mundi and Cosmic Cross The inevitable changes of toilet taboos due to the blurred boundaries between the holy celestial, terrestrial and unholy zones

Although the ‘boundaries’ between the holy celestial, terrestrial and unholy zones in modern apartments have become blurred, they still exist in the minds of many of their inhabitants, no matter how vague. Many inhabitants still consider the toilet as the focus of the unholy zone of the house. Within the framework of the shorter-cycle Holy and Unholy Zones theme, new variations of architectural representation have been developed to prevent the (toilet)evil from endangering the holy celestial and terrestrial spaces of the modern home. However, it is impossible in these apartments, to strictly distinguish between the unholy toilet sphere and the holy living space. Therefore, the main thing that has been done to cope with this has meant attempting to avoid as much as possible a confrontation between the two. One of the most important ways to keep the holy and unholy living spheres separated, is to avoid any inauspicious spatial relationship between the toilet, the family altar and the other rooms. A family shrine would never face a toilet’s door or let the toilet be located behind it. Not only should axial contact between the toilet door and the shrine be avoided, but also the toilet’s entrance should never face any other door in the home either. This is not always that easy to manage because the contemporary apartment toilet is usually attached to the sitting room or located in a bedroom. To protect the living areas, which traditionally belong to the holy terrestrial zone, the toilet taboo is transformed in a specific way. When we interviewed Mr. Chen, the chief architect at Sunyuan Architects & Associates (Taipei), about this issue, he noted the following: ‘When designing an apartment, we are always asked to respect these transformed toilet taboos. Besides the (aforementioned) taboo of a toilet’s door facing other interior doors, we should also avoid allowing the

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toilet to face important furniture, such as a bed, a table or a desk, when the toilet has to be located close to, or even in, a dining, sitting or sleeping room.’47 These newly formulated taboos make it clear that people can only try to prevent the evil Qi of the toilet from endangering their living space, because, under new housing circumstances, they can basically no longer architecturally represent a clear spatial demarcation between the various zones as easily as the builders of Sam-Hap-Inn and Thau-Thinn-Chu houses. There is another toilet taboo practiced in apartment buildings that seems to be rather enigmatic. Mr. Chen commented upon it as follows: ‘In addition, we should not neglect the taboo that the toilet’s door should not face the entrance door.’ How could this toilet taboo play a role in separating the unholy and holy terrestrial zones/spheres, when the toilet has been accepted as an element of the home’s interior? Why should people want to protect the entrance door from inside against the toilet evil? Nevertheless, this toilet taboo is highly comparable to the older one, which states that ‘the outside toilet should not be placed in front of any entrance door’, which in the past could be easily observed in the Sam-Hap-Inn housing complex. It is reasonable to assume that this old toilet taboo can survive in the modern apartment environment, because it is ingrained in people’s memories. Because it is no longer ‘functional’, its meaning is no longer understood, and interpreters try to explain its existence in a more general, although still anthropomorphic way. According to the Zen master Hun-Yuan (渾元禪師), a famous contemporary Feng-Shui practitioner in Taiwan, this toilet taboo should be explained as follows: ‘A toilet opposite the entrance door will necessarily lead to verbal warfare in the family, because the entrance door represents the human mouth, which should not be stained (by the negative toilet Qi).’48 The inevitable changes of toilet taboos due to the introduction of the ‘Li-Ji’ central point as a representation of the ‘Axis Mundi’ Nobody will be astonished when they read that ‘the toilet should not be placed at the geometrical centre or the Li-Ji point of the house’. This rule was of course formulated to protect the very ancient cosmic centre or Axis Mundi in the modern setting of the apartment, and is nowadays strictly obeyed by most inhabitants. Moreover, since fewer and fewer families even have an altar any more, the Li-Ji point in a way replaces the family shrine, and it is thus usually regarded as both the apartment’s cosmic centre and the focus of its celestial holy zone. The toilet-door-facing-the-front-door-taboo is very comparable to the new interpretation of the toilet-door-facing-the-Li-Ji point-taboo. Although the interpretation is still based on the Anthropomorphic long-cycle tradition and also still partly belongs to the Axis Mundi and Cosmic Cross shorter-cycle theme, this interpretation no longer represents the reality of the hierarchical structure of the traditional family house. For instance, Mr. Huang, a traditional Chinese physician, interpreted the Li-Ji point thusly: ‘The centre of the house

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should be seen as the human spleen or stomach, the crucial digestive organs, and therefore should not be contaminated by the dirty Qi emitted by the toilet. Otherwise, the (positive) centre-based Qi cannot operate appropriately throughout the house. The centre of the house can also be seen as analogous to the Element Earth, which determines the motions and influences of the other four Elements. Hence, the centre is a critical point for the house as well as for the human body and for the cosmos.’49 It is very clear that his explanation is just another way of retelling the age-old story of the house as a representation of the cosmic body. Mr. Gao continued by relating another relic of old Taiwanese cosmic representation, which hints at the problems more traditional-minded people have in trying to pinpoint the absolute left-right axis of their apartments. They are very worried about the absence of absolute parameters, which they need to organize their dwelling properly. How could they respect the taboo that ‘the toilet should not be placed on the left but on the right side’ of the altar, if they do not know what is right and what is left because their apartment has no clear ‘face’ or front?’50 However, the new cosmic centre of the modern house or Li-Ji has become the new point of reference for many architects and inhabitants who want to respect traditional architectural taboos based on the house being an anthropomorphic representation of the cosmos. When in the contemporary Feng-Shui practice the Li-Ji point has been determined and the eight major directions of the compass are accordingly defined, the Feng-Shui practitioners will be able to suggest where one should place certain immovable elements of the house as well as pieces of furniture. During this procedure, classic cosmic antonyms such as in/out, auspicious/inauspicious and prosperity/decline will be applied. Positioning the toilet should of course also be done according to the instructions of Feng-Shui practitioners along with the eight major directions, starting at the Li-Ji point, to obtain a reliable representation of the cosmic left/right dualism. As we have shown in the course of the present analysis of the position of the toilet in different Taiwanese housing concepts over the centuries, the architectural taboos continued to accompany this phenomenon, which, in turn, warranted the continuity of the architectural representation of some of the major realities of the dweller’s age-old worldviews. The representation of the built environment as a representation of the cosmos, based on Anthropomorphic and Physiomorphic long-cycle traditions, never ceased to be the main concern of inhabitants and builders in the process of designing, building and furnishing these homes. All this was done using structural and formal elements of different kinds of houses, which were created within the frameworks of the shorter-cycle representational themes Holy and Unholy Zones and Axis Mundi & Cosmic Cross. When Taiwanese society became less traditional and hierarchical, and above all massively urbanized, like in many other regions around the world, the strict separation between the Holy and Unholy Zones became blurred. The highest

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representation of the cosmic reality of a human dwelling has not faded away but has, on the contrary been reinvented: the Axis Mundi and Cosmic Cross are currently being represented in another, no less clear way via the Li-Ji point and its eight major directions. As the most telling domestic representation of evil, the toilet must be kept out of this new centre of the house and should, if possible, continue to represent the inferiority of the right side, where the sun sets in the cosmic order.

NOTES 1

2

3 4 5 6

7 8

9

Bao-De Han argues that the research on architectural taboos should be based exclusively on historical Feng-Shui texts in order to avoid continuing the ongoing dispute among contemporary Feng-Shui practitioners of the various schools. See his remarkable article ‘Research on the housing building taboos in the Feng-Shui theories’, in Feng-Shui and Environment, Taipei, 2006, pp. 110-111. Ronald G. Knapp, although concerned with some contemporary cases of architectural taboo interpretation, pays much more attention to classical cases of architectural taboos in historical texts in his recent article, ‘Siting and Situating a Dwelling: Feng-Shui, House-Building Rituals, and Amulets’, in House Home Family: Living and Being Chinese (eds. Ronald G. Knapp and Kai-Yin Lo) Honolulu, 2005. Form School, also called Xing-Fa (形法) or Luan-Tou (巒頭) School, tends to deal with the siting, orientation and arrangement of a building by means of the survey of the environmental terrain configurations and topographical landscape features. Compass School, also called the Xiang-Fa (向法) or Li-qi (理氣) School, tends to deal with those based on the complicated calculations by means of a Feng-Shui compass and in terms of many numerological symbols. Bao-De Han 2006 (1), p. 137. Knapp 2005 (1), pp. 119-120. Luo and Xiao-Xin He, Feng-Shui: A Journey through Time (Taipei, 2004), pp. 110-116. Zheng-Sheng Du, ‘The Inside-Outside and the Eight Directions: The Ethics and Cosmology of Chinese Traditional Housing Space’, in Space, Power and Society (eds. Y. Huang. Academia Sinica Series) Taipei, 1995, pp. 236-243. Bao-De Han 2006 (1), p. 46. After the 14th century, Feng-Shui theories eventually became more and more comprehensively developed and inextricably intertwined with architectural knowledge and practices. For example, in the 15th-century book, Hui-tu Lu-Ban-Jing (繪圖魯班經), a lot of architectural taboos have been depicted by vivid illustrations and four-line rhymes, and, needless to say, this book definitely represents the traditional way that carpenters should work but not the (theoretical) ways of Feng-Shui. See: Klaas Ruitenbeek, Carpentry and Building in Late Imperial China: A study of the fifteenth-century carpenter’s manual Lu Ban Jing, Leiden, 1993. In the past, Taiwanese people used to call their traditional housing the Chu (厝) (the house), the Hia-Chu (瓦厝) (the tile-roofed house), or the Toa-Chu (大厝) (the big house). The term Sam-Hap-Inn was created after WWII by architectural historians from Mainland China to make Taiwanese housing more easily comparable to the traditional housing in Beijing, the ‘SiHe-Yuan’ (四合院), characterized by its four aisles built around a central courtyard. In Taiwanese Hoh-Lo language, the word ‘Sam’ in the term Sam-Hap-Inn, means the figure ‘three’, and the words ‘Hap-Inn’ means the ‘house with a courtyard’. In Chinese mandarin, the word ‘Si’ of the ‘Si-He-Yuan’ means the number ‘four’, and the words ‘He-Yuan’ mean the ‘house with a courtyard’. Though created by the architectural historians from mainland China, the term ‘Sam-Hap-Inn’ is now generally accepted by the Taiwanese people. In this essay, the spelling of the term ‘Sam-Hap-Inn’ as well as other terms related to ‘Sam-Hap-Inn’ housing is based on the pronunciation of the Taiwanese Hoh-lo (福佬) language.

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10 The term ‘Sin-Bin-Thiann’ is also called Ciann-Thiann (正廳) (the ‘main hall’), the KongThiann (公廳) (the ‘public hall’), the Toa-Thiann (大廳) (the ‘big hall’), or the Cho-Thiann (祖堂) (the ‘ancestral hall’). 11 Wen-Shang Chen, The Image of the Human body in the Traditional Taiwanese Sam-hap-inn: a demonstrative research on the geosophy II (Department of Geography, Chinese Culture University Taipei Series), Taipei, 1993, pp. 40-41. 12 Knapp 2005 (1), pp. 110-114. Fan-Yuan Dong, Study on the Protective Function of ‘Pa-Gua-Pai’ on the door’s lintel of the Taiwanese houses, Taipei, 1996, pp. 38-39. 13 Yu-Lan Fung, A History of Chinese Philosophy I (trans.: Derk Bodde), Princeton, 1983, pp. 2630. Because Yin (陰) and Yang (陽) is a dyadic concept, it is used to represent opposing but complementary things or phenomena observable in the whole cosmos. However, the Five Elements, consisting of metal, wood, water, fire and earth with their complex interrelationships, also represent the essential composition of the cosmos. The ‘Yin-Yang’ and the ‘Five Elements’ were separated as two irrelevant traditions in the beginning but integrated into a new, unifying philosophy by Tsou-Yen (鄒衍) (3rd century BC) a philosopher of the latter years of the Warring States Period (戰國時代) Zhi-Ren Kuang, the Yin-Yang and Five Elements and its System, Taipei, 2003, pp. 33-38. 14 One can read there that: ‘Wood occupies the left, metal the right, fire the front, water the back, and earth the center ... Thus, wood occupies the eastern quarter, where it rules over the Qi (氣) of Spring Fire occupies the southern quarter, where it rules over the Qi of Summer. Metal occupies the Western quarter, where it rules over the Qi of Autumn. Water occupies the north quarter, where it rules over the Qi of Winter.’ Here the word Qi (氣) means ‘cosmic force’. More of its meanings will be worked out later on in this essay. See: Su Yu, The Commentary on Chun-Chiu Fan-Lu, Beijing, 1992, pp. 321-322. 15 Moreover, in the same book, the interacting (相生) and neutralizing (相勝) relationship between the elements has been elaborated as follows: On the one hand, wood feeds fire, fire creates earth, earth bears metal, metal collects water and water nourishes wood, and on the other hand, wood parts earth, earth blocks water, water quenches fire, fire melts metal and metal chops wood. See: Su Yu 1992, pp. 361-371. The interacting and neutralizing relationships as well as the spatial relationships between every two elements, allows the Tung Chung-Shu to be systematically interpreted based on how and why the human body, social relationships, seasonal changes and cosmic phenomena happen or function and showed, accordingly, the harmonic union of heaven and mankind. See: Su Yu 1992, pp. 314-317. 16 Yu-Lan Fung 1983 (13), pp. 131-132. 17 Zhi-Ren Kuang 2003 (13), pp. 350-354. 18 Dun-Zhen Liu, The History of Chinese Ancient Architecture, Beijing, 1987, p. 118. 19 Sashikala Ananth, Vaastu: The Classical Indian Science of Architecture and Design, New Delhi, 1999, pp. 78-79. However, in different theoretical books or manuals of Vaastu Shastra, each of the five Indian elements is not always represented by the same spatial position. As noted in some other books or manuals, the earth may be represented by the southwest, whilst the ether may be represented by the centre. 20 Ananth 1999 (19), pp. 73-74, 82, 96-100. 21 Ananth 1999 (19), pp. 91-96. 22 Ananth 1999 (19), p. 109. 23 Ananth 1999 (19), pp. 80-82, 109. 24 Ananth 1999 (19), p.81. 25 Yih-Yuan Li, The Picture of Culture II: A cultural observation of the religion and the ethnic group, Taipei, 1994, pp.206-207. 26 Yu-Lan Fung 1983 (13), pp. 16-19, 106-109, 159-169, 382-387 435-444, 478-482, 542-546, 636644. 27 Knapp 2005 (1), pp. 123-124. 28 Chinese culture knows of various kinds of evil powers, which arrive from outside. A prominent one is the so-called ‘formal Sha (煞)’ the malicious, harmful and invisible power,

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29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

38 39 40 41 42 43

44 45 46 47 48

49

believed to be caused by external objects that have particular formal characteristics, for example: poles, roads, angles of other buildings and some landscapes. Nowadays, architects are often asked to carefully choose the location of a new house they are designing, and never place its entrances and windows directly opposite formal Sha-causing objects outside. If it is impossible to avoid these formal Sha-causing objects, people often hang amulets in the windows and entrances in order to exorcise and dissolve the harmful Sha power. Ting-Luan Yao, Yang-Zhai Ji-Cheng, Taipei, 2003, p. 435. Yue-Xian Liu, A Study on the Shui-Hu-Di Ri-Shu Bamboo-Script, Taipei, 1994, p. 219. Deuteronomy (23: 9-14), See: The New Oxford Annotated Bible, the New Revised Standard Version, New York/Oxford, 1989, p. 248. Yen-Zen Tsai, Revelation and Salvation: Apocalypticism in the Early Western Civilization, Taipei, 2001, p. 165. Friedrich Ragette, Traditional Domestic Architecture of the Arab Region, Berlin, 2003, p.73. V. Geramb, ‘Abort’, in: Handwo¨rterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens (ed. Hanns Ba¨chtoldSta¨ubli), Berlin, 1987, p. 91. Geramb 1987 (34), p. 94. Interview with Mrs. Huang (born 1925) on 31 August 2006. Mrs. Huang lived in a Sam-HapInn House in Chuanghua in central Taiwan during her youth. Interview with Mr. Hsu in Nantou, Taiwan on 12 March 2006. The Hsu family has lived in an old Sam-Hap-Inn house that was more than 130 years old. After the house was destroyed by the big 1999 earthquake, they built a new house in the Thau-Thinn-Chu housing tradition on the same site. Bao-De Han 2006 (1), pp. 127. Ruo-Guan Dao-Ren, Ba-Zhai-Ming-Jing, Taichung, 2002, p. 58. Ananth 1999 (19), pp. 82, 125-126. Talavane Krishna, The Vaastu Workbook: Using the Subtle Energies of the Indian Art of Placement to Enhance Health, Prosperity and Happiness in your Home, Rochester, 2001, pp. 33-38. Interview with Mr. Hsu 2006 (37). In contemporary Taiwan, there are several standard ‘types’ of apartments including the 2room, the 3-room-with-2-halls apartment, and the 4-room-with-2-halls type. This is the terminology commonly used by real-estate developers and architects to characterize the apartments according to the number of bedrooms, sitting rooms and dining rooms. For example, the 4-room-with-2-halls type indicates an apartment with four bedrooms, one sitting room and a dining room. Interview with Mr. Gao in Taipei on 11 September 2006. Fu-Xi Ju-Shi and Yuan-Ming Ju-Shi, The Manual of Housing Feng-Shui in the 2007 Pig Year, Taichung, 2007, pp. 89-93. Interview with Mr. Chen in Taipei on 11 January 2006. Mr. Chen is the chief architect at Sunyuan Architects & Associates and has designed houses for more than 20 years in Taipei. Zen master Hun-Yuan on 12 June 2007, from Fate Open Life Career Center, visit: http://www. fateopen.com/news/fn.php?op=fn&d_id=21. Interview with Mr. Huang in Taipei on 1 June 2007. Mr. Huang is a traditional Chinese physician. As well as many other traditional Chinese physicians, he is also a Feng-Shui specialist. This is quite common because knowledge of Feng-Shui and traditional Chinese medicine are based on the same age-old traditional knowledge, which is handed down by the so-called ‘School of the Yin-Yang and Five Elements’. Interview with Mr. Gao in 2006 (44).

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5

The Architectural Representation of Diversity Changing Scopes to Meet Changing Realities in The Hague’s Transvaal Neighbourhood Aart Mekking

DRIFTING IDENTITIES LOOKING FOR SUITABLE DWELLINGS The average person starts feeling uneasy when the social composition of his neighbourhood begins to dramatically change. The built environment increasingly does not meet local demands, be they material or immaterial. In other words, the built environment will no longer serve as a representation of reality. This discrepancy may be caused by social ‘degradation’ when, for instance, poor people are forced to live in large houses that were abandoned by the wellto-do, when the rich people like to live in smaller and simpler houses. In the first case, the inhabitants do not have the money to maintain their house and properly furnish it, which eventually leads to dilapidation and a general pessimism. In the second case, the too small and simple houses will be fixed up by the well-to-do with all of the luxuries and comforts they are used to. In prosperous Europe, the latter is more often the case than the former. Since the 1970s, it has become fashionable among the higher-educated, young and leftish urban professionals to live in mixed, small working-class housing, to show a certain solidarity with the former inhabitants but under much more comfortable circumstances.1 Where apolitical, romantic illusions about the past matter more than social feelings, some simply love to live in strange dwellings such as former factories, churches, prisons, monasteries, town halls, schools, windmills, water towers and train stations. Perhaps huge villas, split up into luxurious apartments, could also be considered strange dwellings as well.

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Nevertheless, most people prefer to live in traditional houses, with gardens and garages, using, of course, traditional forms, which should, by no means, be nostalgic at the expense of living comfort. It is very interesting to see how the unconventional upper classes and the convention-seeking lower middle-class dwellers are finding totally different building traditions to represent their identities. The former are looking for eccentric housing conditions to accentuate their unique individuality. The latter eagerly want to be accepted as copy-paste members of the Home Magazine Society, living in conventional quarters filled up with outworn pastiches of former bourgeois status. And what about the millions of inhabitants who have their roots in other parts of the world? With what kind of building traditions would they prefer to represent their identities, ideals and expectations? Do they really have an adequate range of choices?

REPRESENTING IDENTITIES IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT Of course, this is, first of all, about money. But even if expenses do not play a major role, how easy is it to trace the building tradition that meets the needs of architectural self-representation? Which architectural design, or which changes in an already existing built environment, will make one feel comfortable and satisfied? Only the architecturally educated, knowing enough about dwelling history among the various classes and cultures, can help find a satisfactory answer to such a multifaceted and complicated question. Because this is all about the representation of collective or personal identities, it stands to reason that we should base our analysis of buildings or their design on the paradigm of the built environment as a representation of reality, of which identity is an example. It is very important here to realize that ‘modernity’ is just one of the realities one finds represented in the built environment of any one place and time, including the future. To be new and original is just an ambition and therefore no more than a tradition in its own right. Because something cannot be created out of nothing (‘creatio ex nihilo’), the first thing every architect and architectural historian should do, apart from being suspicious, is to seek out the building traditions that the allegedly ‘new’ and ‘original’ are inevitably based on. The difference between the analysis of architecture and the design of architecture is that the first deals with how and which traditions have been used in the past to represent certain realities, while the latter investigates how and which traditions should be used to represent the patron’s realities in a new design. The three long-cycle traditions of worldwide architectural representation of realities This means that the architect should first choose which of the three long-cycle traditions (the anthropomorphic, the sociomorphic and the physiomorphic) his design should be based on. In this phase, the design does not yet have the speci-

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fic twist which it will receive in the next creative step, when it will have to answer to the social, ethnic, religious or other cultural reality-to-be-represented.

THE DOMINANT ANTHROPOMORPHIC LONG-CYCLE TRADITION AND ITS THREE MAIN THEMES It appears that the anthropomorphic long-cycle tradition has mostly been chosen to represent existential concepts regarding the human nature/condition. Depending on one’s background and ambitions, specific shorter cycle anthropomorphism-based traditions are chosen to help realize the architectural design. In the keynote article, these traditions, which exist in related combinations of formal structures and to-be-represented content, have been grouped in five, more or less, separate ‘working spaces’ or themes. Three of these shortercycle intercultural and cross-temporal clusters of traditions are essentially specific representations of the underlying anthropomorphic long-cycle tradition. The ‘Axis Mundi & Cosmic Cross’ theme Here we are referring to the representation of the fundamental conditions of human existence. Therefore, in the architectural design that represents this theme, coordinates like above, underneath, before, behind, left and right will relate to the human body as their central point of reference. In many cases, this also applies to the proportions or modules used in the design. The ‘Boasting Façades’ theme Here we are referring to basically more extroverted aspects because it deals with groups or individuals confronting society. Since the frontal side of every building is both the most telling as always associated with the human front, it will be experienced as a personification of the patron or the user(s) of the building. The ‘Holy & Unholy Zones’ theme This covers the representation of the three interconnected zones and conditions of life and the afterlife. Because this tripartition is based on the representation of the cosmos by the human body, its lower part, upper part and head respectively represent harsh and primitive living conditions/the underworld; decent and pious living/the earth and the overworld (in some cultures called heaven) on earth; the overworld (heaven) itself. The actual building traditions of the socalled secular civilizations also feature this representation of a cosmic bodybased tripartition. No wonder, because all buildings are intrinsically based on the human physique and only secondly on social or natural (physical) realities, such as tribal relationships and the nature of one’s natural environment.

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The theme of the Holy & Unholy Zones is not just confined to the vertical parts of a building, it also applies to its plan and depends on whether it is more public or private, male or female, older or younger, clean or unclean; functions are distributed somewhere between the heart and the edge, or between the Holy & Unholy. This horizontal zoning is also based on the anthropomorphic long-cycle tradition, because it represents a man being diagonally stretched across a square (homo ad quadratum / primordial Demon held in check by a Mandala) or in a circle (Homo ad Circulum). The innermost and therefore holiest of zones represents his navel, in which the Axis Mundi is based, while the outer and most unholy zones are his hands and feet, being the instruments of a tough and often unclean life of labour. The impact of horizontal interior zoning on public space is, of course, much smaller than that of vertical zoning. Because it is nearly totally private, it has very much in common with the next theme, that of the family, clan and society-related topological structures. Therefore one could doubt about on which long-cycle tradition the horizontal zoning is based more: on the Anthropomorphic or on the next one.

THE SOCIOMORPHIC LONG-CYCLE TRADITION AND ITS MAIN THEME The ‘Including & Excluding Structures’ theme This encompasses all of the society-related topological structures that represent the incorporation or, its antonym, the exclusion of humans. Although these representations are essentially about social reality, the building traditions, which belong to this theme, have worldwide bodily-shaped or microcosmic (i.e. anthropomorphic) structures. The perhaps most widespread and famous of these is the intercultural tradition of the representation of paradisiacal societies by compass pattern-based and centre-focused quadrangular enclosures. This not only means that this tradition also belongs to the anthropomorphic long-cycle tradition, but, even more specifically, that it overlaps with the shorter-cycle theme of the ‘Axis Mundi & Cosmic Cross’. There is an obvious explanation for all of this: the hierarchical organized community, which uses the ‘paradise’-structure, identifies itself with the perfect ‘cosmic’ human body. So it needs just one step to re-activate the shorter-cycle building tradition of the paradisiacal enclosure to represent the included social reality in a material and habitable way.

THE PHYSIOMORPHIC LONG-CYCLE TRADITION AND ITS MAIN THEME In most world regions the representation of the universe is based on the outline of the ideal human body, thus, the architectural representation of any cosmic phenomenon, such as earthly nature, will mostly be grounded in the human physique. It depends on regional or local traditions how often and in what way

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natural phenomena are used to represent human reality. Architectural traditions in China, for instance, are much more based on the physiomorphic long-cycle traditions than in the modern Western World. In the Western Middle-Ages there was a comparable drive towards building in harmony with the cosmos as is still nowadays the case in a lot of Asian countries. The ‘Horizons of Life’ theme This is the only one of the five themes that is primarily based on the physiomorphic long-cycle building tradition. It is essentially a built representation of the cosmic horizon as seen through human eyes. In other words, this theme is a physiomorphic long-cycle-based representation of the limits of the anthropocentric space (=micro cosmos), a man-dominated representation of the universe (=macro cosmos). The Romans called this sacred, anthropocentric space ‘Templum’ or temple before it became a built representation of the awe-inspiring reality of heaven-on-earth. All over the world people tend to project their hopes and fears onto the horizon of their existence. For this reason, broad structures, which can easily be experienced as representations of the natural horizon, are everywhere and often used to represent social and religious ideologies, ideals and realities. As En-Yu Huang explains in his contribution to this book, the south-oriented Chinese courtyard family house (Siheyuan /四合院) represents the Chinese ideal scenery of the dominating central mountain, flanked by two protruding lower ones, with ‘living’ water in front. The reality represented by this building tradition, is the ‘horizon of life’ of a traditional family, living harmoniously together, according to a hierarchy based on gender and generation. Based on Charles Jencks’ interpretation,2 Frank Gehry’s Museum of Modern Art in Bilbao should be seen, from a formal point of view, as surprisingly comparable to the Siheyuan tradition. Gehry’s representation of the mountainous horizon of the city is part of what is interpreted (by Jencks) as a modern astronomyinspired representation of the anthropocentric cosmos. The same goes for the skyline of the main building of Chandigarh’s so called Capitol, the Parliament, which Le Corbusier modelled on the Himalayan horizon in the background. His representation of the Tower-of-the-Winds from the ancient Athenian Agora in the centre of the Chandigarh Capitol, which itself belongs to the theme of the ‘Axis Mundi & Cosmic Cross’, is the key to the interpretation of the administrative heart of the new Capital city of the Hindustani Punjab as the anthropomorphic cosmic Navel of the young Indian Democracy.3 Here the eternal, cosmic values of the natural horizon are again reinforcing the legitimacy of an ideological reality. And this is also the case for an immensely popular architectural ‘horizon of life’, the Qibla- or, mostly, Mecca-oriented prayer wall of the mosque, which is seen more and more in the West these days. This represents the equality of all human beings in the eyes of God, as we explained earlier in chapter 1.

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A COMPARATIVE EVALUATION OF THE HISTORICAL AND INTERCULTURAL VALUES AND POTENTIALS OF TRANSVAAL The following section is devoted to the transcultural traditions in the built environment of Transvaal, which will be analyzed from a worldwide scope or perspective (figure 1). This analysis will also reveal the unique opportunities for city builders and architects to meet the immense need for the representation of identity, present, in spite of all elitist-functionalist denials, at all times and in all places. The first and main goal (= the analysis) cannot be achieved without sufficient knowledge of the long- and shorter-cycle traditions (or themes) we just elaborated upon, and of their occurrence in Transvaal. The second goal (=reshaping) will not be attainable without sufficient knowledge of the worldwide building traditions that might be used, according to the local scope and for the middle and long term. We will not discuss the kinds of houses architects have to design, and neither will a plea be made for nostalgia, because building yesterday’s architecture either means representing a false, outdated reality or people’s fear of the future. The fact that nostalgic architecture is very popular among the white and well to do in Dutch suburbia is undoubtedly a representation of the latter. Local architectural traditions and worldwide anthropomorphic long-cycle traditions As we noted above, the representational themes that are principally based on an anthropomorphic long-cycle tradition largely represent existential concepts about the human nature/condition. Therefore, we should begin to look at the built environment of Transvaal for local architectural traditions, which have been formulated in the ‘working spaces’ covered by these themes.

Fig. 1 Map of Transvaal, North=Right (Cito plan, The Hague City map, ca. 1950).

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THE ‘AXIS MUNDI & COSMIC CROSS’ THEME AND TRANSVAAL It is very unlikely that any other architectural theory would be able to come up with a more forceful representation of the ‘Axis Mundi & Cosmic Cross’ than the Indian Vaastu does. According to the latter, the apex where the energy of heaven meets the earth in the middle of its anthropomorphic compass-oriented grid, can only be used for sacred structures or should simply be left blank.4 Although Western architectural theory was never that consistent and unambiguous, this theme has, nonetheless, always played a role in Western city planning, even in such relatively recent neighbourhoods as Transvaal. The Juliana Church and the Kempstraat-Schalk Burgerstraat intersection After the City’s churchwardens had made fruitless attempts to found a Dutch Reformed Church in Transvaal, a more locally oriented group took over the initiative in 1919 and proposed doing something with the uninterestingly located building lot that had been purchased to erect the church on. The Dutch Reformed Church was, by that time, still behaving like the unofficial state church in The Hague, which meant that some churches were even furnished with Royal Seats. This ultimately meant finding a more suitable building location. They finally found it at the corner of the Kempstraat and the Schalk Burgerstraat. As its location bears, compared to those of other churches in Transvaal, an outspokenly central and prominent character, the church-to-bebuilt was predestined to become the ‘sacred navel’ of the quarter. The monumental qualities of its architecture – it was at one time called ‘a Protestant Cathedral’ – stimulated the feeling that the neighbourhood had finally received a heart and that its main ‘veins’ met at the crossing at the church’s feet.5 Although the housing companies and associations planners never consciously intended to incorporate the characteristics of the European Christian tradition of the microcosmic heaven-on-earth into the Transvaal neighbourhood, the central part of it was inevitably reinterpreted in this sense by the realization of the Juliana Church6 (figure 2). Representations of paradise based on two different long-cycle traditions While the church’s importance as an identity-bearer for the multicultural neighbourhood increased, its role as a place of Christian worship was simultaneously reduced to a minimum. It goes without saying that in most cultures the cosmic cross (world Axis and crossroads) is the most significant representation of paradise. Another representation, which was predominant in the initial planning of Transvaal, was, however rudimentary and vague, that of paradise as an ideal natural environment. Whilst the first, microcosmic representation was, of course, mainly based on the anthropomorphic long-cycle tradition, the second one belongs to the 19th-century need for more ‘natural’ urban planning and is therefore principally based on the physiomorphic long-cycle tradition.

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Fig. 2 Juliana Church as ‘Axis Mundi’, the ‘navel’ of the ‘Cosmic Cross’ as seen from the southwest (Wijkplan Transvaal, cover, (40)).

Since the local building traditions that are based on this latter cycle will be the last to be examined, we should focus now on the anthropomorphic one. This representation of the ideal reality of the Transvaal-to-be, as the patrons and builders saw it around 1900, was, no doubt unconsciously, based on a representation of the worldwide Axis Mundi & Cosmic Cross longer-cycle tradition. Central points of mental and material orientation representing democratic society On the one hand, the representation of the very urgent housing need in Transvaal in those days was quite ‘democratic’; there was to be no ‘totalitarian’ severity as expressed in a grid of streets meeting at right angles, but diagonals, triangles and twisted grid blocks that would make things look more ‘natural’ and ‘human.’ On the other hand, the building of the Juliana Church stimulated the plan’s cosmic traditions, making it, notwithstanding all of its softening tendencies, much more of a vital representation of the time’s law-and-order society, in which everybody knew his or her place, directing themselves towards the church standing in the centre of life and the neighbourhood. In the meantime, the world has been shocked by the so far most pernicious ideological conflicts ever, and the population of Transvaal has almost completely coloured. Therefore, one would expect the urban structure and the architecture it is based on to be totally incomprehensible for its inhabitants. Yet, nothing is further from the truth. The need for monumental gestures, pompous avenues and central points of mental and material orientation were back on the urban stage of The Hague. The decline, fall and finally the comeback of the Ridderzaal (the

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Count’s Palace) as the ‘Sacred Navel’ of the town and even of the entire country, has been analyzed in ‘The Hague: A Capital of Centro Phobia, An Analysis of its Built Representation’.7 The comeback of the Juliana Church as the ‘Sacred Centre’ of Transvaal is no less remarkable, albeit it is just on the neighbourhood level. Ceremonies representing the Juliana Church as the cosmic centre of Transvaal On 6 September 2006, the fully restored church building was reopened with an interesting, multicultural ceremony. The attendees included ‘The diplomatic representatives of some of the nations that are represented in this part of The Hague,’ as Mayor Wim Deetman called them in his official re-opening address. He also focused on the church’s new function in the neighbourhood: ‘This beautiful, monumental building, with its outstanding tower, is an unavoidable orientation point in Transvaal…. Because the church is situated in the very heart of the quarter, it is perfect for its new function as a meeting point for all of the inhabitants of Transvaal and to offer a home base for the social and welfare institutions of Transvaal’.8 During the reopening ceremony, four traditionally clad Turkish men represented the cosmic cross, performing a martial dance under the dome in the heart of the Church.9 Worldwide architectural historical knowledge and understanding of Transvaal What has never been done and perhaps never will be is to address culturally different groups of inhabitants on what the architectural heart of their neighbourhood represents in terms of their own building traditions. To begin with, the Dutch people: surely very few of them would be able to explain why, some 80 years ago, this architectural tradition was used on this spot to represent the major idea concerning the Dutch Protestant community in Transvaal. Probably even fewer inhabitants of other ethnic backgrounds in today’s Transvaal could articulate why a sanctuary was built on a crossroad in the heart of an urban quarter and what this could possibly mean in terms of their original culture. This lack of historical and contemporary knowledge about one of the most basic aspects of housing quarters worldwide, makes it hard for people to feel at home in, and to identify with, their own neighbourhood. A well-informed and gifted architect could perhaps supply this knowledge more successfully than a comprehensible municipal information and publicity campaign. The means an architect has at his disposal to do this are much more penetrating and durable. In this case, it would not be too difficult a job, since the Juliana Church, as the main orientation point and most important identity marker of Transvaal dominates the crossing lifelines of the neighbourhood and lives in the minds and hearts of the majority of its local residents.

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However, to make it really work in everybody’s cultural context, strong elements of the worldwide living traditions of the cosmic centre and the crossroads of life and living should be represented in the built environment. Because, in almost every culture, specific colours and animals, connected to the seasons and the elements, represent the directions of the compass, the architect almost has too great a choice when it comes to representing these aspects of the centre and the corners of the world. Wood, various metals, water, fire, earth and air, strong reds and blues and other primary colours, lions, bulls, eagles, to name just a few representations, could easily be integrated into the built environment.10 Now the local information campaign should no longer be about abstract information on a not too symmetrical crossroads and on almost uniform streets. Henceforth, it should be about the remarkable differences in colour and the use of unusual elements that are, interestingly enough, characteristic of a person’s street. Indo-European building traditions and ‘The Orient. Proud as a Peacock’ After London, The Hague has the largest Hindustani population in Europe, comprising circa 25% of the inhabitants of Transvaal, for instance. Therefore, it seems only reasonable that the architect should draw his representations of the centre and the crossroads from the large amount of Indian literature on this topic. Although much deeper and more complete, the Indian interpretations are similar to ‘our’ Western ones because, in the past, Indians and Europeans shared crucial representations of the basic phenomena of the universe and its creation.11 Recently, a triangular housing block, facing the Juliana Church, between the Kempstraat and a projected green promenade, was especially designed and promoted as an outstanding housing area for Hindustani families. This could have been an excellent opportunity to recycle a common, Indo-European tradition of representing the Axis Mundi & Cosmic Cross, which is, sadly enough, not the case. But, before we go into this, something should be said about how green strengthens the ‘heart’ of Transvaal as a crossroad. The Green, representing stone As such, the addition of a radiating road that connects the Juliana Church’s central open space with the north western edge of Transvaal is an important urban representation of the increasing importance of the church as the neighbourhood’s identity-marker. If the plans were for a paved street like the others, meeting at the same crossing, it would have been a clear and proper representation of the need to reinforce the centre. However, because it is going to be a green tree-trimmed promenade, it will unintentionally weaken the strength of the thus far coherent representation. The introduction of the green element is certainly meant to cheer up the local Axis Mundi & Cosmic Cross tradition by recycling some aspect of the worldwide ‘closed paradise’ tradition. Moreover,

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the anthropomorphic structure of the ‘closed paradise’ has always been one of the best intercultural ‘tools’ in the working space of the ‘Including & Excluding Structures.’ As will be shown, the Transvaal representation of everybody’s paradisiacal dwelling place is ‘nature’ and not ‘cosmos’ focused. Thus, it is mainly based on Physiomorphic long-cycle traditions, which will be discussed as the last of the three basic, age-old, worldwide and ongoing long-cycles. Orientalism instead of Indian building traditions Let us concentrate again on the triangular ‘Hindustani’ housing block. Instead of strengthening the self-consciousness and the identity of the mostly Hindustani inhabitants as full members of the urban and national community – as the brochure promises – in the end the project will surely end up being a deception. Why? Because nearly everything the real estate developer ERA Bouw (Zoetermeer)(NL) tries to sell as Hindustani housing, is just worn-out Mogul (Indian) flavoured European ‘Orientalism’, as the name of the project ‘The Orient. Proud as a Peacock’ naively points out.12 There is no need to explain why this has nothing to do with any kind of world architecture. It is just the recycling of an age-old European representation of ‘Indian-Orientalism,’ which is, of course, neither an Indian nor even an intercultural reality but a European one (figure 3). What the representation of any reality that is fit for Transvaal’s everyday lifestyle, needs is the recycling of shared long-cycle and shorter-cycle traditions, as we stated earlier. Integrating the Dutch and Indian holy focuses in Transvaal Of course, there are not just people with Hindustani backgrounds living in Transvaal. The originally Dutch-based population of the neighbourhood has

Fig. 3 Sketches of a bird’s-eye view plan for ‘The Orient’ complex showing the north side of the Juliana Church (‘The Orient. Proud as a Peacock’) (12).

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been changing for decades now via a constant process of immigration from numerous countries and will continue to do so in future. It would therefore be wise to include less region-specific, deeper, mostly long-cycle traditions in the urban planning and the actual architecture and not to just build purely Indian representations. Moreover, every addition to the existing architectural body of Transvaal should be open and environment-oriented to facilitate the communication between the existing and future architectural representations of culturally different realities. ‘De Orient’ complex is not an open structure that communicates with the neighbourhood; it is much too isolated. What could have been done in this case to add value to Transvaal more generally? The plans could have incorporated the core of its Indo-European cosmic tradition as an integrating and not as an isolating aspect. Firstly, the Juliana Church should have been made the central, holy focus of ‘De Orient,’ and not, as will now be the case, the middle of its own courtyard. This would have embedded the central meaning of the church/community-building into the Hindustani housing block, and, it would also have integrated the Hindustani triangle into the whole of Transvaal. Both could have been represented, according to Indian Vaastu prescriptions, by the creation of a relatively open, transitional zone, a kind of ‘open corner.’ Vaastu texts instruct us to do so because the holy focus (i.e., the Juliana Church) is too energetic for housing to be exposed to in its immediate vicinity. This is also why it would be advisable to bind the ‘open corner’ with shops, offices, and other work spaces where people are actively doing things other than dwelling.13 Although the temple/church as a meeting place of heaven and earth is an intercultural commonality, this built representation of the upright cosmic man in the middle of the universe, is nowhere as strongly associated with energy streams as in Indian architectural theory. In this respect, it meets basic Physiomorphic long-cycle traditions because, in Indian cosmology, the upright cosmic man inhabits a central mountain, which is mostly populated by the heavenly gods. Energy streams and holy mountains as the place where ghosts dwell is shared by Chinese philosophy/architectural theory.14

THE ‘HOLY AND UNHOLY ZONES’ THEME AND TRANSVAAL It is amazing to read that the Rev. Van den Bosch in his 1926 inaugural address hinted at the upright cosmic man as the central element of the new Juliana Church when he was speaking about its interior as a representation of Christ crucified, his head pointing to heaven and his hands outstretched to mankind waiting for salvation in all quarters of the world like in Catholic Carolingian times (c. AD 800). Thus the Cross of Christ represented in a vertical position was, with Calvinist cautiousness, interpreted by the Protestant minister as a token of the deliverance of humanity. In other words, as a token of the re-connection of heaven and earth by the cosmic man Christ dying at the worldwide symbol of the cosmos, the Axis Mundi and its cross beam, pointing in the

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directions of the compass. Moreover, from the inner side of the building, the apex of the dome might seem like the top of the Axis Mundi, while from the outside, and so for everyone who lives in Transvaal, the tower is the actual summit of this stony ‘stairway to heaven,’ as one of the ministers once characterized the church in 1923.15 This is all about vertical zoning, which is based on the same anthropomorphic principles that are represented by the horizontal one. The latter is the cosmic man lying in the centre of the universe, orienting himself in the directions of the compass, creating a crossroad based on his bodily sides to find his way in the world. The former is the zoning of his body as a representation of the universe in the way that the minister explained it, basing himself, probably unconsciously, on a very old, worldwide and preChristian tradition. Because this representational tradition of the microcosmic spheres is so crucial, widespread and architecturally influential, it forms an Anthropomorphic long-cycle based theme in its own right, The ‘Holy & Unholy Zones’. Few ‘Holy Zones’ and modest living conditions in Transvaal On the local level of Transvaal, it again involves the Juliana Church and the ‘Sion,’ the Dutch Reformed Community Centre located in the Scheeperstraat,16 which architecturally represent the three zones of the universal body most clearly (fig. 4).

Fig. 4 ‘Sion’ (Dutch Reformed Community Centre) representing the three zones of the ‘cosmic’ body (De Groot-Linskens 2006(5), ‘Sion’: p. 33-34).

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Why should one not wonder about why these buildings were designed in this way? Because they not only represent the neighbourhood’s reality but also, and perhaps even more so, the reality of the upper-class Protestants trying to impose their standard values onto the inhabitants of the local religious community and beyond. The other way around, the trizonal building as a scarce item means that the inhabitants’ social reality was, and still mainly is, rather modest. Would it therefore not be a good idea to build numerous trizonal dwellings, since the upgrading of the neighbourhood is one of the major goals of its rehabilitation? In a way, it would be, but only to support actual social upgrading. Recycling socially higher building traditions to introduce them in a living quarter can also have an alienating, suppressing effect, as had partly been the case when the Juliana Church was built. It should certainly be recognized as an appropriate representation of the average realities of its inhabitants. What does each zone represent from a local and a global point of view? What are their specific formal characteristics? And how can they be used to represent the realities of the people who will move into Transvaal in the (middle) long term? The plinth or the first layer (ground-level) of a building basically represents, worldwide, the feet and the legs of cosmic man. This down-to-earth and, therefore, unholy level represents the meeting of men and demons from the underworld. Therefore, if it is merely a plinth zone, it generally is not considered a very appropriate place for higher functions. If it is more than just a plinth zone, it is mostly used for work places, storage, and for the housing of cattle and personnel. This is the unspecific, broader scope. Narrowing the scope to the local level of Transvaal, two of the older buildings should be considered first. First, the Juliana Church represents the earth-bound zone in a rather abstract manner, consisting of a dark trasslayer and a lively red coloured entrance zone. The second building is the former Badhuis, a bathhouse built in 1925 on the Spionkopstraat, with a very obvious vertical structure. The centralizing building has been placed on a rather high, partly subterranean service story, preceded in the front by a monumental flight of stairs. The connected flanking housing for personnel was built on the same story, with service spaces running throughout the ‘bearing base’ of every part of the bathhouse.17 The partially subterranean level as well as the ground level of Transvaal housing architecture was normally used for housing, but in the main streets, it still often accommodates shops and smaller industries. In all of the streets, the base story increasingly accommodates parking facilities. The ‘unholy’ ‘bearing base’ and labour in Transvaal In a neighbourhood like Transvaal, one can find the two, most important global traditions of representing the ‘bearing base’ in house building. The first is the schematic plinth tradition, used for housing and religious architecture, which can be clearly observed on the outside of the Juliana Church. Because the lowest level of these buildings was never intended to be used as housing, it only refers to the very old reality of hard labour lifestyle and burial at the spot

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Fig. 5 Paul Krugerlaan: The ‘bearing base’, or ground floor, as a shopping zone with the 1st floor barely recognizable as a ‘piano nobile’ (photo: author 2003).

where every building touches the underworld, by means of simply thickening, reinforcing and changing the colour of the very lowest part of its outside walls. The second tradition, using the ‘bearing base’ itself (i.e. the ground floor) as a shop, a storage space or a workplace, is, in some respect, it’s opposite. The owner of the building being rather well off and thus the mostly one dimensional use of the ‘bearing base’ will be subject of upgrading act of branding, which pushes the representation of its reality into the high ranks of the owner’s kind of business. Strange as it may sound this also goes for a church in whose crypt – an outstanding part of the ‘bearing base’ – a saint is buried and venerated. Upgrading via branding the holy dead as a mighty and helpful person would ward off greedy feudal lords and attract pilgrims very effectively. Granted, the reality of a shop or a workplace is much more one-dimensional and material-functional than that of an abbey, however, their realities have more in common than the average pious believer would accept. Apart from the representation of the individual realities of the user or owner of a ‘bearing base,’ its architecture and building materials globally tend to be more solid and simple than these of the upper stories (figure 5). Any decoration of the ‘bearing base’ would represent the demonic underworld or slaves, enemies and even the ancestors who bear the building’s ‘Holy Zones’.18 A creative architect who is aware of this would even be able to transform the dull material functionality of a parking base into a thrilling representation of the demonic character of the environment-polluting car. Imagine for instance a tollbooth statue of poor (Moroccan) Atlas, suffocating in the exhaust fumes of cars, but still managing to hold up the melting world.

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The second story ‘piano nobile’ and future prosperity in Transvaal Because Transvaal was developed to accommodate working and lower middleclass people, there was very little need for any second story (first floor) ornate architecture to represent the social status of its inhabitants (figure 5). The wellto-do neighbourhoods of The Hague have plenty of representative storeys that sit atop humble bearing floors. Even its early apartment buildings, although structurally just a row of single-floor housing, represent every flat as a ‘piano nobile’ or reception floor, according to the high status of its inhabitants.19 No need to point out that the downstairs, upstairs and porch access flats in Transvaal do not show off anything like this. The architecture of the mythical meeting place of men and gods, the floor lifted up by the ‘bearing base’, is mostly characterized by higher, richly decorated walls, which are supposed to surround spacious rooms, connected to the world outside by larger windows, balconies and loggias. The aristocratic owners, whose realities are represented by this aspect of their city palaces, everywhere and always ultimately legitimized their powerful positions as the will of the gods. These people acted like the reflections of their gods or even as incarnations of them, whether they were aware of it or not, revealing themselves as being ordinary mortals hovering in the ornate wall breaches between the world inside and outside, between the earth downstairs and the heaven a floor above. Nowadays, very few people realize that even in the modern world, the balconies, loggias, the larger windows and the bay windows of bourgeois housing are part of this long, intercultural tradition. The ‘Orient’ Hindu housing block introduces an intercultural Holy Zone to Transvaal So the use of monumental, broad windows along the first-floor fac¸ades of the housing block planned by architects of ‘the Orient’ perfectly fits into the ‘piano nobile’ Holy-Zone tradition (figure 3). Why this motive was chosen is not difficult to guess. Being ambitious about the social realities of the multicultural public that is expected to live in this triangular block, the real estate developer and his architects have selected the trizonal fac¸ade that also survived in the newly built, sometimes gated, nostalgic communities where age-old formal building traditions have been recycled in many a comfortable villa of the (very) well-to-do.20 By joining this middle- and upper-class tradition, the developers have tried to attract people whose realities would fit into this built environment or who at least would have the ambition to make theirs fit in the near future. Facing the ‘Orient’ complex, the Juliana Church boasts the Transvaal’s oldest and most prestigious first-floor/-story zone, which is invaded by the light of the heavenly spheres through the many monumental windows, as Minister Van den Bosch noted in his inaugural address in 1926.21 The former Wijkgebouw or parish Hall called ‘Sion’ was perhaps better understood by the people living in the neighbourhood, as a rather high-handed gesture by the

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Protestant elite. The higher and ornate windows of the ‘piano nobile’ story of the Scheeperstraat’s right wing represent the gathering room of the church Council. It is hard to find a straighter example of first-floor/story housing architecture that represents these powerful mediators between heaven and earth, although the patron just wanted a decent and useful building. That would have been much too modest a requirement in the eyes of most of the rich and traditional Indian people, to include, once again by widening the scope of this analysis, the building traditions inherited by the biggest minority of Transvaal. Having gone through the hardships of exile and arduous labour in the former Dutch colony of Surinam, the Hindustani people never forgot their Indian roots. Being part of this great and multifaceted culture is still an important part of their identity.22 Every open-minded and socially intelligent city builder and architect would welcome the chance to be inspired by those impressive traditions and be able to represent the reality of this group in Transvaal. What should they focus on? Not, as the architects of the ‘Orient’ housing block indiscriminately did, on a few motifs from all-Indian Temple and Palace architecture, looking for an ‘oriental’ atmosphere rather than for the main principles of Indian housing. Without going too deeply into the various Vaastu Saastra (Hindu Science of Architecture) texts from North and South India, one can safely conclude that, in some regions such as Rajasthan, solid and sober ground floors bear strongly articulated and richly decorated first floor fac¸ades.23 In this respect, they can be easily compared to the noble dwellings of the aristocrats and the bourgeois European residents prior to the First World War. Will the future Transvaal, which never accommodated these upper classes, boast modern Dutch representations of old Indian second-zone traditions, showing prosperity between the business-base and the flat-roofed top where the overworld is at home? Escaping from earth and meeting heaven in the crowning ‘Holy Zone’ It stands to reason that the ‘Holy Zone’ of religious architecture is the most abundant and outspoken representation of the overworld globally. This even goes for the sober architecture of the crowning zone of the Calvinist Juliana Church. The light that enters through the clear story of the central part of the church, comes from heaven: it illuminates the dome with a vertical beam of light that leads us to heaven, as the Rev. Van den Bosch noted in his 1926 inaugural address.24 The ‘holy’ and ‘heavenly’ character of the upper zone of most Western housing architecture is clearly represented on the outside, by various kinds of (decorated) gables, which, since the high Middle Ages, has dominated both the town halls and the churches of many prosperous towns. Not unlike a lot of other cultures, the inhabitants tended to see themselves as dwellers of a heavenly city, as Saint John the Evangelist observed: ‘In my Father’s house are many mansions’ (Gospel According to Saint John, 14:2). So the crownings of their houses should represent the heavenly reality of their well-being.25 Apart from some apotropeic amulets that ward off evil, not very much in the inner

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Fig. 6 An amazing representation of Egyptian village idyll on Cairo’s rooftops (Randa Shaath) (28).

side of Western housing attics reminds of its overworldly character. On the other hand, the ‘attics’ of Sumbanese clan houses shelter the images of the inhabitants’ ancestors, who dwell in the other world.26 Very interesting examples of the recycling of the ‘Holy Zone’ tradition in a new type of housing architecture can be seen in today’s Taiwan. The top floors of these multi-storied houses not only harbour the shrines of ancestors but also represent some of the main characteristics of the traditional San-He-Yuan (三合院), the old family house they used to live in long ago.27 And not only on the modern upper floors of today’s Taiwan an old building tradition has achieved a paradisiacal status, since on innumerable rooftops in modern Cairo comparable things are going on. People and cattle live on Cairo’s rooftops in traditional rural dwellings, living their parallel existences with those in the city down below and in neighbouring apartment complexes. It is an amazing mix of representations of Egyptian village idyll and artistic and intellectual bohemian paradise lost, high above the traffic inferno downstairs (figure 6).28 In his efforts to make Chicago a greener and more liveable place, Mayor Richard M. Daley had the roof of City Hall turned into a garden: ‘It’s like a scene from a peaceful meadow: Where wildflowers bloom and the bees are busy. But to reach this slice of Eden, one doesn’t travel out of town, one travels up, 12 stories up’. In Dearborn, Michigan, 10 acres of vegetation sit atop a Ford assembly plant. Green roofs are sprouting up on stores, schools and even on a few doghouses.29 The ‘Holy Zone’ again represents paradise, even in today’s America. This short overview of the roofs of homes as a zone of wellness for both the poor and the wealthy dogged by the hardships down below, cannot be complete without mentioning the penthouse. The ultimate urban refuge for the

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well off can doubtlessly be found in New York City. As Robert Stern has observed: There are spectacular pieces of penthouse architecture, with wonderful terraces around them, sometimes because of the freedom of planning that is possible at the top of a building, and that is not possible on lower floors. You can have special fireplaces, unique glazing patterns, interesting and dynamic spatial arrangements. The city does abound in these very special kinds of structures.30 What aspect of reality does this kind of architecture represent, more than just the fact that its owner is rich and powerful? It definitely has to do with the ‘divine’ status of the inhabitant, regardless of how secular he/she may think he/ she is. Who else other than an overworldly being was ever able to look down on earth from the top of the world? Yes, it has always been the elite, sitting in their self-made heavens, be it their home or workplace. In the latter case, we should recollect that the sumptuous board rooms of the tycoons or the showy studio of a society architect often imitate the divine world’s builder or creator; like Howard Roark (Gary Cooper) in the ‘epitome of an architecturally significant film’, ‘The Fountainhead’ (1949).31 This has globally always been associated with wealth and power; art history has thus invented the term ‘Worldscapes’ or ‘Weltenlandschafte’ for the numerous paintings that honour princes with a bird’s-eye view of their finest places and events.32 The Bible notes that only God’s own son, Christ, was able to resist the temptations of this point of view when the devil on the rooftop of the Temple of Jerusalem showed him ‘all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them’ (Gospel of Saint Matthew:4, 7-9). The ‘holy’ top-floor level and having your own ‘paradise’ in Transvaal As a result of the architectural upgrading of Transvaal, the top-stories of many a housing block can be used to represent, of course in a less emphatic way, the heavenly dreams of their inhabitants. The flowered flat roof, an offspring of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon,33 may not be a traditional Dutch roof type but it can easily become so in joining old top-floor representations as they are also at home in the Indian-Americas and in the Asian Indian housing architecture mentioned before. Again, not consciously, but purely by chance, the renovations in Transvaal gave new and strong impulses to the visibility of what every upper story in most cultural contexts represent: an elevated and better world. Let us end this brief survey on the highest and holiest of the three zones of worldwide fac¸ade design with another quote from Robert Stern: ‘The penthouse is doubly speculative: a real estate device used to luxurize up-and-coming neighborhoods, it is also an opportunity for architectural speculation, an urban island for the architectural imagination.’

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THE ‘BOASTING FAÇADE’ THEME AND TRANSVAAL Although the section devoted to the ‘Holy and Unholy Zones’ is mostly about fac¸ades, worldwide and age-old building traditions clearly show that there is, apart from the zone-bound traditions, a huge field that is exclusively concerned with the fac¸ade as an undivided whole. Whatever short-cycling tradition visually dominates these representations, each of them basically represents the upright, self-conscious and assertive microcosmic man. This man basically represents the feelings of pride motivated by a successful and powerful reality that he must eventually be ready to defend. The more directly a short cycle architectural representation of such a reality is based on the underlying Anthropomorphic long-cycle tradition, the more provocative the fac¸ade, the more intimidating it is for rivals and enemies with apotropeic and defensive motives. Since the successful outcome of social competition mainly depends on the strength of one’s identity, the owners and/or inhabitants of a dwelling primarily want their house fac¸ades to represent this aspect of their realities. Those realities can vary from clan-wise to personal, according to how the inhabitants are socially organized. In the first case, old traditions offer the ambitious and successful families rather limited means with which to compete with their rivals, which, at the same time, regulates the architecture of boasting. This will not frustrate them as long as they desire being a part of society and therefore are willing to recycle traditions to represent this choice. If not, they may end up envying any individual who seems to be totally free to boast, as a builder, his personal success in the way he wants. Creating your own façade and Dutch building regulations A cliche´d opinion that comes mostly from non-Western societies, is that every individual in the modern Western world is free to act this way, which, of course, is not at all the case. Just being ‘Western’ does not necessarily make a society favourable to those who wish to limitlessly boast their wealth, but being dominantly capitalist and harbouring free enterprise. The Netherlands is a Western capitalist society, no doubt, and entrepreneurs here have a lot of freedom as well. But owners and patrons are still often prohibited from letting their fac¸ades boast their prosperous realities the way they would truly like. Not yet, in any case, since, like the rest of the public domain, this sector’s social rules have become increasingly weaker each year. The results, which are greatly desired by the champions of privatization, would be the abolition of all building regulations. Would this be a blessing-in-disguise for the renovation of a neighbourhood like Transvaal, especially as a representation of multicultural reality? On the one hand, it may be, on the other hand, it certainly would not be. It just seems to be ideal to be totally free to represent your own cultural and personal identity however you like. If everybody were to proceed this way, and then eventually moved out, leaving behind an obsolete fac¸ade, which would from then on represent a non-identity, which, in turn, would lead to

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unbearably high financial, social and ‘aesthetic’ ramifications. The financial and social consequences of this ‘ultimate freedom,’ would include having to constantly renew the building fac¸ades. The ‘aesthetic’ problem, however, is perhaps not that easy to comprehend because it is very European and especially deeply rooted in Dutch tradition. It is about maintaining a certain standard in the built environment, which is, of course, a subjective one. Apart from being inevitably elitist and fluctuating from place to place and over time, it can indisputably provide the environment with a sense of balance and coherence, in framing and accommodating clashing identity-bearing fac¸ades and other architectural elements and features. This is the rather innocent, policeman-like side of the building committees’ task. The totalitarian ethic-aesthetics of ‘Modernist functionalism’ Far from innocent is the ‘aesthetic’ dogma on which the assessment of every architectural design is based in the Netherlands. After almost a century of socalled ‘Modernist’ or ‘functionalist’ indoctrination in the field of architectural education, very few are still aware of its relative ‘truth,’ not to mention that almost nobody has the faintest idea of its malignant roots. The rather shocking origins of 20th-century ‘Modern’ architecture will be discussed in relation to its parameters of pretended absolute beauty. It is generally believed that the function of a building, its construction and its building materials, automatically produces ‘pure’ architecture and that every addition to these basic elements, such as decoration, would denaturalize its ‘natural’ beauty. Everybody should, however, be aware that each function can be fulfilled in a variety of different ways, and that the choice of constructions and materials depends on how the patron and the architect want to represent the function in question, the design process is nevertheless often presented as the inevitable outcome of a process of natural laws. Other representational traditions, such as the choice of a building ‘style,’ such as those from the 1920s and 30s remain very popular in the Netherlands to this very day, and are also not considered representations of identities and other – dreamed of – realities, but merely as meaningless retro-trends, something for sociologists to investigate. Very few members of the Dutch building guild and many others will even be able to imagine ‘Modernist functionalism’ as a historical phenomenon, let alone as a trend. It is generally believed to be meaningless, or better yet, something beyond meaning, of course, not because it was ephemeral like fashion, but, on the contrary, because it is considered timeless, beyond history and superior to the architecture of every non-Western culture. This latter belief touches on the malignant roots of the phenomenon, which will be discussed later on. The almost religious celebration of the ‘eternal beauty’ of ‘Modernist’ architecture is not too difficult to explain. The main point is that ‘Modernist’ aesthetics are seen as a kind of post-evolutionary beauty, which makes them absolute and cosmic. Because absolute beauty should be divine, the ‘Modernist’ building aesthetics inevitably become synonymous with ethics, which, in fact,

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was very normal in late-antique and medieval philosophy. It is precisely because ethics are supposed to be rooted in divine order that nobody should ever discuss them. There is a striking parallel in the European medieval building tradition: The architecture of the Cistercian Monks Order. They were very much inspired by their princely and highly educated leader, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, and formulated a quasi-frugal building tradition, which was based on clear and divine structures and proportions and constructed using only high quality cut or moulded stones, avoiding every ‘superfluous’ or demonic building parts, like towers, and non-abstract painted or sculptured decoration. No wonder Modernity-influenced architectural historians used to retrospectively refer to this highly elitist and strict architecture as ‘functionalist.’ Nevertheless, Cistercian building traditions were only a slightly more sober and functional way of designing and building compared to other traditions current in the Middle Ages. This is not unlike the situation where Dutch, German, Austrian, European and other Modernists were compared to existing traditions representing different realities in the 20th century and beyond.34 The criminalizing and racist dogma of ‘Modernist functionalism’ And now we look at the rather shocking origins of 20th-century ‘Modernist’ architecture. This needs to be discussed because its racist delusions of intrinsic superiority are what is principally blocking the careful development of new architectural traditions that represent intercultural realities. Although most people are unaware of its malignant roots, they nevertheless argue on its behalf, scoffing at non-Western identity-bearing building traditions such as ‘primitive’, ‘childish’, ‘Disney’, ‘Ali Baba’, and so on. It was the very influential Moravian essayist and architect Adolf Loos (1870-1933) who, inspired by Charles Darwin (‘The descent of man’ 1871) and Cesare Lombroso (‘Palimsesti del carcere’ 1888),35 made the fatal link between a passion for decoration and the supposed criminal disposition of intrinsically primitive non-Western people. In his eyes – among others – this was the argument par excellence for its opposite that civilized and cultivated Western men (not women!) abhor decoration. This was the ultimate proof of their arrival at the apex of evolution, forever making them fundamentally better than other peoples, not only because of their superior tastes but also because of their high moral and spiritual standards. Therefore, it is fairly easy to state that Loos’s book Ornament and Crime (1913) (Ornament und Verbrechen, 1908) was as much the written representation of the Western ‘U¨bermensch’ as ‘Modernist-functionalist’ building was its architectural one. By now it must be clear that non-white, non-Western realities can never be represented by the architectural traditions of ‘functionalist-Modernism.’ The latter’s more benevolent representatives would at most represent non-Western realities creating patronizing ‘isms’ as Orientalism, Japonism and so on. Every patron and architect building in the intercultural society of the modern

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Western world should realize that these ‘isms’ are not representing nonWestern realities but, on the contrary, represent the Western reality of being dismissive of other-cultural worldviews and ways of life. The other way around, non-Western patrons who want their office buildings or private dwellings being designed according to ‘functionalist-Modernism’ traditions clearly like to represent their realities as Western or at least as its equal. ‘Functionalist Modernism’, after this rough but crucial historical analysis, seems to be just one of many Anthropomorphic long-cycle based traditions, which could be better analyzed within the framework of the theme Including & Excluding Structures. This architecture of the new earthly paradise for white men principally provides dwellings only worthy of them, the evolutionary chosen ones. As we have clearly shown above, there is a lot of work to do for those who are designing, building and analyzing architecture. Two things should be kept in mind, however: (comparative world) architectural history, and the paradigms of architectural design and traditions. If these conditions were to be fulfilled, those active in the field of architecture would probably be able to find satisfying and objectifying responses to the central question: What does architectural commissioning, designing and building really mean other than its strictly physiological tasks? The response to these questions should be used to free modern architecture from the naive functionalist dogma, which is based on a presumed Western superiority that the Dutch architectural world continues, if somewhat unconsciously – to take for granted. The latter has a noticeable negative effect on the development of new, intercultural building traditions in the Netherlands within the working area of one of the five shorter-cycle worldwide building themes. It currently continues to block the design of identity-marking fac¸ades within the framework of the Boasting Fac¸ade theme in the Transvaal neighbourhood. Reintegrating ‘Boasting Fac¸ades’ into architectural tradition to cope with ‘Desidentification’. After the artists Dijkman & Osterholt decorated the Segment XVII fac¸ade of the abandoned, 1923/4 building block ‘Vrijstaathof ’ it was ‘exhibited’ from 14 October 2004 to the end of January 2005 (fig.7).36 Three aspects of this event are worth pondering. First, the artists chose a fac¸ade of a housing complex that had already been sentenced to death to be decorated, meaning that decorating fac¸ades should not be taken too seriously. Second, the rules of ‘functionalist-Modernism’ state that no architect would ever think of acting in such a ‘criminal’ way, because decorating is – according to Adolf Loos – something that mere painters and sculptors do. The third and most interesting aspect is what these artists did to the fac¸ade. They combined moralizing inscriptions on stone from the old complex with ‘exotic’ illuminated signs from Transvaal merchants of different cultural backgrounds. The artists wanted this assemblage to represent the clash of cultures that occurs on a daily level in the neighbourhood. It is a pity that this was only manifestation and not part of an entire series of decorated fac¸ades that represent contrasting realities, which certainly would have stimulated the necessary discussion regarding

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Fig. 7 Transvaal De la Reyweg Façades ‘boasting’ of inter-cultural reality using a mix of signs (Dijkman & Osterholt, the Segment XVII façade of the ‘Vrijstaathof’ (1923-/24) (36).

the identities of Transvaal’s inhabitants who to varying degrees had all ‘integrated’ into Dutch society. It would have been even better if this had been just the start of the rehabilitation process of the decorated ‘Vrijstaathof,’ one of the most interesting, framing courtyard-housing blocks the protestant building cooperation ‘Patrimonium’ erected in the twenties, and which have all vanished now. It once had a lot of potential to represent intercultural realities in Transvaal and this will be analyzed as we look at the second base of architectural representation, the Sociomorphic long-cycle tradition. However correct it may seem to let people freely boast via their housing fac¸ades, this sense of total freedom would inevitably and readily provoke clashes between various groups of people, each with their own architectural and socio-cultural traditions. When building regulations are freed from the ‘functional’ bias discussed above, we must then provide the environment with balance and coherence, to frame and accommodate clashing identity-bearing fac¸ades and other architectural elements and features.37 Before presenting and analyzing one of the ‘framing’ Patrimonium housing blocks, which unfortunately was demolished in 2006, it is perhaps the right moment to quote a young Dutch Moroccan, recently rewarded by the ‘Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research’ for preparing his study on the growing problem of ‘Desidentification’ in culturally mixed neighbourhoods in the Netherlands. Mr. Iliass Elhadioui commented on this topic by stating that ‘Minderheden moeten zich vooral aanpassen aan de dominante Nederlandse cultuur. Dat betekent dus,

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dat de expressieve kant van hun integratie als het ware wordt uitgeschakeld.’ (‘Minorities should adapt to the dominant Dutch culture in particular. This means that the expressive side of their integration is, as it were, eliminated’.)38

LOCAL ARCHITECTURAL TRADITIONS AND SOCIOMORPHIC LONGCYCLE TRADITIONS Even though the fac¸ades all basically represent the upright, self-conscious and assertive microcosmic man, it should be clear by now that most housing fac¸ades represent a narrow set of interests that do not genuinely involve vital social realities. Buildings that represent a wider social scope or the more powerful reality of larger communities tend to be more general and microcosmic and for that reason use a more outspokenly anthropomorphic structure. Furthermore, the reality of power superseding the particular interests of smaller groups can only be legitimized via (micro)cosmic representations. The same can be said for architectural traditions that belong to the shorter-cycle Including & Excluding Structures theme, which are all even more based on the horizontal cosmic scheme of man laying outstretched in a quadrangle (‘Homo ad Quadratum’/‘Vaastu purusha Mandala’) or a circle (‘Homo ad Circulum’/ Jain Mandalas/Buddhist Kalachakra Mandalas) when they represent the cosmic and/or divine origins of power. The closed quadripartite representations of paradise in Christian, Islamic and Hindu religious and princely settings are all fairly similar. With regard to the two themes of Boasting Fac¸ades and Including & Excluding Structures, it can be said that the narrower the scope of the building patron, who prefers to focus only on, actual, local realities, for example, the smaller the role will be for cosmic and anthropomorphic traditions. Meanwhile, the role of the Sociomorphic long-cycle tradition will emerge as dominant. The Patrimonium Including & Excluding Structures The above phenomenon was the case in two very interesting including/excluding housing blocks that were constructed by the Protestant labourers organization ‘Patrimonium’. The older one included the first and second Pietersburger streets (1920-1921), while the younger one framed the so-called ‘Vrijstaathof ’(1923-1924).39 The reality that was represented here was the ideal of a more social society based on people living in smaller-scale more inclusive structures, where functions were shared, while the negative influences of the much too individualized and larger world outside were simultaneously excluded. To emphasize these principles, the fac¸ades and tri-arched porches were monumentally decorated with text slabs, text-bearing capitals, while brickwork texts ran across the walls. Instead of these old-fashioned, but

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Fig. 8

Text-bearing capitals and brickwork texts running across the walls of arched porches of

the Patrimonium Pietersburger housing complex, representing the ideal of a more social society (photo: author 2003) (40).

morally and culturally basic, texts being integrated into modern, comparable housing complexes, they were part of a ‘social-housing monument’ (fig. 8).40 This act of de-contextualizing the historical foundation of ongoing social realities is very significant for the unconscious and superficial way that the Transvaal is being ‘revitalized.’ How will immigrants and their offspring ever be able to understand the history of their neighbourhood, when even ‘Dutch’ planners and builders have no idea of how to represent it, or even worse, when they do not even intend to represent historical reality at all? In this special case, it would have been rather obvious and – architecturally spoken – tantalizing to reuse the inclusive Patrimonium complexes, since the problems that the current inhabitants of Transvaal have are not unlike those of their predecessors faced some 80 years earlier: a serious lack of social cohesion and perspectives. Courtyard housing complexes worldwide and in Transvaal representing social cohesion All across Central and Eastern Europe, North and middle Africa, the Middle and Far East, courtyard houses and housing complexes have for ages been, and in some regions continue to be, the most ubiquitous representations of family structures and social cohesion.41 When the famous Dutch architect Hendrik Petrus Berlage was looking for architectural traditions that could help overcome pauperism and social disintegration in the highly industrialized, rich and

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very non-egalitarian Dutch society at the beginning of the 20th century, the courtyard complex seemed to be a very helpful form for him. It is difficult to see the new courtyard complexes that are being built in Transvaal, while the much more telling and sophisticated ones from Berlage’s time, which would have visually bridged temporal and cultural differences, have all been demolished.42 Moreover, imagine how marvellously Islamic calligraphy – famous all over the world – could have matched the Dutch inscriptions, continuing the power of the word in the social domain and widening its scope to include worldwide habits and morality for more peaceful cohabitation here and elsewhere.43

LOCAL ARCHITECTURAL TRADITIONS AND WORLDWIDE PHYSIOMORPHIC LONG-CYCLE TRADITIONS Anthropomorphic green paradises Creating parks, lanes and green areas in the West, but also elsewhere, is just another tradition that represents paradise in the built environment. While courtyard housing complexes are fully built representations of social paradise, green paradises are, mostly for social reasons, integrated into the built environment. Like the courtyard, ‘green’ representations of paradise have often been based on traditions that fit into the ‘Axis Mundi & Cosmic Cross’ theme, leading to the paradoxical conclusion that a ‘green’ or botanical representation is based on the Anthropomorphic long-cycle tradition and not on the Physiomorphic long-cycle tradition. This makes it clear that the use of ‘green’ material and soil as such has nothing to do with any representational tradition based on the Physiomorphic long-cycle Tradition.44 The planned ‘Groene Promenade’ or Green Promenade that would connect the ‘Beyersveld’ sports facilities and the Navel of Transvaal, the Juliana Church, is another good example of the reinforcement of the local representation of the architectural ‘Axis Mundi & Cosmic Cross’ traditions.45 Although most people certainly expect it to be the representation of a Physiomorphic long-cycle based shorter-cycle tradition, the soil and the trees of the promenade simply belong to the building materials used to realize another local representation of a cosmic ‘Street of the World.’ Thus, is there not one example of a Physiomorphic long-cycle based representation in Transvaal? Well, there is, although the more stony and outspoken architectural ones are the most convincing. Let us begin by focusing on the ‘green’ ones. Physiomorphic green paradises In order to create more open and green spaces in the densely built-up neighbourhood, a rather large park (3 hectare or 7.41 acres) was created in the 1980s on the former built triangle bordered by the Coster-, Schalk Burger- and Kemp-Streets. In the ‘Wijkplan’ (Blueprint for the neighbourhood’s renovation) an impotent gesture has been made to appeal to the intercultural character of this part of the city by calling the new ‘Wijkpark’ a part of the ‘City mondial

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Route’ via the ‘Mart’ (huge marketplace next to the park) to Paul Kruger Avenue. It is impotent because, other than the inhabitants, nothing in the (landscape) architectural environment represents anything to do with the local reality of permanent and intense intercultural encounters. The fashionable design of the multifunctional ‘Wijkpark’ is part of a short-cycle tradition, which represents the anonymous reality of an average suburb in this part of Europe. The ‘playful’ spherical triangles on which both the (green)playgrounds and the integrated buildings are based, clearly reflect some unspecific Physiomorphic long-cycle tradition. There is no need to explain why the park’s curved lanes and the ‘naturally’ grouped trees, that contrasting with the geometry of Transvaal, are just recycled Anglo-French landscape garden traditions. Why not use much more potent Chinese landscaping traditions in Transvaal? It is regrettable that neither the city nor the (landscape) architects were aware of the intercultural opportunities, which this tradition could offer in this situation. The Chinese garden traditions, which have greatly influenced European garden and landscape design since the 18th century, are much more effective in how they represent the contrasting and multilayered realities. Without imitating the features of Chinese building and landscaping traditions, its age-old philosophical principles would have been very helpful here in achieving a much more interesting and harmonious environment, not at least when balancing built and un-built areas the Chinese way.46

THE LONGER CYCLE ‘HORIZONS OF LIFE’ THEME AND PHYSIOMORPHIC BUILDING IN TRANSVAAL No horizon, no hope Nothing in the Wijkpark plans, and in the interplay between the green space and the buildings surrounding it, gives any hope that the tradition of the built horizon, the formal side of one of the strongest and most unambiguous representational themes based on the Physiomorphic long-cycle tradition, has played any role in the park’s design. Although the Wijkpark horizon is fairly irregular and ambiguous, like a natural horizon, this was certainly not kept in mind to make the border of the Park look ‘natural.’ It is very disappointing that the park, as a representation of nature, has no follow-up in its most telling architectural aspect, the built horizon, and thus it has no architectural zone that connects the ‘green paradise’ and the stony everyday-reality beyond it in a meaningful way. In modern philosophy and common speech the ‘horizon’ is a physiomorphic representation of the scope of communities and individuals, giving perspectives to everyday live. These can vary from historical and ideological backgrounds to hopes and expectations. ‘A person who has no horizon,’ said the famous philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer, ‘does not see far enough

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and hence overvalues what is nearest to him. On the other hand, “to have a horizon” means not being limited to what is nearby but being able to see beyond it’.47 The same goes for architecture that pays little or no attention to the representation of the ‘Horizons of Life’ of its users. It makes neighbourhoods depressing by failing to supply the visualized perspectives for a future, since the housing environment does not represent the inhabitants’ identities and dreams. The horizon of equality Since Islam has become a prominent aspect of many Western societies, one of the most telling architectural horizons ever, has been prominently introduced in this part of the world. It certainly is not too bold to assume that virtually nobody who is active in the field of planning and building in the Netherlands is aware of that. This very meaningful ‘horizon’ is the Mecca-oriented Qiblawall, in front of which all Muslim believers line up shoulder to shoulder during prayer. Earlier, when discussing the ‘Horizons of Life’ in my keynote article, the Qibla wall was mentioned as one of the clearest representations of the equality of all people in the eyes of God.48 Because being basically equal is a marvellous parallel to one of the basic values of ‘enlightened’ Western societies, it should be great stuff for patrons and their architects to boost so-called integration by using the tradition of the broad structure as a representation of equal rights, chances and brotherhood. In fact, The Hague has an almost unknown, historical example in its medieval palace. It is the western wall of the oldest cellar of the present-day ‘Ridderzaal’ (medieval Palace Hall of the Counts) on the Binnenhof. As has been argued elsewhere, this was the wall along which Count William II of Holland was, after having been elected King of the Holy Roman Empire, seated amongst his peers.49 The old wall became an unambiguous representation of equality of the most powerful princes-electors and their king-elect, the ruler of the largest European Kingdom/Empire ever. The existence of this architectural and ideological parallel between Muslim and medieval Christian society would certainly be a big surprise for both advocates and adversaries of a multicultural society. It is just one of the possible results of comparative research in the field of worldwide architectural representations, which can be either ignored or recognized. Ignored means contributing to ‘apartheid’, while recognition means encouraging mutual acceptation. (fig.9) Transforming the Transvaal’s beltways into appealing ‘Horizons’ In nature, the horizon is ideally experienced as a horizontal line. That is why most people experience natural ‘obstacles’ such as forests and mountains, and even the narrowness of valleys, as elements that ‘block’ the ‘horizon.’ The same goes for the built environment as disrupted building lines and narrow streets can hardly be experienced as built horizons. In the case of Transvaal, the neigh-

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Figure 9 ‘We are staying, because this place is ideal’, horizon of solidarity and hopes represented by a row of houses in the Hendrik Zwaardekroonstraat, The Hague (photo: www.forum. nl).

bourhood beltways, however plain, provide the best opportunity to create impressive and appealing horizons because there is enough distance between the housing and the beholder, who is often conscious of the fact that another neighbourhood lies beyond this horizon. This last detail is perhaps the most important reality represented by the natural or built horizon as it announces the things to come such as a rising sun seen by man, who everyday continues to hope that, his dreams will one day come true (figure 9). The ‘Gates’ and the ‘Walls’ of Transvaal Somehow, the city planners of The Hague must have understood this, because they wanted to improve the visibility and the architectural quality of the main so-called ‘entrances’ to the area, for instance, the intersection of the Kempstraat and the De la Reyweg, by creating a square and by upgrading the built environment there.50 There could have been no city-gate like the one mentioned earlier without a city wall. Erecting large walls around areas or cities, excluding the bad while protecting the inhabitants, is one of the most widespread and frequently recycled Horizons of Life-based building traditions. Perhaps The Hague’s city planners will begin to understand how architecturally challenging Transvaal’s built belt is, and that transforming it into a promising and intercultural identifying horizon would certainly be understood and probably much appreciated by its inhabitants.

ANTHROPOMORPHIC TRADITIONS PROVIDE TRANSVAAL WITH COHERENCE AND REPRESENTATIONS OF PROSPERITY In order to understand which realities have been represented in the past and how dramatically changing realities in the present can be represented without demolishing the existing built environment, the relevant shorter-cycle themes,

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and the respective long-cycle traditions on which each of them are based, were in this chapter used to analyze the historical and intercultural values and potentials of the most characteristic features of the built environment of Transvaal. Although much can still change and will eventually change, because some realities should be represented architecturally more strongly than others, the rather geometric Axis Mundi & Cosmic Cross-based structure of the quarter’s plan will always provide a strong foundation for every anthropomorphic long-cycle-based shorter-cycle theme to be used. Moreover, the architecture that results from the use of these themes will prove to be surprisingly coherent, favouring the prevailing cultural conventions, because the human body-based cosmic coordinates and proportions will always be seen and experienced in almost every aspect of the renovated built environment. Two of these anthropomorphic-long-cycle-based themes in particular can provide attempts to socially upgrade Transvaal with suitable traditions. As has already been implied above, the ‘Holy & Unholy Zones’ and ‘Boasting Fac¸ade’ theme abound with shorter-cycled traditions from throughout history and from all over the world. These are utilizable to represent every kind of higher social reality or ambition. The first theme offers a colourful range of socially uplifting higher zones of living; the second enables the inhabitants to boast about their (upgraded) identities.51

NOTES 1

2 3 4 5 6 7

8

9

For instance, Professor Roland Gu¨nter and his family (his wife, Janne Gu¨nter and his two daughters, Bettina and Birgitta) in the Eisenheim industrial Plant. See: Roland Gu¨nter, Rettet Eisenheim. Gegen die Zersto¨rung der a¨ltesten Arbeitersiedlung des Ruhrgebietes. Projektgruppe Eisenheim, Bielefeld (1st ed.), 1972. Also: http://www.roland-guenter.de. Charles Jencks, The Architecture of the Jumping Universe: A Polemic: How Complexity Science is Changing Architecture and Culture, (rev. ed.), Chichester, 1997. Chandigarh. Forty years after Le Corbusier, (eds. Chris Gordon and Kist Kilian), ANQ, Architectura et Natura Quarterly, Amsterdam, 1993. Sashikala Ananth, Vaastu. A Path to Harmonious Living, New-Delhi, 2001; D.N. Shukla, Va¯stu S´a¯stra, vol. 1, Hindu Science of Architecture, New Delhi, 1995, chapters IV-VI. A. de Groot and B. Linskens, De Julianakerk in Den Haag. Een nieuwe toekomst voor een bijzonder monument, Den Haag, 2006, pp.14, 28 and 35. E. Habold, De bouw van Transvaalwijk, Leiden, 1980. A.J.J. Mekking, ‘The Hague: A Capital of Centro Phobia. An Analysis of its Built Representation’. In: Wang, Shuguo (ed.), Research Essays Collection of Beijing Studies in 2004, Beijing Central Union University, International Programme Department, pp. 490-511-537 (Chinese/English). At the reopening of the Transvaal Juliana Church on 6 September 2006, Mayor Dr. Wim Deetman, in English, noted: ‘I feel very honoured that this festive ceremony is attended by the diplomatic representatives of some of the nations that are represented in this part of The Hague. I would like to extend a warm welcome to Her Excellency Mrs Amponsah-Ababio, Ambassador of Ghana, to Her Excellency Mrs Derby, charge´ d’affaires of Surinam and to His Excellency Mister Ramzi, consul of Morocco’. See: http://www.denhaag.nl/smartsite.html? id=52964. 1981-2006. VBMK. 25 Jaar Vereniging van Beheerders van Monumentale kerkgebouwen in Nederland, Delft, 2006, p. 28.

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10 C.A.S. Williams, Outlines of Chinese Symbolism & Art Motives (3rd ed., Shanghai, 1941), New York, 1976; Arthur Versluis, The Elements of Native American Traditions, Shaftesbury/Rockport, (MA), 1993; Maria Longhena and Walter Alva, Splendours of the Incas and Other Andean Civilisations, Vercelli, 1999. 11 J.P. Mallory, In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology and Myth, London, 1989. 12 Bouw, Transvaal: http://www.de-orient.nl/aktueel/?newsID=2; Edward W. Said, Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient, London, 1995; Rana Kabbani, Europe’s Myth of Orient, London, 1986. 13 Ananth, 2001 (4), pp. 27-32, 73-79. 14 India: Stella Kramrisch, The Hindu Temple. vol. I (1st ed., 1946), Delhi, 1996, The image of ‘The Mountain and the Cavern’: pp. 161-176; China: The Sacred Mountains of China are divided into two groups associated with Taoism and Buddhism. The group associated with Taoism is known as the Five Great Mountains ([五嶽/五岳 Wuˇyue`]), whereas the group associated with Buddhism is referred to as the Four Sacred Mountains ([四大佛教名山/四大 佛教名山] Sı`da` Fo´jia`o Mı´ngsha¯n). Mount Tai([泰山]) is often regarded as the foremost of the five. It is associated with sunrise, birth, and renewal. The temples on its slopes have been a destination for pilgrims for 3,000 years. C.A.S. Williams 1976 (10), p. 376. 15 De Groot-Linskens, 2006 (5), p. 25. 16 De Groot-Linskens, 2006 (5), the church building: pp. 22-23 and the Wijkgebouw (community centre) ‘Sion’: pp. 33-34 17 H.P.R. Rosenberg, Chr. Vaillant, D. Valentijn, Architectuur Gids Den Haag 1800-1940, Den Haag, 1988, p. 271. 18 Africa: For instance, see the Yoruba Afin (palaces), the roofs of which are supported by anthropomorphic pillars. Also see Susan Denyer, African Traditional Architecture: An Historical and Geographical Perspective, New York, 1978, p. 86-87; Middle/South-America: For instance, the Maya Temple 22 in Copa´n (Mexico), the first of the three cosmic levels. See: A. Arellano Hernandez et al., Maya Die klassische Periode, Mu¨nchen, 1998, Fig 70; Europe: For instance, Vitruvio di Cesare Caesariano (1521), Portico delle Cariatidi and Portico Persiano. See: Renato de Fusco, Il Codice dell ‘Architecttura. Antologia di Trattatisti, Edizioni scientifiche Italiane, Napoli, 1968, pp. 9-14. 19 For instance, the famous Nirwana housing project in The Hague (architects J. Duiker & J.G. Wiebenga, 1927-1930), in: Het Nieuwe Bouwen. Het functionalisme in Nederland/ functionalism in Dutch Architecture 1918-1945, Utrecht, 1983, pp. 94-96. Also: www.nirwana-flat.nl. 20 Janine Meesters, Residents’ Meanings of Specific Architectural and Urban Design Features, OTB Research institute for Housing, Urban and Mobility studies, Delft Technical University, 2005/ www.borg.hi.is/enhr2005iceland/ppr/Meesters.pdf. 21 De Groot-Linskens, 2006 (5), p. 25. 22 Uldrik E. Speerstra, Representaties van culturele identiteit in migrantenliteratuur. De Indiase diaspora als case studie, Leiden, 2001. 23 Ananth 2001 (4), pp. 15-16, 38, 40, 56-57,75. 24 De Groot-Linskens, 2006 (5), p. 25. 25 Aart J.J. Mekking, ‘Traditie als maatstaf voor vernieuwing in de kerkelijke architectuur van de middeleeuwen. De rol van oud en nieuw in het proces van bevestiging en doorbreking van maatschappelijke structuren’, in: Bulletin Koninklijke Nederlandse Oudheidkundige Bond (1998), pp. 205-223. 26 Uma Mbatangu (Clan House) of Sumba. See: Gunawan Tjahjono (ed.), Architecture (Indonesian Heritage), Singapore/Djakarta, 1998, p. 42. 27 En-Yu Huang, The Architectural Representation of Taboos: Toilet-Taboos as Guardians of old Taiwanese Built Representations of Family Life, See: this book, chapter 4. 28 Randa Shaath, Under the Same Sky: Cairo, (Fundacio Antoni Tapies, Barcelona, ‘Contemporary Arab Representations’ Series, Witte de With, Centre for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam), Barcelona/Rotterdam, 2003, pp. 8-41. 29 Kevin Tibbles, NBC News correspondent, [17 October 2006], MSNBC interactive 2006 www. msnbc.msn.com/id/15223547.

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30 C-LAB in conversation with Robert A.M. Stern. In: The Architecture of Power, part 2: Power Building, vol. 6, NAI Rotterdam, March 2006. 31 Dietrich Neumann (ed.), Film Architecture: From Metropolis to Blade Runner, Mu¨nchen/ London/New-York, 1999, pp. 126-133. 32 Goetz Pochat, Figur und Landschaft. Eine historische Interpretation der Landschaftsmalerei von der Antike bis zur Renaissance, Berlin/New York, 1973, pp. 9, 246, 299, 334f. Walter Zednicek and Kristian Sotriffer (eds.), Otto Wagner, Zeichnungen und Pla¨ne, Wien, 2002, Court Pavilion, Imperial Waiting Room: pp. 94-95. 33 ‘The Hanging Gardens of Babylon or Semiramis’ Gardens, are considered one of the so-called ‘Seven Wonders of the World.’ They were supposedly built by Nebuchadnezzar II, circa 600 BC He had them built for his wife Amyitis of Media who was homesick for her birthplace with its trees and beautiful plants. The lush Hanging Gardens are extensively documented by Greek historians such as Strabo and Diodorus Siculus. 34 Aart J.J. Mekking, Thesis no. 2 VU University Amsterdam, 26 June 1986; Aart J.J. Mekking, ‘De Sint-Servaaskerk te Maastricht. Bijdragen tot de kennis van de symboliek en de geschiedenis van de Bouwdelen en de Bouwsculptuur tot ca. 1200’, (Clavis Kunsthistorische Monografiee¨n, vol.2 ), Zutphen 1986; A.J.J. Mekking and F.J. Sleeboom, Het Stadsziekenhuis aan de Coolsingel te Rotterdam van W. N. Rose; chapter: A.J.J. Mekking, ‘In- en uitwendige vormen’, (Ahrend Facettenreeks), Amsterdam, 1972, pp. 11-35; Aart J.J. Mekking, Petrus Regout. Een ondernemer als Bouwheer, In: Wonen/TABK (1), 1975, pp. 8-28. 35 Jimena Canales, and Andrew Herscher, ‘Criminal Skins: Tattoos and Modern Architecture in the Work of Adolf Loos’. In: Architectural History (48), 2005, pp. 235-256. 36 Photo: http://www.optrektransvaal.nl/gevel4.htm. 37 Tonny Nijmeijer, Welstandstoezicht juridisch getoetst, Utrecht 2001; A.W. Klaassen, De Woningwet (weer) gewijzigd. Vergunningstelsel, procedure, welstand. (Praktijkreeks Ruimtelijke Ordening), Zutphen, 2001. 38 Bas van Dinteren, ‘De Wrok van Desidentificatie’. In: Erasmus Magazine (10), 2007, p.26; See also: [email protected]. 39 Rosenberg, 1988 (17), pp. 267-268. 40 Wijkplan Transvaal (eds.: Gemeente Den Haag, Corporatie Haag Wonen Staedion), Den Haag, 2003, p. 64. http://www.denhaag.nl/smartsite.html?id=29302#downloaden. 41 Howard Davies, ‘Typology of Plans, 1.VII.3.d Courtyard’. In: Paul Oliver (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Vernacular Architecture of the World: Volume 1 Theories and Principles, Cambridge, 1997, pp. 633-634. 42 New Closed Paradises. Building Housing blocks with socializing courtyards, see: Wijkplan Transvaal 2003 (40), pp. 37, 40. For instance, Scheepersstraat. 43 Find some interesting information on this topic in: Emilio Garcia Go´mez, Ibn Zamrak, El poeta de la Alhambra, en Cinco poetas musulmanes (2nd ed.), Madrid, 1959; Je´sus Rubiera Mata, Ibn Al-Yˆayya¯b, El oltro poeta de la Alhambra, Granada, 1994; Aart J.J. Mekking, ‘Houses of Prayer, Houses of Preaching. A structural comparison of Islamic and Calvinist-rooted religious Architecture’. In: Het kerkgebouw in het postindustrie¨le landschap/The church in the postindustrial landscape, Zoetermeer, 2004: 79-90. 44 This goes for nearly all of the (landscape-/garden-)architecture discussed in: James Wines, Green Architecture (Philip Jodidio, ed.), Ko¨ln, 2000. 45 Wijkplan Transvaal 2003 (40), p.60 46 Jean-Denis Attiret S.J. (1702-1768), ‘Lettre a` M. d’Assaut, 1er novembre 1743’. In Lettres e´difiantes et curieuses e´crites des missions e´trange`res par quelques missionnaires de la compagnie de Je´sus. Paris: Gue´rin, 1749, p. 27: 1-61. English translation in 1752 by Joseph Spence [Sir Harry Beaumont], ‘A Particular Account of the Emperor of China’s Gardens near Peking’. In The English Landscape Garden, ed.: John Dixon Hunt, New York/London, 1982; Evelyn Lip, Feng Shui. Environments of Power: A Study of Chinese Architecture, London, 1995, pp. 88-104; Cheng Liyao, Imperial Gardens, in Ancient Chinese Architecture, Wien/New York, 1998, passim; Cheng Liyao, Private Gardens, in Ancient Chinese Architecture, Wien/New York, 1999, passim.

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47 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (trans. of ‘Wahrheit und Methode’, Goettingen,1960), (2nd rev. ed.), New York, 2003, p. 302. 48 Mekking, 2004 (43), pp. 79-90. 49 A.J.J. Mekking, ‘Die Aula Palatii in Den Haag. Ernst Schubert zum 70. Geburtstag’, in: Zeitschrift fu¨r Kunstgeschichte (Mu¨nchen) (Bd. 60, 3), 1997, pp. 308-333. 50 Wijkplan Transvaal, 2003 (40), pp. 60-61. 51 Willem Schinkel, Denken in een Tijd van Sociale Hypochondrie. Aanzet tot een theorie voorbij de maatschappij, Kampen, 2007.

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List of Contributors

En-Yu Huang (*1972, Taipei, Taiwan) is an Architect and an Architectural Historian. He studied Design, History & Architectural Theory (1991-1997) at the National Cheng Kung University (Tainan, Taiwan). Between 1999-2004 he worked as an architect at the office of ‘Ricky Liu Architects and Associates’ and at the ‘Sun-Yuan Architects & Associates’ office, both in Taipei. During the academic year 2004-2005 he was a Master Student of the ‘Comparative World Architecture Studies’ (COMWAS) programme at Leiden University. Since 2005 he is preparing a Comparative PhD Thesis on the role of mainly Feng-Shui and Vaastu based Taboos in the design and use of housing architecture at the same University (supervising: Prof. Aart J.J.Mekking). Address: [email protected] Elena Paskaleva (*1975, Ruse, Bulgaria) studied Architecture at the Sofia University of Architecture (Bulgaria), at the Bauhaus University in Weimar (Germany) and at Manchester School of Architecture (United Kingdom). In 2004 she obtained her MA Degree in ‘Comparative World Architecture Studies’ (COMWAS) from Leiden University. Elena Paskaleva has worked as a scientific collaborator at the Department of Civil Engineering at the Bauhaus University in Weimar and at the Netherlands Institute for City Innovation Studies (NICIS) in The Hague. Currently, she is finalising at Leiden University her PhD Thesis Representation of Paradise in the Four-ı¯wa¯n Mosque (supervising: Prof. Aart J.J. Mekking). Address: [email protected] Eric Roose (*1967, Middelburg, the Netherlands) is an Architectural Historian, an Anthropologist and a Legist. Between 1985 and 1991 he graduated in International Law & Political Relations and Cultural Anthropology, both at Leiden University. At the same University he obtained his degree in Art History and (Comparative World) Architectural History in 2003. From 2004 until 2008 he was an Affiliate Fellow of ISIM (Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern world), Leiden. Between 2003 and 2008 he has written his PhD Thesis The architectural representation of Islam: Muslim-Commissioned Mosque Design in the Netherlands at Leiden University (supervising: Prof. Aart J.J. Mekking) on which he graduated in May 2009. He currently holds a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the ASSR (Amsterdam School for Social science Research). Address: [email protected]

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Research & Publications: http://archnet.org/shared/community-member.jsp? user_id=51093&public_p=0 Aart Mekking (*1944, Heerlen, the Netherlands) is supervising a number of PhD Theses in the Field of (Comparative World) Architecture Studies and (Western/Asian) Iconography. Between 2000 and 2005 he was leader of the ‘Comparative World Architecture Studies’ (COMWAS) MA-Programme as well as the Research Programme it was scientifically basing on (cooperating: Vernacular Architecture, Brookes University Oxford; Architecture Department Eindhoven Technical University; (Interior) Architecture Department Royal Academy of Arts, The Hague; Urban Planning Department City of The Hague; Non-Western Anthropology & Non-Western Sociology, Leiden University) . Between 1995 and 2000 he was director of the ‘Art & Region’ Programme of the Netherlands Research School for Medieval Studies (cooperating: Leuven University; Martin Luther University Halle/Saale; Westfa¨lische Wilhelms Universita¨t Mu¨nster; Technische Universita¨t Braunschweig; Leiden University) Prof. Mekking was head of the Department for Architectural and Building History of Leiden University from 1990 until 2005. Adress: [email protected] Research & Publications: http://www.letmetis.leidenuniv.nl/index.php3? m=4&c=367

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Classified Index

ArchitectsHendrik Petrus Berlage, 8, 198-199; Donato Bramante, 31; Michelangelo Buonarotti, 31-32; Le Corbusier (Charles-E´douard Jeanneret-Gris), 62, 177, 203; ‘Dijkman & Osterholt’ (artists), 195-196; Paul Haffmans, 61-64, 67-75, 77-79, 91-92; Adolf Loos, 194-195, 205; Edwin Landseer Lutyens, 30, 46; Hamid Oppier, 66, 92; Andrea Palladio, 31, 33, 46-47; Gerrit Rietveld, 62; Willem Nicolaas Rose, 8, 20, 205; Donato Raffaele Sanzio, 31; ‘Scipio & Domburg’, 72, 74-81, 92; Jacques Germain Soufflot, 31; Jan Gerko Wiebenga, 62, 74, 204. Commissioners/Patrons/Builders/Inhabitants/Dwellers/Users9, 13-17, 25-26, 29, 35-37, 40-42, 52, 141, 153, 175, 192-194, 197. City-fathers /-inhabitants/-dwellers: 19-20, 42, 117, 156, 161, 164-168, 173174, 180-183, 186, 188-189, 191-192, 195-196, 198, 200-203. (religious) Communities/Community leaders: Imperial Minster of Saint Servatius (Maastricht), 9-10; Frederick van Sierck Bishop of Utrecht, 12; Caliph Abd-al-Malik, 12; Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis, 13; mosque commisioners in general, 18; Brelwi commisisoner M.I.R. Lachman (Surinam Islamic, First Taibah, Bijlmer-Amsterdam), 51-53, 61-63, 66-68; Pakistani Islamic (Mobarak, The Hague), 66; Brelwi commisisoners (WIM-NL Surinam Islamic, Noeroel Islam, The Hague), 66; A builder of a Mosque, 73; Brelwi-commisioner Junus Gafar (WIM-NL Surinam Islamic, Anwar e Medina, Eindhoven), 73, 75, 77; Brelwi-commisioners Junus Gafar and Noorani Siddiqui (WIM-NL Surinam Islamic, Second Taibah, Bijlmer-Amsterdam), 75, 77, 82, 85; Surinam-Pakistani Commissioners in the Netherlands, 86-89; Mutually contesting Muslim commisioners, 89; Bahauddin Bliss Bukhari (Founder of the Sufi Naqshbandiyya Order, Bukhara), 105; Khavjeh Ahrar (lord in Transoxania and leader of the Naqshbandiyya Order), 107; Buildings associated with Sufi Saints/Identity 118, The Dutch Reformed Church Wardens of The Hague (Juliana Church, Transvaal), 179, 189; Era Bouw ‘The Orient, Proud as a Peacock’-Project (Real estate developer, Zoetermeer), 182-184, 188189; Bernard of Clairvaux (belonging to the highest nobility of Burgundy he accomplished the ‘Cistercian’ reformation of monastic life), 194; ‘Patrimonium’ (Protestant labourers Organization), 197-198. Entrepreneurs: Petrus Regout 8.

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Village-Inhabitants/Dwellers: 146-147, 153, 155, (interviewing Mrs. Huang, Mr. Hsu) 155-156, (interviewing Mr. Hsu) 161, (interviewing Mr. Gao) 164, 168, 174, 177, 190. Princes: Henry III (King-Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire), 11; King Solomon (Sovereign of the united Jewish Tribes in Palestina), 12; Charlemagne (King-Emperor of the Romano-Frankish Empire), 12, 34; George V (King and Emperor of India), 30; Pope Julius II, 31; As¸oka (‘Cakravartin’ or cosmic Emperor in India), 31; Justinianus (East-Roman Emperor), 32; Su¨leyman Kanunı (‘Solomonic’, Ottoman East-Roman Emperor), 32; Abd-al-Malik (‘Solomonic’, Umayyad Calif), 34; Lords having ‘Solomonic’ pretentions, 36; William II (Count of Holland, King of the Holy Roman Empire), 39; Floris V (Count of Holland, heir to the Throne of Scotland), 39; Maya King, 41; AlWalid (Umayyad Caliph), 63; Abassid, Mamluk, Ottoman and Saudi Rulers, 63; Saudi Princes, 64; Timurid Dynasty, 98; Tuman Aka (Timur’s Wife), 99; Mı¯irza¯ Mohammad Ta¯bin Sha¯hrokh, known as Ulugh-Beg (Timur’s grandson), 98-99; 101, 103-111, 115, 118-119, 122, 135-136; Timur, founder of the Timurid Empire and Dynasty, 99, 107, 110-111, 115, 118-119, 122, 135-136; Astarkhanid Dynasty, 104; Yalangtush, governor of Samarkand), 104; Muhammad Sultan (Timur’s Grandson), 109; Babur, founder of the (Indian) Mugal Empire, 110; In Anatolia: Amı¯rs, Wazı¯rs and Beylerbeys, 112; Sufi Shaykhs (leaders) in Anatolia, 112; Patrons from Seljuq Iran, 113; Semseddin Cuveyni, Vizier, founder of the Ilkhanid Sultan Dynasty in Anatolia, 114-115; Fakhr al-Din ‘Ali, (Seljuq vizier), 115; Local lords as building patrons in Anatolian Cities, 117; Timurid dynasty, 122; Ilkhanid Dynasty, 122; Zoroastrian Princes and Priests (Ira¯n), 123; Parthian Kings, 123; Seljuq Sultan Bayezid I, 130; Local lords patronizing Sufi foundations, 135; Emerging Aristocracy in the Ilkhanid/Timurid Empire, 135; Patrons of Sufi compounds, 136; Gawharshad (mother of Ulugh- Begh), 138; Nebuchadnezzar II (King of Babylon), 205. Light (symbolic)14, 31, 54, 56, 58-60, 64-65, 67-68, 80-83, 92, 126, 154, 188-189. MosquesAl-Aksa Masjid (Jerusalem), 54; Al-Haram Masjid (Makkah), 54, 62-63, 74; Alik Kukeltash Mosque (Samarkand), 103; Anwar-e-Medina (Eindhoven), 72; Aya Sofya (Hagia Sophia, Istanbul), 32; Bibi Khanum Mosque (Samarkand), 103, 111, 118-119, 121; Friday Mosque (Isfahan), 130; Jami Masjid (New-Delhi), 54; Mehmet Fatih (Istanbul), 32; Fatih (Eindhoven), 75; Kalan Mosque (Bukhara), 105; Mobarak (The Hague), 51-52, 59, 62, 68-69, 84, 87-88; Mukatta Mosque (Samarkand), 103; Noeroel Islam (The Hague), 66, 92; The Prophet’s Mosque (Madinah), 54, 62-63; SMA Mosque (Paramaribo), 59, 65, 68, 72-73, 75; Su¨leymaniye (Istanbul), 32-33; Sultan Bayezid Mosque (Bursa), 130-131; Taibah (Amsterdam), 51-52, 59, 63-66, 69-72, 74, 76-85, 87-88, 91-93; Tillya Kari Mosque (Samarkand), 98-99, 103; Zavareth Mosque (Zavareth), 124-125, 139.

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Classified Index

Representational Building Traditions, Long CycleAnthropomorphic: 17, 19-20, 36, 38, 41, 43-44, 66, 96, 98-99, 127-130, 144148, 150-151, 153, 157, 161, 164, 167-168, 174-180, 185, 192, 195, 197, 199, 202-203. Sociomorphic: 17, 20, 36, 39, 174, 176, 196-197. Physiomorphic: 17, 19-20, 36, 38-39, 127, 147-148, 150-151, 161, 168, 174, 176-177, 179, Representational Building Traditions, Shorter Cycle, clustered Theme by ThemeAxis Mundi and Cosmic Cross: 11, 17-20, 37-38, 44, 48, 53, 63-64, 67, 86, 96-98, 122-123, 126, 128, 131, 133-134, 136, 145-147, 150-152, 156, 158, 161, 163-169, 175-177, 179, 180-182, 184-185, 199, 203. Horizons of Life: 17, 20, 38-39, 48, 177, 200-202. Boasting Fac¸ades: 18-20, 39, 41, 48, 175, 192, 195-197, 203. Holy and Unholy Zones: 18-20, 42, 44, 49, 96, 97-98, 128, 145-146, 152, 154-155, 159, 161, 163-164, 166-168, 175-176, 184-185, 187, 191-192, 203. Scope/Perspective15, 19, 28-30, 33-34, 44-45, 47, 122, 128, 143, 150, 153, 178, 186, 189, 197, 199-200. Style8-11, 14-16, 27, 51-52, 62, 66, 71, 83, 85-88, 193. Functional/functionalism/functionalist: 7-8, 24, 35, 62-63, 67, 87-88, 141, 163, 167, 178, 193-196, 204. Modern/modernism/modernist/ Dutch(-modern/modernist): 7, 10, 17, 19, 46, 51-52, 62-63, 67, 69-71, 78, 83, 85, 88-90, 92, 139, 141, 144, 161-166, 168, 177, 188-190, 192-195, 198, 200, 205. ToponymsAachen, 12; Afghanistan, 56; Africa, 41, 57, 198 ; Amasya, 113; The Americas, 37, 43, 57, 191; Amsterdam, 7, 59-60, 66-69, 72, 75, 84, 87, 91-92; AmuDarya (river), 128; Anatolia, 111, 115; Angkor Wat, 8, 38; Asia, 8, 37, 96, 128-129; Arabia, 63, 67; Ashur, 123; Athens, 177; Babylon, 191, 205; Balkh, 112, 128; The Baltic Region, 40; Bareilly, 54, 65, 82; Belgium, 14; Bengal, 56; The Bijlmer (Amsterdam), 72, 77; Bilbao, 177; Brabant, 14; Bukhara, 104106, 120-121, 129, 134, 139; Bursa, 130-131; Cairo, 190; Chandigarh, 177; Changua, 159-160, 171; Chicago, 190; China, 29, 177; Copa´n, 204: Constantinople (now: Istanbul), 32 ; Cordoba, 39; Coventry, 67; Damascus, Dearborn (Michigan), 112, 190; (New) Delhi, 30, 54; Saint-Denis (Paris), 1213; Eindhoven, 59, 72-73, 75, 92; Eisenheim(Bielefeld), 203; England, 56; Eurasia, 43; Europe, 37, 198; The Far East, 198; Freiburg(Breisgau), 12; Sankt Gallen, 154; Germany, 14, 41; Ghana, 203; The Hague, 20, 39, 51, 57, 59, 66, 72, 87, 92; Herat, 138; Hindustan, 53; Holland, 12, 16, 39, 201; Houli (Taichung), 144-145; India, 43, 57, 65-66, 130; The Indus Valley, 45; Iran, 111, 113, 128, 130, 135; Isfahan, 130-131; Italy, 29, 45; Jerusalem 12, 32, 54, 191; Karachi, Kayseri, 112, 115; Konya, 58, 82, 112, 115; Korhogo, 40; The Kraaiennest area (Amsterdam), 75, 78; Kwarazm, 129; Lahore, 56, 91; Leiden

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13; Lelystad, 59, 72; London, 182; Lotharingia, 30; Ludhyana, 14, 56; Maasland (The Meuse Region), 14; Maastricht, 9; Mashad, 138; Meerut, 57-58; Mecca (Makkah), 54, 62-64, 70, 72, 74, 112, 201; Medina (Madinah), 54, 58, 60, 6263, 66-67, 72, 74-75, 77, 79, 82, 87; The Middle East, 37, 69, 198; Morocco, 203; Nantou, 155, 162, 171; Natanz, 134-135; the Netherlands (Nederland), 14, 59-61, 65-66, 68, 72, 74, 82-83, 85, 87-88, 90, 193, 201; New York city, 191; Paderborn, 30; Pakistan, 57-58, 60, 65-66; Paramaribo, 65, 71, 73-75; Paris, 31; The Punjab, 57, 177; Quadian, 55-56, 66-67; Rajasthan, 189; The Holy Roman Empire, 201; Rome, 32; Rotterdam, 59, 72; Sachsenhausen, 42; Samarkand, 98, 100-103, 107-109, 115, 118-119, 121-122, 133-134, 136; Sa¯nchi, 30-31; Schelde (river Scheldt), 14; Schleswig (Schleswick), 29; Sir-Darya (river), 129; Sivas, 112-116, 136; Soest(Westfalia), 29; Stralsund, 40; Srinagar, 56; Sumba, 190, 204; Surinam, 57-59, 65, 72, 83, 189, 204; Taipei, 163, 166, 171; Tai (Holy mountain in China), 204; Taiwan, 190; Tikal, 40-41; Timbuktu, 7; Tokat, 112113; Tournai, 14, 38; Transoxania, 103, 107; Transvaal(The Hague), 173-206: passim; Turkestan, 103; Uttar Pradesh, 54, 57; Utrecht, 8, 11, 59, 72, 92 ; Xi’an (in olden days: Chang’an), 149; Xikou (Chiayi), 145-146; Zavareth, 124-125; Zeeland, 12; Zoetermeer, 183; Zwolle, 59, 72, 92.

212

Classified Index