Al-Masjid an-Nabawi, the great Mosque of Madinah containing the tomb of the Prophet himself, is one of the two holiest sites in the Islamic world. Since the Prophet's death thirteen centuries ago, the mosque has spread outwards from the core of the holy city. At night, it radiates a powerful light. The tomb itself within the Prophet's Chamber is a point of pilgrimage for visitors who come in their millions every year from across the globe. Moath Alofi, who was born and raised in the city, has witnessed this devotion to the Prophet all his life. It is natural that Nabawi should become the title and subject of his first photographic book. From that holy axis, he has travelled into the greater space of Madinah Province and has photographed both the desert culture and the vanishing fabric of the city and its surrounding neighbourhoods. Madinah, like its holy counterpart, Mecca, is a city in a constant state of transition. The role of the photographer as an observer of change becomes all the more important as the pace of transition inevitably escalates. This book, Nabawi, is a record of the daily life of one of the great holy sites, and a study in humanity. All manner of expression and experience are found in the faces of the pilgrims - the old and young men, women and children - who are touched by the spirit of the place and by the devotion they have so faithfully expressed.

The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture is the most comprehensive reference work in this complex and diverse area of art history. Built on the acclaimed scholarship of the Grove Dictionary of Art, this work offers over 1,600 up-to-date entries on Islamic art and architecture ranging from the Middle East to Central and South Asia, Africa, and Europe and spans over a thousand years of history.
Recent changes in Islamic art in areas such as Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq are elucidated here by distinguished scholars. Entries provide in-depth art historical and cultural information about dynasties, art forms, artists, architecture, rulers, monuments, archaeological sites and stylistic developments. In addition, over 500 illustrations of sculpture, mosaic, painting, ceramics, architecture, metalwork and calligraphy illuminate the rich artistic tradition of the Islamic world. With the fundamental understanding that Islamic art is not limited to a particular region, or to a defined period of time, The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture offers pathways into Islamic
culture through its art.

First part of 5-part history of the development of Gothic in the churches of the Paris Basin, 1120-1250. The Creation of Gothic Architecture is a five-part illustrated thesaurus of the Early Gothic churches in the limestone region of northern France known as the Paris Basin. It focuses on the transformation from romanesque togothic architecture during the years between 1120 and 1250, and when complete it will provide a comprehensive pictorial history of the 1,420 churches of the Paris Basin. Most of these churches, which represent a vital step in theevolution of western European architecture, are barely known outside the region, and have been little recorded. The completed project will: provide a photographic description of all the more significant churches; analyse stylisticchanges to foliate capitals and vault-erection techniques; establish a foundation for dating the contruction phases of the churches; and, using this chronology, will identify the time and place for each of the creative ideas, inventions and innovations that produced the gothic style, follow their evolution from place to place, and identify the major creators. Dr JOHN JAMES is a world authority on medieval architecture, author of oversixty books and articles.

Cathedrals are awe-inspiring buildings. Most are grand medieval structures, while others appear simple and unpretentious - yet all were designed to reflect the glory of God and have a profound impact on us. As trailblazers of architectural development, each cathedral has distinct individual features - such as the powerful Norman Romanesque west towers of Durham, the unique octagonal tower at Ely, and the daring late Gothic finery and spaciousness at Gloucester. In this lavishly illustrated guide to cathedrals from Bangor to York, with profiles of Roman Catholic and Scottish cathedrals, David Pepin outlines the evolution of architectural style, each building's key features, and the ongoing story of daily worship, wide-ranging ministry, conservation, the new work of craftspeople, and the increasing numbers of pilgrims and visitors.

What happens when a monotheistic, foreign religion needs a space in which to worship in China, a civilisation with a building tradition that has been largely unchanged for several millennia? The story of this extraordinary convergence begins in the 7th century and continues under the Chinese rule of Song and Ming, and the non-Chinese rule of the Mongols and Manchus, each with a different political and religious agenda. The author shows that mosques, and ultimately Islam, have survived in China because the Chinese architectural system, though often unchanging, is adaptable: it can accommodate the religious requirements of Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, and Islam.

Never before available in paperback, J. M. C. Toynbee's study is the most comprehensive book on Roman burial practices. Ranging throughout the Roman world from Rome to Pompeii, Britain to Jerusalem--Toynbee's book examines funeral practices from a wide variety of perspectives. First, Toynbee examines Roman beliefs about death and the afterlife, revealing that few Romans believed in the Elysian Fields of poetic invention. She then describes the rituals associated with burial and mourning: commemorative meals at the gravesite were common, with some tombs having built-in kitchens and rooms where family could stay overnight. Toynbee also includes descriptions of the layout and finances of cemeteries, the tomb types of both the rich and poor, and the types of grave markers and monuments as well as tomb furnishings.

Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province, and the surrounding environs have one of the richest Buddhist cultures in China. In A Tale of Two Stupas, Albert Welter tells the story of Hangzhou Buddhism through the conceptions, erections, and resurrections of Yongming Stupa, dedicated to the memory of one of Hangzhou's leading Buddhist figures, and Leifeng Pagoda, built to house stupa relics of the historical Buddha. Welter delves into the intricacies of these two sites and pays particular attention to their origins and rebirths. These sites have suffered devastation and endured long periods of neglect, yet both have been resurrected and re-resurrected during their histories and have resumed meaningful places in the contemporary Hangzhou landscape, a mark of their power and endurance. A Tale of Two Stupas adopts a site-specific, regional approach in order to show how the dynamics of initial conception, resurrection, and re-resurrection work, and what that might tell us about the nature of Hangzhou and Chinese Buddhism.

The Pantheon is one of the most important architectural monuments of all time. Thought to have been built by Emperor Hadrian in approximately 125 AD on the site of an earlier, Agrippan-era monument, it brilliantly displays the spatial pyrotechnics emblematic of Roman architecture and engineering. The Pantheon gives an up-to-date account of recent research on the best preserved building in the corpus of ancient Roman architecture from the time of its construction to the twenty-first century. Each chapter addresses a specific fundamental issue or period pertaining to the building; together, the essays in this volume shed light on all aspects of the Pantheon's creation, and establish the importance of the history of the building to an understanding of its ancient fabric and heritage, its present state, and its special role in the survival and evolution of ancient architecture in modern Rome.

After World War II, America's religious denominations spent billions on church architecture as they spread into the suburbs. In this richly illustrated history of midcentury modern churches in the Midwest, Gretchen Buggeln shows how architects and suburban congregations joined forces to work out a vision of how modernist churches might help reinvigorate Protestant worship and community. The result is a fascinating new perspective on postwar architecture, religion, and society. Drawing on the architectural record, church archives, and oral histories, The Suburban Church focuses on collaborations between architects Edward D. Dart, Edward A. Soevik, Charles E. Stade, and seventy-five congregations. By telling the stories behind their modernist churches, the book describes how the buildings both reflected and shaped developments in postwar religion-its ecumenism, optimism, and liturgical innovation, as well as its fears about staying relevant during a time of vast cultural, social, and demographic change. While many scholars have characterized these congregations as "country club" churches, The Suburban Church argues that most were earnest, well-intentioned religious communities caught between the desire to serve God and the demands of a suburban milieu in which serving middle-class families required most of their material and spiritual resources.

In this book, a distinguished team of authors explores the way space, place, architecture, and ritual interact to construct sacred experience in the historical cultures of the eastern Mediterranean. Essays address fundamental issues and features that enable buildings to perform as spiritually transformative spaces in ancient Greek, Roman, Jewish, early Christian, and Byzantine civilizations. Collectively they demonstrate the multiple ways in which works of architecture and their settings were active agents in the ritual process. Architecture did not merely host events; rather, it magnified and elevated them, interacting with rituals facilitating the construction of ceremony. This book examines comparatively the ways in which ideas and situations generated by the interaction of place, built environment, ritual action, and memory contributed to the cultural formulation of the sacred experience in different religious faiths.

From modest chapels to majestic cathedrals, and historic synagogues to modern mosques and Buddhist temples: this photo-filled, pocket-size guidebook presents 1,079 houses of worship in Manhattan and lays to rest the common perception that skyscrapers, bridges, and parks are the only defining moments in the architectural history of New York City. With his exhaustive research of the city's religious buildings, David W. Dunlap has revealed (and at times unearthed) an urban history that reinforces New York as a truly vibrant center of community and cultural diversity.

Published in conjunction with a New-York Historical Society exhibition, "From Abyssinian to Zion" is a sometimes quirky, always intriguing journey of discovery for tourists as well as native New Yorkers. Which popular pizzeria occupies the site of the cradle of the Christian and Missionary Alliance movement, the Gospel Tabernacle? And where can you find the only house of worship in Manhattan built during the reign of Caesar Augustus? Arranged alphabetically, this handy guide chronicles both extant and historical structures and includes

- 650 original photographs and 250 photographs from rarely seen archives

- 24 detailed neighborhood maps, pinpointing the location of each building

- concise listings, with histories of the congregations, descriptions of architecture, and accounts of prominent priests, ministers, rabbis, imams, and leading personalities in many of the congregations

This book examines the role of Muslim communities in the emergence of connections and mobilities across the Indian Ocean World from a longue durée perspective. Spanning the 7th century through the medieval period until the present day, this book aims to move beyond the usual focus on geographical sub-regions to highlight different aspects of interconnectivity in relation to Islam. Analysing textual and material evidence, contributors examine identities and diasporas, manuscripts and literature, as well as vernacular and religious architecture. It aims to explore networks and circulations of peoples, ideas and ideologies, as well as art, culture, religion and heritage. It focuses on global interactions as well as local agencies in context.

This book is a revised edition of a classic work of scholarship, with new Foreword, Appendix, and updated Index and bibliography. Dr Yates discusses the liturgical arrangement of Anglican churches in the period between the Reformation and the Oxford Movement, challenging many widely held assumptions and prejudices.

This is the third in a series of four volumes that are intended to present a complete Corpus of all the church buildings, of both the Western and the Oriental rites, built, rebuilt or simply in use in the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem between the capture of Jerusalem by the First Crusade in 1099 and the loss of Acre in 1291. This volume deals exclusively with Jerusalem, the capital of the Kingdom from 1099 to 1187, leaving the churches of Acre and Tyre to be covered in the fourth and final volume. The Corpus will be an indispensable work of reference to all those concerned with the medieval topography and archaeology of the Holy Land, with the history of the church in the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, with medieval pilgrimage to the Holy Places, and with the art and architecture of the Latin East.

The religious buildings of the Jewish community in Britain have never been explored in print. Lavishly illustrated with previously unpublished images and photographs taken specially by English Heritage, this book traces the architecture of the synagogue in Britain and Ireland from its discreet Georgian- and Regency-era beginnings to the golden age of the grand "cathedral synagogues" of the High Victorian period. Sharman Kadish sheds light on obscure and sometimes underappreciated architects who designed synagogues for all types of worshipers--from Orthodox and Reform congregations to Yiddish-speaking immigrants in the 1900s. She examines the relationship between architectural style and minority identity in British society and looks at design issues in the contemporary synagogue. Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

This book explores the intersection between two key developments of the fourth through seventh centuries CE: the construction of monumental churches and the veneration of saints. While Christian sacred topography is usually interpreted in narrowly religious terms as points of contact with holy places and people, this book considers church buildings as spatial environments in which a range of social 'work' happened. It draws on approaches developed in the fields of anthropology, ritual studies, and social geography to examine, for example, how church buildings facilitated commemoration of the community's dead, establishment of a shared historical past, and communication with the divine. Surveying evidence for the introduction of saints into liturgical performance and the architectural and decorative programs of churches, this analysis explains how saints helped to bolster the boundaries of church space, reinforce local social and religious hierarchies, and negotiate the community's place within larger regional and cosmic networks.

Engineering a cathedral offers professional engineers, architects and interested lay people a unique opportunity to study the construction of one of the worlds finest buildings. Durham cathedral celebrates its 900th anniversary in 1993 and to mark the event a group of engineers have applied their modern knowledge and techniques to its structure. With over 80 illustrations, Engineering a cathedral is not only relevant to Durham, it is relevant to all other medieval buildings, those who care for them and those who simply stand and wonder.

Experiencing the resonant acoustics of the church of Hagia Sophia allowed the Byzantine participants in its liturgical rituals to be filled with the Spirit of God, and even to become his image on earth. Bissera Pentcheva’s vibrant analysis examines how these sung rites combined with the church’s architectural space to make Hagia Sophia a performative place of worship representative of Byzantine religious culture in all its sensory richness. Coupling digital acoustic models and video with a close examination of liturgical texts and melodic structures, Pentcheva applies art-historical, philosophical, archeoacoustical, and anthropological methodologies to provide insight into the complementary ways liturgy and location worked to animate worshippers in Byzantium. Rather than focus on the architectural form of the building, the technology of its construction, or the political ideology of its decoration, Pentcheva delves into the performativity of Hagia Sophia and explains how the “icons of sound� created by the sung liturgy and architectural reverberation formed an aural experience that led to mystical transcendence for worshippers, opening access to the imagined celestial sound of the angelic choirs. Immersive, deeply researched, and beautifully illustrated, this exploration of Hagia Sophia sheds new light on sacred space, iconicity, and religious devotion in Byzantium. Scholars of art and architectural history, religious studies, music and acoustics, and the medieval period will especially appreciate Pentcheva’s field-advancing work.

This is the first of a series of three volumes which are intended to present a complete corpus of all the church buildings in use in the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem between the capture of Jerusalem by the First Crusade in 1099 and the loss of Acre in 1291. Volume II completes the general topographical coverage begun in Volume I, while Volume III will deal specifically with Jerusalem, Acre and Tyre. When complete the Corpus will contain a topographical listing of all the 400 or more church buildings of the Kingdom and individual descriptions and discussion of them in terms of their identification, building history and architecture. A feature of the Corpus is the standardized format in which the evidence is presented; this also extends to the plans and elevations which are drawn to a uniform style and scale. The Corpus will therefore be an indispensable work of reference for all those concerned with the history and architecture of the Latin east.

In Terracotta and domestic worship. Bestiary of the Graeco-Roman Egypt, Celine Boutantin provides a synthesis of the production workshops figurines and studies personal beliefs and practices in Graeco-Roman Egypt. Dans Terres cuites et culte domestique. Bestiaire de l'Egypte greco-romaine, Celine Boutantin dresse un bilan sur les ateliers de production de figurines et aborde la question des croyances et des pratiques personnelles en Egypte a l'epoque greco-romaine.

The Temple of Artemis at Sardis, one of the largest Greek temples in the world, is documented in detail in this lavishly illustrated two-volume monograph by architectural historian Fikret K. Yegul. Begun in the century after the death of Alexander the Great, this delightful and complex building has been admired by travelers, depicted by artists and architects, and studied by scholars for hundreds of years. Yegul provides a wide-ranging overview of the building, treating such topics as early travelers, excavation history, inscriptions, construction techniques, the colossal Roman imperial portraits from the temple cella, religion and cult, and comparisons to other temples and buildings throughout Asia Minor. Yegul's block-by-block description of the extant elements of the building, accompanied by hundreds of drawings and photographs, elucidates the two primary phases in the temple's design and construction, which date to the Hellenistic and the Roman imperial periods. All elements of the building are illustrated in their recently conserved state, with centuries-old discoloration now removed to reveal the original marble. The text volume is accompanied by a series of twenty-four foldout plates with detailed state plans and elevations of the temple.

At a time dominated by the disappearance of Future, as claimed by the French anthropologist Marc Auge, Utopia and Religion seem to be two different ways of giving back an inner horizon to mankind. Therefore this book, on the one hand, considers the importance of utopia as a tool and how it offers an economic and social resource to improve cities' wealth, future and livability. On the other, it explores the impact of religious and cultural ideals on cities that have recently emerged in this context. Based on numerous observations, the book examines the intellectual legacy of utopian theory and practices across various academic disciplines. It also presents discussions, theories, and case studies addressing a range of issues and topics related to utopia.

From its position at the heart of the ancient city of York, York Minster formed the focus of a community for centuries, while performing a national role as the seat of Britain's second Archbishop. Today, nearly 1500 years after the earliest traces of Christian worship in York, the Minster remains a vigorous spiritual centre of outreach and renewal. York Minster: A Living Legacy brings the past to life through beautifully illustrated text that reveals the many hidden corners of the Minster today, as well as the beauties of its structure and glass. York Minster is a portrait of the Minster community, its day-to-day life, the people who make the Minster work and the skills of the craft workshops that maintain its fabric for future generations. "There are many fine books about the architectural beauties of the Minster, but this is the first to celebrate the people who have made the Minster what it was and is, and the people who to our own day care for it, serve its mission and devote their time and skill to it. Here, too, we gather the recollections and the thoughts of people who in the living past have been part of the human fabric of the Minster." - The Very Rev. Keith Jones, Dean of York