Critical Studies in Architecture of the Middle East Islamic and Islamicate Americas

From colonial courtyards in Peru to the mosques and cultural centres of contemporary communities across North America, depicts how architectural traditions of the Islamic world have taken root. Confronts conventional geographical boundaries, situating the Americas in dialogue with transregional aesthetic and cultural networks. 37 col. 17b&w illus. A groundbreaking study that redefines Islamic architectural history by placing the Americas at the centre of transregional cultural and artistic dialogues. Walking us through colonial courtyards in Peru to the mosques and cultural centres built by contemporary immigrant communities across North America, Islamic and Islamicate Architecture in the Americas depicts how architectural traditions tied to the Islamic world have taken root and evolved across the Western Hemisphere. This book confronts conventional geographical boundaries by situating the Americas in dialogue with transregional aesthetic and cultural networks that span centuries. Using diverse case studies, contributors examine the migration of construction techniques, the adaptation of Islamic architectural motifs in colonial and modern contexts and the role of patronage in shaping built environments. This book expands our understanding of how aesthetics and cultures travel and take on new meanings in different spaces by bridging North and South America, two regions often excluded from the Islamic architectural canon. A collection of stimulating material for scholars and students of architecture, art history and cultural studies, this volume offers a vital reconsideration of Islamic and Islamicate architecture through a hemispheric lens, revealing a rich and complex architectural legacy that continues to shape the Americas today. Caroline ‘Olivia’ M. Wolf is an assistant professor of art history at Loyola University Chicago, USA. Architectural expressions resonant with Islamic traditions appear in diverse modes across the Americas, from Andalusian-inspired colonial patios in Peru to the modern and contemporary patronage of immigrant communities in the United States and Canada. This volume examines the multiple manifestations of Islamic architecture that permeate the region’s built environment to invite an expanded framing of this architectural legacy via a hemispheric consideration of aesthetics, narrative and patronage. Chapters consider a broad range of topics from the migration of aesthetic traditions and construction techniques tied to the architectural forms of the Islamic world in the colonial ‘New World’, to the direct contributions of modern and contemporary migrants in shaping a collective identity and the built environment. By placing in productive dialogue sites that represent Islamic and Islamicate architecture across North and South America – two areas outside of the traditional conceptions of the Islamic world – this volume bridges transregional and transcultural gaps in the current literature.