Islamic Architecture Today and Tomorrow: (Re)Defining the Field (Critical Studies in Architecture of the Middle East)

Through Islamic Architecture Today and Tomorrow, established experts, designers, and newer scholars from the world of ‘Islamic architecture’, broadly conceived, consider the field’s changing nature and continued relevance in our rapidly globalizing context. Reflective essays address the meaning of ‘Islamic’ in built environments, as well as the geographical, chronological, and disciplinary diversity of a dynamic field of study that encompasses far more than mosques and tombs. Essays address the use and interpretation of historic structures and spaces, in addition to contemporary design, conservation, and touristic experience, as well as research, publication, and pedagogical practices.

It introduces scholars and practitioners to the state of Islamic architecture as a field of inquiry and provides a snapshot of the issues and challenges facing the field today. Looking forward, it invites readers to consider built environments in Islamic contexts as integral to global systems from an interdisciplinary and inclusive perspective. While this volume offers nuanced perspectives on a host of pressing questions, it ultimately aims to advance a necessarily on-going conversation.

The book will have wide appeal among architectural historians, art historians, and other scholars working on material in the traditional Islamic regions of the world (North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia) and beyond, as well as scholars of religion and society. Practicing architects, landscape architects, planners, preservationists, and heritage managers in the regions addressed may also be interested in the volume. Essays have been written with non-specialist and student readers in mind. Undergraduate, graduate, and design students may use selected essays, or the entire collection, in university or graduate school coursework in architecture and Middle Eastern or Islamic studies.

Mohammad Gharipour is an ACSA Distinguished Professor and serves as Professor, Area Chair, and Director of the Architecture Program at the University of Maryland, USA. He earned his PhD in architecture from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He has taught undergraduate and graduate courses and design studios at several universities and has received numerous awards and grants from organizations including the Society of Architectural Historians (2008), the National Endowment for the Humanities (2015), Fulbright-Hays (2016), the Foundation for Landscape Studies (2016), the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (2016), the American Institute of Architects (2018), Fulbright (2019), the Architectural Research Centers Consortium (2022), and the Big Ten Academic Alliance (2023). In addition to organizing and chairing more than thirty panels and conferences and publishing over 140 articles, encyclopedia entries, and reviews, he has authored, edited, and co-edited sixteen books. Dr. Gharipour is the director and founder of the award-winning International Journal of Islamic Architecture (IJIA), the director and co-founder of the Epidemic Urbanism Initiative, and the president of the Society of Architectural Historians.

Daniel E. Coslett, Ph.D., is a scholar of architectural and urban history and an assistant professor of architecture at Drexel University in Philadelphia. His research addresses architecture and planning of the modern era, built environments of European colonialism, archaeology, and heritage management in North Africa and the Mediterranean region. Coslett has published several edited volumes and book chapters on colonial built environments, as well as articles in publications including the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Public Historian, and the Journal of North African Studies. He is an associate editor for the International Journal of Islamic Architecture.

Contact: Drexel University, Department of Architecture, Design & Urbanism, URBN Center, 3501 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.