The Topkapi Scroll

Since few architectural drawings and no theoretical treatises on architecture remain from the pre-modern Islamic world, the Timurid pattern scroll in the collection of the Topkapi Palace Museum Library is a valuable source of information. This text provides an analysis of the scroll dating from the late 15th or early 16th century, and aims to throw light on the conceptualization, recording, and transmission of architectural design in the Islamic world between the 10th and 16th centuries. It compares the Islamic understanding of geometry with that found in medieval Western art. The scroll, with its 114 individual geometric pattens for wall surfaces and vaulting, is reproduced in this volume. A catalogue includes illustrations showing the underlying geometries, in the form of incised "dead" drawings, from which the individual patterns are generated. An essay by Mohammad al-Asad discusses the geometry of the "muqarnas" and demonstrates by means of CAD drawings how one of the scroll's patterns could be used to design a three-dimensional vault.

ISBN 0892363355   Pages 384 ISBN13 9780892363353 (What's this?)   Volumes 001 Publisher Getty Trust Publications   Weight (grammes) 3574 Imprint Getty Research Institute,U.S.   Published in Santa Monica CA Format Hardback   Series title Sketchbooks & Albums S. Publication date 01 Jan 1996   Height (mm) 339 Library of Congress NA2706.A78   Width (mm) 279 DEWEY 720.917671   Spine width (mm) 51 DEWEY edition DC20   Academic level Postgraduate, Professional / Scholarly

"Just about the best book on Islamic art for the past one hundred years. Meticulously researched, intelligently put together, imaginatively conceived, it is a masterpiece."--Oleg Grabar

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