Distinctive Features of Islamic Architecture and Decorative Art

Key Characteristics of Islamic Architecture

Islamic architecture is characterized by its profound harmony and integration with the surrounding landscape. Buildings often feature modest heights, and water elements, symbolizing paradise, are frequently incorporated, sometimes used to create a mirror-like effect.

The geographic origins of Islam and its religious art profoundly influenced its architectural development. The desert environment fostered a preference for horizontal lines, and the nomadic Bedouin Arabs favored small-scale constructions. While the mosque serves as the most important building—a central place for community and prayer—Islamic builders also constructed palaces, mausoleums, madrassas, and other structures.

Architectural Elements and Materials

Commonly used materials include brick, plaster, and wood. Stone, a more durable material, was employed to a lesser extent, often reserved for more demanding structural or decorative elements. Islamic architecture generally focuses less on complex construction problems, with buildings tending to be based on cubic volumes. These volumes often emphasize the hemispheres of their domes, along with the distinctive towers and minarets of their mosques.

Structural Supports and Vaulting

The column maintained its role as a support, but given the lightness of wooden ceilings, columns were generally thin. Their capitals are typically of three types:

• Caliphate capital
• Ribbon capital
• Stalactite (muqarnas) capitals

A wide variety of vaulted coverings are utilized, including domes, barrel vaults, muqarnas, fretwork, gables, and lintels. The horseshoe arch, adopted from Spanish Visigothic art, later spread across the Islamic world. Other highly decorative varieties include lobed arches, poly-lobed arches, and pointed horseshoe arches.

The Art of Islamic Interior Decoration

Dichromy (the use of two colors) is a characteristic feature, underscoring a deep love for interior decoration. This ornamentation is often not carved directly into the stone but applied as thin stone slabs or plasterwork after the wall construction, creating a striking contrast with the often sober exterior.

Polychromy and Decorative Motifs

The taste for polychromy enhances decorative forms on gypsum boards with bright colors, granting a very important role to ceramic glaze. Wood is also a valuable element, enriched with delicate motifs, often aiming for an illusionistic effect in decoration.

Islamic decoration is typically aniconic and anti-naturalistic. Except in some schools, animated themes are excluded, with decoration primarily reduced to:

• Vegetal motifs (known as ataurique)
• Geometric patterns (such as interlacing or tracery)
• Calligraphy (including Kufic or Naskhi scripts)

Thus, aniconism and abstraction prevail. The arabesque is considered the ultimate expression of the abstract quality of Islamic decoration. Islamic decoration, against