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Beyond Beauty, Life and Nature in Nasir El-Molk Mosque, Iran

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Abstract

The morphology of built environments has a significant effect on human well-being. To match the emotional effect of natural environment, architects need to create connections with its stimuli. In Islamic architecture, and due to the strict prohibition of depictions of human and animal forms, geometry was the only appropriate tool to create these connections through tessellations, stalactites, and motifs that cascade without an end. This paper employs Christopher Alexander’s 15 properties of Art and Nature as a preliminary qualitative tool for analyzing the visual properties of Nasir El-Molk mosque to measure how far the architects succeeded in creating these connections. A numerical model by Nikos Salingaros was also employed for a quantitative measurement of these qualities. The paper concludes that the building's design was based on a thoughtful process focused on extracting the qualities of Creation and reproducing them in abstract compositions to give the building qualities of Nature and Life.

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Images: author, except bottom left image taken by Maite Elorza, licence CC BY-NC-SA 2.0, overlay by the author

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Images: author, except photo left by Joan Simon, license CC BY-SA 2.0

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Images: left, author; right, photo by Maite Elorza, license CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

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Images: from Moradzadeh and Ebrahimi (2020), figure by Sam Moradzadeh, reproduced by permission

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Images: https://www.freeimg.net/search/islam, public domain

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Images: author; symbols based on Gin (2015)

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Notes

  1. Especially that most of the criteria of biophilic architecture were inspired by theories of Alexander and Salingaros.

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  1. Department of Architectural Engineering, Faculty of Engineering in Benha, Benha University, El Estad St., Benha, El Kalyobia, Egypt

    Nelly Shafik Ramzy

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  1. Nelly Shafik Ramzy
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Correspondence to Nelly Shafik Ramzy.

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Ramzy, N.S. Beyond Beauty, Life and Nature in Nasir El-Molk Mosque, Iran. Nexus Netw J 24, 217–245 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00004-021-00576-7

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