This research wants to analyse the architecture and the shape of Muslim urban space, in the different regions and climates of the huge territory controlled by this civilization. The formal and religious mean where this transformation moves is represented by water, which transforms itself into a stuff useful for the design of the landscape and the towns, which varies according to the environmental condition and limitation. In a place strongly conditioned by drought which substantially influences the human landscape, the control on water and its sources has provoked, during history, several wars but it has also favourited a deep social union. In the Islamic society, all these limitations have assumed a formal meaning of an extreme interest. From Dehli to Damasco, from Bagdad to Cordova, the presence of water, in its different shapes, has characterized the aspect of gardens and Palaces, of towns and entire parts of the landscape. The culture of water is made up of techniques able to gather, transport, and preserve the precious liquid, but it is also made up of techniques able to host it. Water has to be controlled, concentrated, distributed; its architecture, in the process of definition of the shapes of the places, underlines the useful, holy , but also playful and monumental value of water. In a strongly uneven territory, from an environmental, climatic and morphologic point of view, as that characterizing the huge Islamic territory, it is not possible to underline a particular kind of dimensional, figurative or architectural continuity in the relationship between water and Islamic culture. In fact, it is possible to jump from a context where water is only an invisible presence, flowing in the subsoil and is present only within structures and houses under the aspect of fountains, like in Damasco or Fes, to a context where it assumes, thanks to its dimension, a territorial function and it becomes a starting point of the planning and the development of entire Regions, as it happens for the fluvial systems of Nile, Tigris or Gange. Furthermore, each shape of the human space comes from a constant interaction between man and the surrounding landscape; so, the role of water and its deep relation with he settlements is bound to the extremely particular condition of soil and subsoil, to its capacity to keep the precious liquid or to let it sliding down to great depths, nourishing stratum of the subsoil or dispersing in deep faults. All these elements, combined with the variation of the climate and the rain, substantially influence the shape and the dimension of the towns, their capacity to get bigger, or to multiply in several centres present on the territory, according to the logic of the little farmers; but it also influences the shape of the farm, of the gardens, letting both of them (town and country) be characterized by the same structure.

Questo scritto vuole indagare l’architettura e la forma dello spazio urbano islamico, nelle diverse regioni e climi dell’ampio territorio controllato da questa civiltà. Il veicolo formale e spirituale lungo il quale si muove questa trasformazione è costituito dall’acqua che, al variare delle condizioni e delle ampie limitazioni ambientali si trasforma in materia utile al disegno del paesaggio e delle città. In un ambiente in cui la siccità condiziona in modo sostanziale il paesaggio umano, il controllo dell’acqua e delle sue sorgenti ha determinato, nel corso del tempo, numerose guerre ma ha anche favorito una forte coesione sociale. Nel mondo islamico, tutte queste limitazioni hanno assunto un significato formale di estremo interesse. Da Dehli a Damasco, da Bagdad a Cordova, la presenza dell’acqua, nelle sue diverse forme, ha caratterizzato il volto di giardini e regge, di città e intere porzioni di paesaggio. La cultura dell’acqua si compone di tecniche che sono in grado di raccogliere, trasportare e conservare il prezioso fluido, ma anche di architetture in grado di ospitarlo. L’acqua deve essere domata, concentrata, distribuita; la sua architettura, nel definire le forme dei luoghi, esalta il valore utilitaristico ma anche sacrale, ludico e monumentale dell’acqua. In un territorio fortemente discontinuo dal punto di vista ambientale, climatico e morfologico, come quello che caratterizza il vasto paesaggio dell’Islam, non è possibile evidenziare un particolare tipo di continuità dimensionale, figurativa o architettonica nel rapporto tra acqua e cultura musulmana. Si può passare, infatti, da realtà in cui l’acqua è solo un’invisibile presenza, che scorre nel sottosuolo e che si manifesta unicamente all’interno di edifici e abitazioni sotto forma di fontane, come a Damasco o Fes, a situazioni in cui assume, per dimensioni, funzione territoriale e diviene punto di partenza della pianificazione e dello sviluppo di intere regioni, come avviene per i sistemi fluviali del Nilo, del Tigri o del Gange. Inoltre, ogni forma dello spazio antropico deriva da una costante interazione tra uomo e ambiente circostante; così, il ruolo dell’acqua e il suo profondo legame con gli insediamenti, si lega alla particolarissima condizione del suolo e del sottosuolo, alla sua capacità di trattenere il prezioso liquido o di farlo scivolare giù sino a grandi profondità, andando ad alimentare falde sotterranee o disperdendosi in faglie profonde. Tutto questo, combinato con le variabili del clima e delle precipitazioni, incide in modo sostanziale sulla forma e sulla dimensione delle città, sulla loro capacità di ingrandirsi o piuttosto di moltiplicarsi in numerosi centri sparsi sul territorio secondo la logica dei piccoli villaggi agricoli; ma condiziona anche la forma della campagna, dell’orto, del giardino, facendo sì che entrambi (città e campagna) siano caratterizzati dalla medesima struttura.

Dar-al ma the architecture of water in the Islamic countries / Montalbano, Calogero. - ELETTRONICO. - 94:(2008), pp. 683-736. [10.1163/ej.9789004162402.i-1500.195]

Dar-al ma the architecture of water in the Islamic countries

MONTALBANO, Calogero
2008-01-01

Abstract

This research wants to analyse the architecture and the shape of Muslim urban space, in the different regions and climates of the huge territory controlled by this civilization. The formal and religious mean where this transformation moves is represented by water, which transforms itself into a stuff useful for the design of the landscape and the towns, which varies according to the environmental condition and limitation. In a place strongly conditioned by drought which substantially influences the human landscape, the control on water and its sources has provoked, during history, several wars but it has also favourited a deep social union. In the Islamic society, all these limitations have assumed a formal meaning of an extreme interest. From Dehli to Damasco, from Bagdad to Cordova, the presence of water, in its different shapes, has characterized the aspect of gardens and Palaces, of towns and entire parts of the landscape. The culture of water is made up of techniques able to gather, transport, and preserve the precious liquid, but it is also made up of techniques able to host it. Water has to be controlled, concentrated, distributed; its architecture, in the process of definition of the shapes of the places, underlines the useful, holy , but also playful and monumental value of water. In a strongly uneven territory, from an environmental, climatic and morphologic point of view, as that characterizing the huge Islamic territory, it is not possible to underline a particular kind of dimensional, figurative or architectural continuity in the relationship between water and Islamic culture. In fact, it is possible to jump from a context where water is only an invisible presence, flowing in the subsoil and is present only within structures and houses under the aspect of fountains, like in Damasco or Fes, to a context where it assumes, thanks to its dimension, a territorial function and it becomes a starting point of the planning and the development of entire Regions, as it happens for the fluvial systems of Nile, Tigris or Gange. Furthermore, each shape of the human space comes from a constant interaction between man and the surrounding landscape; so, the role of water and its deep relation with he settlements is bound to the extremely particular condition of soil and subsoil, to its capacity to keep the precious liquid or to let it sliding down to great depths, nourishing stratum of the subsoil or dispersing in deep faults. All these elements, combined with the variation of the climate and the rain, substantially influence the shape and the dimension of the towns, their capacity to get bigger, or to multiply in several centres present on the territory, according to the logic of the little farmers; but it also influences the shape of the farm, of the gardens, letting both of them (town and country) be characterized by the same structure.
2008
The City in the Islamic World
978-90-04-16240-2
9789047442653
Brill Academic Publishers
Dar-al ma the architecture of water in the Islamic countries / Montalbano, Calogero. - ELETTRONICO. - 94:(2008), pp. 683-736. [10.1163/ej.9789004162402.i-1500.195]
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11589/12595
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