The Fleesch Halle (meat-market) at Haarlem, also in brick and stone, is of a very rococo style, but notwithstanding all its vagaries presents a most picturesque appearance.
The domestic architecture of Holland and the shop fronts retain more of their original dispositions than will be found in any other country. At Hoorn, Enkhuisen and other towns, there has virtually been no change during the last 200 years. In the more flourishing towns as Amsterdam and Rotterdam, the increasing prosperity of the inhabitants led them in the latter portion of the 17th and in the 18th centuries to adapt features borrowed from the French work of Louis XIV. and Louis XV., without, however, their refinement, luxuriance or variety, so that although substantial structures they are extremely monotonous in general effect.
(R. P. S.)
Mahommedan Architecture
Before proceeding with “modern architecture,” to which the styles now discussed have gradually led us, we have still another important architectural style to describe, in Mahommedan architecture. The term “Mahommedan” has been selected in preference to “Saracenic,” because it includes a much wider field, and enables us to bring in many developments which could not well come under the latter title. It was the Mahommedan religion which prescribed the plan and the features of the mosques, and it was the restriction of that faith which led to the principal characteristics of the style. The term “Saracenic” could hardly be applied to the architecture of Spain, Persia or Turkey.
The earliest mosques at Mecca and Medina, which have long since passed away, were probably of the simplest kind; there were no directions on the subject in the Koran, and, as Fergusson remarks, had the religion been confined to its native land, it is probable that no mosques worthy of the name would have ever been erected. In the first half-century of their conquest in Egypt and Syria the Mahommedans contented themselves with desecrated churches and other buildings, and it was only when they came among the temple-building nations that they seemed to have felt the necessity of providing some visible monument of their religion. The first requirement was a structure of some kind, which should indicate to the faithful the direction of Mecca, towards which, at stated times, they were to turn and pray. The earliest mosque, built by Omar at Jerusalem, no longer exists, but in the mosque of ‘Amr at Cairo (fig. 54), founded in 643 and probably restored or added to at various times, we find the characteristic features which form the base of the plans of all subsequent mosques. These features consist of (a) a wall built at right angles to a line drawn towards Mecca, in which, sunk in the wall, was a niche indicating the direction towards which the faithful should turn; (b) a covered space for shelter from the sun or inclement weather, which was known as the prayer chamber; (c) in front of the prayer chamber, a large open court, in which there was a fountain for ablution; and (d) a covered approach on either side of these courts and from the entrance. The materials employed in the earlier mosque were all taken from ancient structures, Egyptian, Roman and Byzantine, but so arranged as to constitute the elements of a new style. The columns employed were not always of sufficient size, and therefore in order to obtain a greater height, above the capitals were square dies, carrying ranges of arches, all running in the direction of Mecca; to resist the thrust, wood ties were built in under the arches, so that the structure was of the lightest appearance. The same principle was observed in the mosque of Kairawan, in Tunisia (675), and in the mosque of Cordova (786-985), copied from it. Similar wooden ties are found in the mosque of El Aksa and the Dome of the Rock at Jerusalem (built 691), so that they became one of the characteristics of the style. For constructional reasons, however, this method of building was not always adhered to, and in the mosque of Tulun (fig. 55) in Cairo (879), the first mosque in Egypt, built of original materials, we find an important departure. The arcades, instead of running at right angles to the Mecca wall, are built parallel with it, on account of the great thrust of the arches, all built in brick (fig. 56). The wood ties would have been quite insufficient to resist the thrust, and in the case of this mosque were probably used to carry lanterns.
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| Fig. 54.—Plan of Mosque of ‘Amr. Old Cairo. | |
1. Kibla. 2. Mimbar. 3. Tomb of ‘Amr. 4. Dakka. | 5. Fountain for Ablution 6. Rooms built later. 7. Minaret. 8. Latrines. |
The mosque of Tulun is the earliest example in which the pointed arch appears throughout, and it forms the leading and most characteristic constructional feature of the style in its subsequent developments in every country, except in Barbary and Spain, where the circular-headed horse-shoe arch seems to be preferred. As it is also the earliest mosque in which the decoration applied is that which was by inference laid down in the Koran, some allusion to the restrictions therein contained, and the consequent result, may not be out of place. The representation of nature in any form was absolutely forbidden, and this applied generally to foliage of all kinds, and plants, the representation of birds or animals, and above all of the human figure. The only exceptions to the rule would seem to be those found in the very conventional representations of lions carved over the gateways of Cairo and Jerusalem and in the courts of the Alhambra. It was this restriction which produced the extremely beautiful conventional patterns which are carried round the arches of the mosque of Tulun, and are found in the friezes, string-courses and the capitals of the shafts, and when these patterns form the background of the text of the Koran in high relief, in the splendid Arabic characters, it would be difficult to find a more beautiful decorative scheme in the absence of natural forms. As the mosque of Tulun was built by a Coptic architect, and its decoration is evidently the result of many years of previous developments, it is probably to the Copts that its evolution was due. The second type of decoration is that which is given by geometrical forms, and either in pavements or wall decorations in marble, or in the framing of woodwork in ceilings, or in doorways, the most elaborate and beautiful combinations were produced. The third type of decoration is one which in a sense is found in the origin of most styles, but which, restricted as the Mahommedans were to conventional representations, received a development of far greater importance, and in one of its forms—that known as stalactite vaulting—constitutes the one feature in the style which is not found in any other, and which, from the western coast of Spain to the east of India, at once differentiates it from any other style.
A complete account, with illustrations of the origin of the stalactite will be found in the Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects (1898) The earliest example is found in the tomb of Zobeide, the favourite wife of Harun al-Rashid, at Bagdad, built at the end of the 8th century. This tomb, octagonal in plan, and of modest dimensions, was vaulted over by a series of niches in nine stages or levels rising one above the other, and brought forward on the inside, so that the ninth course completed the covering of the tomb. It was built in this way to save centreing, each niche when completed being self-supporting. There is a second tomb at Bagdad, of later date—the tomb of Ezekiel,—constructed in the same way, except that in each stage the niches are built not one over the other but astride between the two, and this is the way in which in subsequent developments it always appears to have been built. Its application to the pendentives of the portals of the mosque at Tabriz and Sultaniya was the next development; and when some two centuries later it is found in Europe, in the palaces of the Ziza at Palermo, dating from about the beginning of the 11th century, it has lost its brick constructive origin, and, being cut in slabs of stone, has become simply a decorative feature. Its earliest example in Egypt is in the tomb of ash-Shafi’i at Cairo, built by Saladin about 1240. Here and in all subsequent examples throughout Egypt and Syria it is always carved in stone. In the Alhambra another material was employed, the elaborate vaults being built with a series of small moulds in stucco. In the ceilings of the mosques at Cairo it was frequently carved in wood, and consequently lost all trace of its origin.
| From Coste’s Architecture Arabe en Caire. |
| Fig. 55.—Plan of Mosque of Tulun, Cairo. |