Lesson 22: The Legacies of Islamic Architecture in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

The twenty-second lesson in a 22 lesson course on Monuments of Islamic Architecture developed by Professors Gulru Necipoglu and David Roxburgh at the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University. Throughout the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth century, European powers invaded and colonized large portions of the Islamic world, reshaping both the physical boundaries of these territories and the structures of authority.

What this period brought with it are two interrelated trends in terms of art historical study: Europe’s and America’s discovery of Islamic art and its impact in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in what came to be known as Orientalist art.
This is also a period when the first books on Islamic art and museum collections are formed.
In the arts of the Islamic world, there was an integration of European ideas and techniques.
More broadly, the increase in globalization and the subversion of Islamic lands under Western hegemony led to the growth of nationalism and revivalism.

Citation
Necipoglu, Gulru and David Roxburgh. “The Legacies of Islamic Architecture in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.” Lesson 22/22 presentation developed for the Aga Khan Trust for Culture Education Programme, 2019.