Textures in Islamic Spain

The Mosque Series

60" x 60"

The Ceilings Series
10" x 90"

I will begin posting photographs from my travels to Southern Spain based on a project I was working on between 2007 and 2008. The trip was funded through the Deborah J. Norden Fund Travel Grant given out through the Architectural League of New York, and in late November I gave a lecture regarding these travels at The Urban Center in Midtown. These photograph series were a part of my presentation. There are ten of these series that I developed, and they will be posted over time.

My project was based on researching ornament throughout the buildings and cities of what was once an Islamic center in Europe [the Mosque of Cordoba and the Alhambra being the more obvious structures]. The original intention as I was beginning this project was to explore the concept of tolerance as it was represented through ornament and ornamentation in Andalucia. After vising the lands and delving deeper into its rich history, this concept broadened, and the role of toleration took on more complex flavors. I became interested in how this concept of toleration could be read into the variety of built forms and histories of the Andalucian empires.