#  Designing Transcendence: Light in Islamic Architecture 

 



####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **April 5, 2018** 

 05:00PM - 07:00PM EDT 

####  pin\_drop Location 

 **CGIS South, Belfer Case Study Rm, 1730 Cambridge Street**  



 

 



 

   ![arches](/sites/g/files/omnuum4571/files/styles/hwp_1_1__720x720_scale/public/nelcnew/files/arches_in_the_hall_of_the_lions-alhambra.jpg?itok=CDdOC3yr) 

 

  
[2018 H.A.R. Gibb Arabic & Islamic Studies Lecture Series](https://cmes.fas.harvard.edu/event-series/gibb) presents

 **Nasser Rabbat**  
Aga Khan Professor and Director of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture, MIT

 [Designing Transcendence: Light in Islamic Architecture](https://cmes.fas.harvard.edu/event/designing-transcendence-light-islamic-architecture)  
Light has often been deployed as a transcendental element in Islamic architecture. For more than fifteen centuries, architects all over the Islamic World have developed design strategies to radiate, filter, refract, magnify, focus, conceal, and altogether mystify light. The impressive array of light architecture they have left still astonishes, stirs, and elates today. This talk will present some of the most outstanding examples of light architecture in Islamic history and examine their aesthetic, spatial, and environmental qualities as well as their symbolic and metaphysical connotations. Avoiding any essentialist standpoint, the talk will argue instead that light transcendence was designed for a variety of purposes ranging from the purely functional to the emotive, spiritual, and awe-inspiring depending on the context.



 

 



 

 

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