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Architectural Exchange in the Eighteenth Century. a Study Of Architectural Exchange in the Eighteenth Century A Study of Three Gateway Cities: Istanbul, Aleppo and Lucknow Views of Istanbul with Aya Sophia and the Sultan Ahmed mosque, by Cornelius Loos, 1710-11. Elise Kamleh A thesis submitted to The University of Adelaide in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Centre for Asian and Middle Eastern Architecture (CAMEA) School of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Design The University of Adelaide April 2012 Chapter 1 Introduction Fig 1.0 European frescoes on the exterior walls of the side portico of the Chehelsotoon (or Chihil Sutun) pavilion and surrounding gardens in Isfahan. 2 3 1.1 Problem and Context This study explores the Eurasian architectural exchange. The hybrid European and Asian parentage that the term Eurasia refers to, and the impact on the built environment is increasingly well recognized in studies of colonial, post-colonial and contemporary architecture. However, the concept of architectural exchange has received only piecemeal attention in more general studies of eighteenth century architecture and landscapes. To date, architectural historiography focusing on this period has primarily examined the influence of Asian architecture and landscapes—rather than exchange as an act of reciprocal giving and receiving—on designs in western Europe.1 These designs tend to be attributed to enlightened European minds informed by increasing exposure to the material culture of Asian locales as a result of travel (for the purpose of discovery, trade, missionary imperatives or otherwise). In this context, the focus tends to be on a uni- directional flow of ideas, motifs, techniques or artisans from east (particularly the Islamic east) to west. In turn, this Eurocentric focus reasserts binary notions of east and west, a preoccupation with singular origins, and a linear chain of influence that privileges European agency and intellect. This rather simplified scenario prompts recollection of the eminent cultural historian Edward Said’s critique of the discursive construction of The Orient in the nineteenth century.2 The discursive trends that Said articulated in Orientalism pertain to both studies of so-called oriental architecture in Europe and studies of architecture in the so-called ‘Orient’. In the case of the latter body of scholarship, evidence of architectural exchange was frequently viewed with disdain, and labelled accordingly, in favour of supposedly pure examples of ‘oriental’ architecture that were, in turn, subordinate to antique precedents.3 Said’s important work has since inspired numerous studies that seek to 1 Exchange is defined as to ‘give something and receive something else in return’. Catherine Soanes ed., The Compact Oxford Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Wordpower Guide (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 306. 2 Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979). 3 Hybridity has been perceived negatively in its architectural environment, especially in its Mughal Indian context in Lucknow. Here buildings built by the nawabs in the Indo-European style have been labelled as 4 redress the imbalances of nineteenth century orientalist scholarship in the discipline of architecture.4 While Said’s critique of orientalism is not the focus of this thesis, the limitations that he examined and which continue to provoke scholarly debate, resonate in the work of another historian, Geoffrey C. Gunn, which has specifically motivated the current study. In First Globalization: The Eurasian Exchange, 1500-1800, Gunn questions the notion of European exceptionalism, in cultural, intellectual, and economic arenas, after the Renaissance. He explores the evidence for globalisation, not in the contemporary sense of the term pertaining to advanced capitalism and globalised consumerism, but defined as ‘the deepening interactions within the Afroeurasian region attendant on the expansion of Europe following the voyages of Columbus and Vasco da Gama.’5 In this first age of globalisation, Gunn argues: ...Eurasia was the premium global arena of intellectual contestation and exchange, especially in contrast to the lands of the New World conquista, suffering, variously, deracination along with cultural imperialism. The longevity of Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and other Asian civilizational values suggests a major disconnect between economic exchange and culture transfers. Nevertheless, a major theme this book addresses is the appearance of hybrid forms and cultures across the Eurasian landscape during the first wave of globalization just as cultural transfers between East and West reached a new peak.6 degenerate, displaying mongrel or unintelligent vulgarity, being in the worst possible taste, and debasing European models. For further details of this commentary see Chapter 7, Section 7.3. 4 See Mark Crinson’s opening chapters to Empire Building. In his introduction he emphasizes the complexity of English architecture in distant contexts, and the need to demystify nineteenth century British architecture, and the loaded nature of many terms such as ‘Islam’ and the ‘Orient’. Mark Crinson, Empire Building, Orientalism and Victorian Architecture (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), 1, 2. Another example is Nalbantoglu’s critique of Banister Fletcher’s classification of non-European architecture as being ahistorical. Gülsüm Baydar Nalbantoglu, “Toward Postcolonial Openings: Rereading Sir Banister Fletcher’s History of Architecture”, Assemblage 35 (April 1998): 7-15. Gülsüm Baydar Nalbantoglu, “Writing Postcoloniality in Architecture, Dis-covering Sir Banister Fletcher’s History of Architecture”, Journal of South-East Asian Architecture, Singapore: School of Architecture, National University of Singapore 1 (1996): 3-11. 5 Geoffrey C. Gunn, First Globalisation: The Eurasian Exchange, 1500-1800 (Lanham Boulder, New York, Toronto, Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2003), 14, fn 1. Gunn’s research forms part of the major theoretical framework of this study; he is currently professor of International Relations in the Faculty of Economics at Nagasaki University in Japan. He is a social scientist specializing in Asian studies. 6 Gunn, First Globalisation: The Eurasian Exchange, 1500-1800, 8. 5 Eurasia in this spatial sense comprises the vast geographical terrain spanning from Europe through Central Asia to East and South Asia. In this context, Gunn draws attention to recent scholarship that argues for the ‘broad parity between Europe and the core Asian civilizations’ between 1500 and 1800 and which offers a compelling counter- narrative to representations of European intellectual, economic, scientific, technological or militaristic superiority that have prevailed in the discipline of world history.7 Thus, Gunn identifies sites of intense cultural exchange, a multi-locus network of vibrant ports and inland cities, that brought Europeans into contact with ‘the awe-inspiring strengths of Asia’s core areas: the great Islamic empires, including the Mughal Empire with its capitals in northern India; the Chinese Empire, including its tributary satellites; and Japan under the Pax Tokugawa.’8 Amidst a complex network of travel precipitating the flow of people, trade and ideas Gunn reveals the multi-locus nature of exchange between Europe and Asia that ‘was much less one-sided and far more multi-faceted than is often 7 Gunn, First Globalization: The Eurasian Exchange, 1500-1800, 275. Other proponents of this argument include, firstly, Andre Gunder Frank in ReOrient who views European achievements as comparatively small in the course of world history. Andre Gunder Frank was a German-American economic historian and sociologist, who focused on world systems theory after 1984. Secondly, Jack Goody, The East in the West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), and Goody, Islam in Europe (Cambridge, Polity Press, 2004), agrees with this viewpoint, as well as emphasizing cultural exchange. Jack Goody is a British social anthropologist, and is interested in social structure and social change. Thirdly, Jack Goldstone is an American sociologist and political scientist, and is currently professor in public policy at George Mason University. See Jack A. Goldstone, “East and West in the seventeenth century: Political Crises in Stuart England, Ottoman Turkey, and Ming China”, Comparative Studies in Society and History 30 (1988): 103- 142; Jack A. Goldstone, “Efflorescences and Economic Growth in World History: Rethinking the ‘Rise of the West’ and the Industrial Revolution”, Journal of World History 13, no. 2 (2002): 323-389; and Jack A. Goldstone, “The Rise of the West-or Not? A Revision to Socio-Economic History”, Sociological Theory 18 (2002): 157-194. In addition, Marc Ferguson queries, “Why the West?” HAOL 5 (2004): 127-139; Ferguson is a history faculty member of the American International College, with an expressed interest in world history. Michael D’Amato, “Capitalism and Modernity: The Great Debate”, Enterprise and Society 6, no. 3 (2005): 497-499; D’Amato is currently concerned with Marxist political economy. Thierry Zarcone, “View from Islam, View from the West”, Diogenes 50 (Winter 2003): 49-61. Zarcone is a French historian whose professional interests include Sufism and intellectual history. Dominique Schirmer, Gernot Saalmann, Christl Kessler eds., Hybridising East and West Tales Beyond Westernization: Empirical Contributions to the Debates on Hybridity (Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2006); Of the editors, Dominque Schirmer is a sociologist
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