Geometrical Proportioning in Architecture

Project Type: Live Project

Title: Haji Riaz Hussain's Mausoleum, Chinyot.

Student: Syed Mohammed Mehdi - (4th year)

College: National College of Arts, Lahore.

By means of the BALANCE, He has distributed PROPORTIONATELY over the earth, the foods that the earth produces. (Al-Quran 41:10)

 Spiritual mathematics, decorative arts, geometric spaces, precise mathematical proportions, clearly defined lines and volumes relating to extract mathematical laws…This is of course not unique to Islam but exist in all sacred architecture which is always based on a cosmology derived from the roots of the tradition in question and a sacred geometry. But it is especially emphasized in Islam where all definitions of architectural space become much more mathematically precise and clearly defined.

The origin of Islamic art and architecture must be sought in the inner realities (haqaiq) of the Quran which are also the principal realities of the cosmos and the spiritual reality of the Prophetic Substance from which flows the ‘Muhammadan grace’ (al-barakat al-Muhammadiyyah). The Quran provides the doctrine of unity while the prophet provides the manifestation of this Unity in multiplicity and the witness to this unity in His creation. All fields of knowledge (literature, medicine, numerology, astronomy, semiotics, cosmology, mathematics, logic, Rijal, music, poetry, pottery, calligraphy, book illuminations) do impact on all forms of art and architecture of the society… now as an architect its our duty for the betterment of our society that our architecture should have the ability to derive the people to the origin of the spirituality of Islam.

          The Intangible realities that are hidden and proved by Quran, like Spirits, Souls, Angles, God is himself hidden, hidden worlds i.e. alam ul Ghaib, malakut, jbarut, Arsh, alam e haba, alam ul missal, and their proportions, order and existence in the chaotic presence, which has the qualities of the names of God of Jallal(majesty) and jamal(beauty) to achieve kamal(perfection) as basic principle, in any Art Form.

Tauheed (i.e. Unity) = Jallal (i.e.Majesty) + Jamal (i.e.Beauty) = kamal (i.e.Perfect

ð  Unity = Regularity (Geometry) + Mystery (Arabesque) = Beauty/Perfection

Perspective View

As the configuration of the temple of the Kaaba as the secret of spiritual life, its geometry, form and proportions all play a crucial role in the rise of Islamic architecture and need to be treated in any full study of sacred architecture of Islam. If the Kaaba is not the work of art in the proper sense of the term-being no more than a simple cube of masonry, might b ‘proto-art’ whose spiritual dimension corresponds to myth or revelation depending on the point of view. This means that the inherent symbolism of Kaaba, in its shape and rites associated with it, contains in embryo everything expressed by the sacred art of Islam. Concerning the harmonics of the Kaaba so central to the auditory revelation of the Quran on the one hand and later sacred architecture of Islam on the other.