The Nasrid Palace, Alhambra

Semi-circular arch Segmental arch/Flat Arch

Pointed arch/Olive Arch

Horseshoe arch Trifoiled arch

The revolutionary aspect of the Byzantine dome was that it was set on a building of square plan. The problems in

the corners, the solution was the squinch

Squinches did not provide solution the heavy weight of the dome runs down to the columns and not to the

bearing walls, the answer was the pendentive – curving triangles- example – Hagia Sophia –

pendentive

A unique feature of Islamic architecture, 'muqarnas' is an Arabic word to describe a 'stalactite vault', the complex geometric interlacing of components to produce a three-dimensional surface that was used both for volume and ornamentation.

It was developed in the mid 10th century and was later adopted throughout the Islamic world.

model of an abstract building with three different types of muqarnas: a portal, a column capital, and a window recess.

Alhambra , the Nasrid Palace

Isfahan , Iran

The exterior is very massive

4 pencil minarets were lately added after 1453

It has a square plan with a nave and galleried aisles

- Structurally new innovation. A centralized building on a large scale - It has a rectangle plan with a nave and galleried aisles ( 71* 77 meters) - Centralized and axial plan as well

- It has shallow central dome ( almost is big as the Pantheon), rises 36.6 meters from the ground and a total height of 54.9 meters

Structurally new innovation

Symbolically it was a physical representation between empire and church , for the Byzantine mind the cube surmounted by a dome was a model of universe, the earth covered with the dome of heaven

Was finished in 537; because of the two earthquakes in 553,557 some damages occurred as a result of

original weakness of some parts because of the speed of construction. For the slow setting lime

mortar allowed the arches, pendetives, and buttressing half domes to deform and spread out as

they rose.