Creswell Photographs Re-examined: New Perspectives on Islamic Architecture

This book uses photographs as documentary evidence to study Islamic architecture. The Creswell photographic archive at the American University in Cairo is an invaluable resource of over 12,000 printed images of Islamic architecture, mainly in Cairo, but also including buildings in other important cities such as Cordoba and Baghdad. Creswell’s own photographs constitute the majority of the collection, but he also assembled work by photographers active in the decades before he began his systematic recording in the 1920s. The AUC archive is unique because it includes the work of other photographers as well as Creswell images unavailable elsewhere, some recording buildings that no longer exist. This volume of collected studies seeks to highlight the value of this collection for scholars, who can examine the visual evidence of architecture now destroyed or altered in order to better understand various aspects of these significant buildings. Contributors discuss such issues as epigraphy in domestic and religious architecture, employing early photographs as guides for modern restoration, and military architecture.