ArCHIAM’s new lectures on “Architecture and Urban Development of the Deccan Sultanates” now available on ARCHNET
A new series of eight lectures on Architecture and Urban Development of the Deccan Sultanates, prepared by LSA’s ArCHIAM Centre for the Aga Khan Trust for Culture Education Programme, was released this week on ARCHNET. The lectures present the relatively unknown architectural and urban contributions of the five Deccan Sultanates of India – Ahmadnagar, Bijapur, Berar, Bidar and Golconda – under whose rule Islamic cultural and architectural influence reached its apogee from the late 15th to the late-17th centuries CE.
Drawing on both existing scholarship as well as new research and fieldwork undertaken in Bijapur by the ArCHIAM team with researchers from the Mysore School of Architecture, India, the lectures bring this distinctive late-mediaeval Islamic period architecture into sharper focus. This series complements a previous series on Architectural and Urban Forms of the Islamic World and a companion sourcebook, which aim to present a comparative picture of both the so-called ‘high’ and ‘peripheral’ Islamic traditions worldwide, thus providing a thorough understanding of both the distinctiveness and diversity of outlying cultures and their established architectural practices.
The pedagogical outputs prepared by ArCHIAM as part of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture Education Programme, along with expert contribution to hands-on learning initiatives from the Trust, will promote broader and deeper awareness among young people, as well as the general public, of the philosophy and values that underpin the Trust mission.