Islamic Civilization

Architecture 

  Focus in the following will be on the central matter of this whole work: that Islamic influences on Western architecture are obvious, and make historical sense; however, any time modern Western historians suppress such an influence, and offer other explanations for such changes, a number of causes and origins become the foundation for such changes. Seen in isolation from each other, such explanations can look fairly unchallengeable as their authors have enough specialised knowledge of their subject to drown the argument in infinite detail, and to refer to each other to assert scholarly legitimacy. When, however, all changes are put together, two major findings are made:

First, the tens of causes for such changes as given by such historians are conflicting with each other, and are also historically untenable. Secondly, all such changes, especially once facts suppressed (by mainstream Western historians) are re-established, show exactly the same patterns observed already with regard to other subjects repeating themselves. Hence, in the case here, changes in architecture and construction that took place in the West, in any place, and at any time during the Middle Ages, show the same substance (Islamic forms/models/techniques), timing (precisely following contact with Islam,) agents (Muslim masons), geography (in close vicinity to Islam), etc.

In the following, first is raised, albeit briefly, the matter of historical inconsistency once the Islamic role is suppressed, and then is looked in greater detail at the Islamic impact, which replicates the same patterns of influence already observed for all other changes.

a. Raising Issue with the Denial of Islamic Influence:

  Even the largest buildings of Carolingian times, such as the Palace and Chapel of Charlemagne at Aachen (792-805), Harvey observes, had roofs of relatively small span.[1] No outstanding competence in the designing of centring or scaffolding was called for, the details of architectural design were either closely copied from Roman or Byzantine work or were extremely crude.[2]Churches, together with imperial palaces were the other major buildings standing, and churches in the early Middle Ages were roofed with wood, which was ill suited to a troubled epoch, with the ever present risk of fire, and also the problem of wood scarcity.[3]Problems of roof construction dominated the development of architecture.[4]  It is unlikely that before 1000 there was a single stone building in the whole duchy of Normandy beyond a few unimpressive fortresses.[5] Defences and castles were wooden structures, and patched with rudimentary mortars; no castle prior to the 12^th century is preserved to our day.

  Fairly dramatic changes in Western construction suddenly began in the 11^th century. The beginning of a new competence in design on a much larger scale can be seen, most particularly with Santiago de Compostela (northern Spain) begun about l075, and the new church of the monastery of Cluny started I088 and finished in 1121.[6] In secular buildings the capacity to build on notable scale is most particularly obvious with the great hall of William Rufus at Westminster, built in I097-99 and measuring 238 by 68 feet the largest room in Europe for well over a century.[7]

  This sudden upsurge without previous local antecedents drives Harvey to conclude that the new energy infused into Western art came from outside the area of north Western Europe.[8] Byzantium  is the source for such revolution mainstream Western history answers, K. J Conant, one amongst such many historians holding such view.[9]Yet this is a misconception, whose sources are partly raised by Briggs:

`that it may be that the Church has fostered for centuries a belief that our  `Romanesque' and Gothic buildings rose from the ashes of imperial Rome, or that pedantic humanists of the Renaissance  are to blame for our misconceptions.’[10]

Misconceptions, which can be partly challenged on the usual ground: why is it that such an impact did not happen earlier, closer to Byzantium , or within Byzantium itself?

 The Byzantine argument with regard to architectural developments is untenable on other grounds:

  First, medieval architecture was a major advance on Roman building techniques.[11]The new techniques conflict with what is found in Byzantium , where the arch, one of the substantial innovations in medieval Western Christian architecture, often remained what it had been in the Roman Empire, a concretion held together by mortar.[12]

  Second, Byzantium , itself, gradually derived its skills from Islam; Theophilus, according to Bury, was stimulated in his building enterprises by what he had heard of `the splendour of the palaces of Baghdad .’[13]Oriental influences on Byzantium continued to operate throughout the Abbasid period, and were `one of the ingredients of Byzantine civilisation .’[14]

  Third, it was Byzantium  which, in 1064, benefited from the largest intake of Muslim craftsmen following the taking of Barbastro by the Franco-Norman army, whose `cultural booty’ included 7000 men sent to Byzantium.[15] Why should superior Byzantium need such craftsmen if it exported skills rather than imported them?

  Fourth, even places that ought to be influenced by Byzantium  due to their proximity to it more than to Islam, exhibited the Islamic impact. Whether during the Romanesque, Gothic and even Renaissance  Italy, Grabar explains, it was the Islamic influence, which certainly played a part in developing certain architectural motifs there.[16] The bichromy of masonry in churches in Siena and in Pisa , the towers of San Gimignano and the complex surfaces of official and secular monuments in Venice  (even some details in San Marco), Grabar notes, are just a few examples of tastes and techniques derived from the Muslim world.[17] Islamic influences are also recurrent, even if harder to extract, in the Russian art of the Middle Ages and even in the pre-Petrine Kremlin, where ltalianate and Oriental motifs are often inter-mixed with local traditions.[18]

Fifth, the places that witnessed the earliest and most dramatic changes in Western Christendom are precisely the places that experienced other earliest changes, such as in arts, as to be seen further on, and they were the ones nearest to Islam, or in contact in one way or another with Islam: northern Spain, southern France, churches of the order of Cluny…[19] and these places are the furthest geographically and culturally from Byzantium.

Whilst the Byzantine source does not make historical sense, the Islamic source is much easier to establish. It jumps to the attention, for the same patterns observed before with regard to every other subject come into play again and again.

b. Matters of Impact:

Looking at the Romanesque style shows, and precisely, that its evolution in Western Christendom  coincides with the time of contacts with Islam; it bears the same substance and forms; and it also takes place precisely in the closest geographical parts to the Islamic land, and precisely alongside the pilgrimage routes towards Spain. Staying with the last point, first, it seems fairly clear, Grabar explains, and it makes historical sense that, as the great pilgrimage routes of the Romanesque period were established, contact with Spain became the norm for many actual or potential patrons and taste-makers in Romanesque Europe.[20] Themes and motifs were carried from south to north, the Islamic Andalusian  influences obvious to various degrees in the Rousillon, Languedoc, Poitou, Auvergne, most particularly, and occasionally found in Burgundy or the Provence .[21] These consist of architectural details, horseshoe arches, polylobes, masonry of stones of alternating colours, roll corbels, impost blocks, certain kinds of vegetal ornament, and a tendency in some monuments to cover entire surfaces with ornament.[22] Lambert, too, insists that Romanesque architecture of South West France, the old Aquitaine, show intricate resemblances with those of North and North West Spain, including the multi-lobed arch seen in a crowd of churches such as that of Saintonge and of l’Angoumois, at Echebrune, at Rioux, at Thouars, Chalais, Montmoreau, Plassac, Mouthiers and many more.[23]And playing a leading part in the changes was a group of Christians living amongst the Muslims, the Mozarabs, whose contribution became highly visible in the erection of churches in northern Spain at the end of the 10^th century, and the beginning of the 11^th.[24]

   In the subsequent Gothic period (post 12^th century), again, changes are strictly linked to Islamic influence, Wren, for instance, wrote:

`This we now call Gothic manner of architecture... tho' the Goths were rather destroyers than builders I think it should with more reason be called Saracen style.'[25]

The Islamic source is substantiated by the fact that we find, again, the same patterns of influence seen in previous chapters, three main ones dominating in this instance: such changes bearing the same Islamic substance; the timing of such sudden construction skills appearing in Western Christendom,  precisely following the return of the first crusaders from the East; and also, once more, involving craftsmen of Islamic origin. These three elements are seen in turn, focus here placed on the second, timing.

It is from Islam, indeed, that Western architects acquired the pointed arch, which was to become the symbol and chief mark of gothic style.[26] Sarton  points out, that the term `ogival architecture' referring to one of its most striking characteristics, the use of pointed arches- is somewhat misleading, because Gothic architects did not invent the pointed arches, nor the ribbed vaulting used for many centuries before by the Muslims.[27]

It is generally agreed that Western Christian Gothic was born in the 12^th century.[28]  The appearance of the ribbed cross vault, an Eastern invention, is seen at Durham cathedral for the first time in the West; and it is a very strange coincidence if indeed, Harvey notes, if it be a coincidence at all, that the first known ribbed vault in the West (1104) should have been built within the five years that succeeded the taking of Jerusalem (1099).[29]  It can hardly be a coincidence that the great campaign known as the First Crusade had just taken place, and there is no doubt, as a result of the experience gained on the Crusades  and especially through interrogating local craftsmen that many skills were acquired.[30] In the East, the Crusaders and their followers were, indeed, exposed to new ideas, which had had an important influence on them.[31] Of particular interest were the style and construction methods employed by the Seljuk Turks (who were the main crusaders’ foes), such as after the earthquake in 1114 the bridge at Misis was likely to have been repaired using pointed arches to replace the rounded ones of an earlier bridge constructed in the time of Justinian.[32] It was in Anatolia (the Seljuk heartland) that skilful masons were using techniques that were subsequently employed by the Crusaders in their own buildings.[33]The new arches were similar to those of the bridge at Dyar al-Bakr across the Tigris, near to a mosque where the Seljuk Turks (in 1117-25) used arches of the type soon to be familiar in the West.[34] Coincidently, as Cochrane notes, Queen Matilda commissioned the first stone-built bridge in England , at Stratford-le-Bow, before 1117, and that it was of a type never before seen in England.[35] Within a few years of 1100, fine masonry had reached England; not only were the stones better cut, but they were of larger size, implying the existence of improved cranes and hoists, and the mortar joints were now very fine, so that a chronicler commented upon Bishop Roger's buildings at Old Sarum, begun in 1102, that the stones were so accurately set that the joints were not seen and the whole work might be thought to be cut out of a single rock.[36]Schnyder also says, that as we are able to trace the decisive renewal in brick architecture to the period shortly after the first great crusades to the East, it would appear correct to assume that `the impulse which led to the rapid development of brick architecture in Europe came from the East.’[37] `Coincidentally,’ with this development, improvements in forming and firing were also introduced.[38]

It is supposed that returning Frankish engineers from 1099 onwards might have returned equipped with fresh knowledge of structural expedients, and that, again, a proportion of Eastern prisoners of outstanding capacity were brought back to the West, at least one such prisoner, 'Lalys' built Neath Abbey and is said to have been architect to Henry I.[39] Also, it must be added, amongst the armies that the Occident sent for centuries to the Orient  were also to be found workers of all sorts, arm craftsmen, architects, and builders, whose sojourn in Syria  was long enough for them to acquire the knowledge they needed.[40]

  Evolving on precisely the same lines, and betraying the same patterns of influence are Western castle fortifications, taking place not centuries before, but perfectly coinciding with the returning crusaders.  Philip of Alsace, count of Flanders, completed the castle of Ghent on his return from an expedition to Palestine (1176-8), and modelled it on the fortress of Toron (between Tyre and Acre); and Richard Coeur de Lion, when he built the Chateau Gaillard after the Third Crusade, took his inspiration from the Krak des Chevaliers.[41] In Syria  and Palestine the military orders learnt to build much stronger and more elaborate castles.[42]  Briggs amply demonstrates how contact of East and West during the Crusades  (and during the later Middle Ages) contributed influences on castle architecture.[43]The Crusaders found excellent military architecture at Aleppo, Baallbek, and elsewhere in the Islamic East, learned there the uses of machicolated walls, and took from their foes many an idea for their castles and forts.[44] In these, the main fortifications were enclosed by a series of circular walls, all set with turrets, rounded to prevent mining at the angles and arranged with lines of fire that allowed each of them to protect others from enemy assault.[45]

Heavy machinery appears on the Western Christian sites, and also precisely, following the return of the first crusaders from the East; 1100 highly suggestive of the direct importation of Muslim machinery brought back by returning crusaders from their victorious campaign.[46] Which somehow explains that in the opening years of the 12th Century, the period was characterised by a new ability to produce really fine worked ashlar; the use of larger stones implying better cranes and hoists, and by the evident self reliance of industrial masters.[47] The Palatine Abbey of Durham, Winchester new cathedral of St Sivithum, and the gigantic church and monastery as that of Bury St Edmunds well exemplify the new ability to think and build big.[48] These new techniques contrast markedly with those of 20-30 years before in the Christian West , where nothing happened for centuries before; now, out of nowhere, a sudden revolution, which could be seen throughout Western Europe, bearing all the marks of external impact, and not the result of slow evolution in traditional skills.[49]There can be no mere coincidence in the fact that exactly such skills had existed among the stonemasons of the Near East for centuries and that at this very date the great campaign known as the first crusade had just taken place.[50]And once more, it ought to be reminded, that in some cases, following the crusades, the workmen accompanied their new masters when they returned to Europe.[51]

If we linger with fortifications, and change time and place, we find again the same patterns of Islamic influence at work; focus in this instance on substance, and agents of transmission who are the same as with all other changes, i.e Muslim craftsmen, or Christian craftsmen living amongst Muslims (Spanish  Mozarabs in this case).

In  10^th century Muslim Spain, the art of fortification at the Castle of Gormaz, shows skills unequalled elsewhere in Western Europe.[52]Similar skills in military architecture also seen at Tarifa, de Banos de la Encina, and even in the 9^th century at the Alcazaba de Merida, through stone masonry, construction design, etc.[53] Sobriety of architectural lines, rational use of space, reaching for the highest standards make this defence architecture, in the words of Levi Provencal, eloquent proof of both the military powers of the Muslims, and the considerable means which could be mustered to erect strategic ensembles of the sort.[54]The Alcazar at Seville  and the Alhambra at Grenada were fortresses and palaces combined.[55] The Islamic substance of impact can also be traced to the vocabulary, the abundance of Arabic terms which relate to the various parts constituting a castle, and found in the Castilian Middle Ages: adarve, acitara, atalaya, etc, for parts of the castle such as: the front wall, the tower, external tower etc. [56]

  The early, and possibly earliest Christian West ern fortresses on the Islamic Spanish  model were the work of artisans certainly prominent among Mozarab immigrants in León. The defences of 10^th century Zamora were built by masons (alarifes), presumably Mozarabs, from Toledo .[57] When Alfonso VI of Castile (1073-l108) captured Segovia from the Muslims he built there a castle-fortress on the plan of the Alcazar of Toledo.[58]Centuries forwards, in the same country, Muslim masons were employed in Christian buildings as bricklayers or carpenters, and the majority of the building force is likely to have been of Muslim origin, or trained by those with experience of Muslim architecture.[59] The Muslim master mason who built the castle of Alandroal for the military order of Avis in 1298 left an inscription testifying his achievement.[60]In 1368, Charles le Mauvais (the bad) of Navarre granted to the Mudejares of Toledo a remission of half their taxes for three years for their assistance during his wars, especially in fortification and engineering, which, again, shows that the conquering race depended on Muslims for the higher branches of applied knowledge.[61]

  Staying with Muslim masons, we find that throughout the medieval period, they played the central role in the erection of many structures and edifices, and changes in construction techniques took place precisely after the arrival or acquisition of such masons. Thus, following the taking of Barbastro (1063-4), several thousand Muslim prisoners were sent to France, 1500 to Rome and those to Constantinople already mentioned; among these presumably was the Muslim corps of engineers which had defended Barbastro.[62]Such craftsmen possessed a degree of technical skill unknown north of the Alps and the Pyrenees.[63] This and the Norman conquest of Muslim Sicily   (1060-1091) were decisive factors in the rise of the new architecture, which coincides exactly with such events.[64]The change that took place in England  (cited above) also follow exactly the Norman line. In Sicily itself, the Capella Palatina was built in 1132, the church of the Martorana in 1136, La Ziza in 1154, and La Cuba in 1180, all show strong Islamic influence, abounding in pure Islamic features.[65] Muslims, as already lengthily explained in previous chapters, had remained on the island until the late 13^th century, and were appreciated for their skills and know how. Nothing obscures the fact that movement of craftsmen and builders could have taken place between Sicily and other parts of the Norman realm as seen with respect to other aspects. Such contacts between Normans and `Saracens’ help explain the ambitious architectural programme which became manifest in northern France and in England, concludes Harvey.[66] It is also said by Dulaure, in his Histoire de Paris, that Muslim architects assisted in the construction of Notre Dame.[67]

After the capture of Cordova (1236) by the Castilians, Muslim masons and carpenters were compelled to work for a specified period every year on sacred structures and in return were exempted from paying taxes.[68] The new churches retained such features as cupolas, decorations of intersecting arcades, or techniques like polychrome brick patterning.[69] Construction was, indeed, and largely in Mujedar (Muslims under Christian rule) hands; the legacy of Mujedar architecture, and also a boast of Aragonese towns today, remnants of major tourist attraction.[70] Later on, architects from Grenada were employed by Castilian monarchs in the construction of palaces, and even by orthodox prelates in the ornamentation of cathedrals.[71]Muslims assisted in the construction of some of `the noblest piles of the Peninsula,’ Scott puts it; the walls of great monasteries, the windows of lofty spires, exhibiting the engrailed and horseshoe arches of the Muslim.[72] Islamic skill in the chiselling of the intricate designs which cover the fronts of `magnificent’ cathedrals; a chapel in the grand metropolitan church of Toledo , the seat of the primate of Spain, dating from the 13th century, is a beautiful specimen of such art.[73]

An interesting instance dating from the 14^th century needs mentioning here. One of the last French strongholds in Gascony to yield to the English during the early years of the war (mid 14th century) was la Reole. The townsmen offered to surrender. The English accepted these terms of surrender, but the commander of the castle, Sir Agos de bans, preferred to retire into the castle with his soldiers, where `great quantities of wine and other provisions' would enable them to continue the struggle. The English then moved against the castle and

`erected all their machines against it; but they did little mischief, for the castle was very high, and built of a hard stone. It was erected a long time since by the Saracens, who laid the foundations so strong, and with such curious workmanship, that the buildings of our time cannot be compared to it. When the earl found his machines had no effect, he commanded them to desist; and as he was not without miners in his army, he ordered them to undermine the ditches of the castle, so that they might pass under. This was not, however, soon done.’[74]

 As with other changes, pilgrimage and trade had their impact on construction skills, too, and again, the same patterns observed elsewhere, remarkably reproducing themselves with great ease.  9^th century Islamic impact can be seen at the church of Germigny des Pres, via many Muslim features, possibly an outcome of early contacts, via pilgrims to Spain.[75] The cathedrals of the Midi were situated upon routes followed by thousands of pilgrims and borrowed architectural motifs from the mosques of the Peninsula.[76] The same Muslim skills, obvious in Spain, are found in many of the finest ecclesiastical edifices in France: the churches of Maguelonne, in the Cathedral du Puy, and in the ancient abbeys of Provence  and Languedoc.[77] It seems fairly clear and makes historical sense, Grabar explains, that as the great pilgrimage routes of the Romanesque period were established, contact with Spain affected change in Romanesque Europe.[78]

 Cairo , whose influence on Italian cities extends to the striped facades of marble buildings in Pisa , Genoa , Siena, Florence, and other Italian cities, is a good example of how trading links with the East during the Middle Ages impacted.[79]It is very likely that merchants and travellers returned with memories of Islamic lands rather than workers and, as a result, one encounters the small consistent detail.[80]

 Staying with the role of pilgrims, and looking at a specific development in Western construction, the so-called Perpendicular style, highlights precisely the same patterns once more. The so-called perpendicular style must be regarded as a specifically new creation, produced about 1330 by William Ramsey, who was a master mason from a Norwich family who was in time to be the king's chief mason south of Trent, from 1336 until he died in London during the Black Death of 1349.[81] The Perpendicular made its first appearance in or very soon after 1330, a new style attributed by Western historians to the lack of skil1s subsequent to the Black Death of 1348-49, when so many of the older generation of artists died.[82]This is historically untenable, for this style had appeared fifteen years before the pestilence even began, signs of such style  seen first in works with which William Ramsey was associated, the south cloister of Norwich Cathedral designed about 1324, and the new cloister and chapter-house for St Paul's Cathedral in London begun by him in 1332.[83] Inspiration comes not from the Black Death as historians generally put it, but from the Islamic East. Something very closely akin to the earliest 'squeezed hexagons' of Perpendicular tracery, Harvey says, is found in Muslim buildings in Egypt  dating from the early 13th to the early I4th century.[84] Associated with other features of Perpendicular character, such as vertical members running up to cut the curve of an arch, these forms are found in Cairo  in the Mausoleum of Mustafa Pasha (1269-73).[85]

How did this style come to England ? As with other changes, the pilgrim route is the answer. Pilgrims, including artists, were visiting Egypt within the relevant period is shown by the itinerary of Simon Simeon and Hugh the Illuminator, Franciscans from Ireland who went to the Holy Land in 1323.[86] They went through Egypt; in Alexandria, for instance, Simon noted that `Saracens, Christians, Greeks, Schismatic (Copts) and `perfidious Jews ' dress all much alike.[87] It is not without interest, that the unique manuscript of this narrative first belonged to Simon Bozoun, prior of Norwich in 1344-1352, and though such a travel-book could not itself have influenced the course of art, as Harvey insists, it may be significant that documents of this kind were collected at major cathedral monasteries like Norwich.[88] The English Perpendicular style was only adopted in few buildings designed by English architects in Scotland, Ireland and Calais[89], which proves that the skills were external, and not from within Western Christendom , for had the latter been the case, independent, unrelated manifestations of such style (as of others,) could have been seen in other centuries, in other places, and detached from any Islamic source, or point of contact.  

   Looking at the matter of Islamic impact from another angle, that of translations, will yield similar conclusions. In the same way sciences advanced thanks to the translation effort, construction techniques did the same, relying on the new mathematics. Scott notes how the great importance attached by the Muslims to mathematics was unrivalled at the time.[90] There is, indeed, a considerable body of mathematics, much of it Islamic deployed in design and architecture of both Spain and Portugal .[91] Ozdural notes how mathematicians, who taught practical geometry to artisans, played a decisive role in the creation of patterns in Islamic art, and also in designing buildings.[92] Mathematicians gave instructions and advice on the application of geometry to architectural construction.[93]The mathematical input is obvious for instance, in the proportioning of the arches; a simple method of establishing a commensurate system of proportions throughout a building was well known; and the system had the advantage of deriving its ratios from the perfect square, a favoured shape in Islamic buildings century after century.[94]The passage of Islamic mathematics to the Christian West  has already been well looked at. Just as Islamic mathematics impacted on commerce, it impacted, and with other sciences, on construction techniques, opening a vast array of possibilities, as here outlined by Lacroix:

 `As a proof of the forward state of the exact sciences in the Middle Ages, it would be sufficient to instance a Roman basilica or a Gothic cathedral. What immensity and depth of mathematical calculations; what knowledge of geometry, statics, and optics; what experience and skill in execution must have been possessed by the architects and builders in hewing, carving, and fitting the stones, in raising them to great heights, in constructing enormous towers and gigantic belfries, in forming the many arches, some heavy and massive, others light and airy, in combining and neutralising the thrust of these arches which interlace and hide each other up to the very summit of the edifice-all as if the most complicated science had humbly made herself the servant of art, placing no obstacle in the way of its free development!’[95]

The best evidence of Islamic impact is its enduring character on the architecture of Western Christendom  for centuries after the medieval era. One of the earliest proponents of the Islamic origin of many Western architectural innovations was of course Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723), who had commented that Gothic should be called `Saracenic’.[96] Wren was himself influenced by the Islamic style, Sweetman telling how the Royal Society for Natural Philosophy of London, formed in 1661, came to include amongst its members (from 1682) the eminent traveller and expert on Islamic matters, Sir John Chardin, and Sir Christopher Wren (possessor of one of the most gifted and questioning minds of the age,) who had interesting ideas on the subject, which is evident in his writing.[97] Evelyn records (30 August 1680) that he and Wren met John Chardin, the French traveller, and questioned him about the East.[98] Wren was also in touch with Dudley North, a Turkey merchant and an authority on Turkish life, about a technical point of Turkish dome construction.[99] George Sandys's Relation, published over 60 years earlier but reaching its seventh edition in 1673, had possibly contributed to Wren’s interest in Islamic buildings.[100] The book had described the mosques of Constantinople as `magnificent... all of white Marble, being finished on the top with gilded spires that reflect the beams they receive with marvellous splendour' and had proceeded to a detailed account of Hagia Sophia.[101] Amongst Wren influences are Islamic minarets, especially those of `the graceful type found, in Cairene buildings,’ which may have influenced the design of the later Renaissance  campanili of Italy, and hence some of Wren's fine city steeples.[102] And just as Muslim architects had begun to realise the possibility of using dome and minaret in contrast, Wren also did use some dome and towers so effectively in contrast at St. Paul's.[103]

Another instance of later impact occurs in 17^thcentury Turin, where the Baroque architect Guarini created a type of intersecting ribs for several churches which are strikingly reminiscent of those of Cordova and its descendants in Spain.[104]Guarini's manual with drawings of his own monuments was published in 1686 and made its way to Spanish  America where it is supposed to have influenced the design of a number of Mexican churches as well.[105]

 Closer to us, in the UK, Oriental motifs made their appearance in the architecture of railway stations, just as they did, more prominently in seaside piers, bandstands, kiosks and garden pavilions.[106]Muslim arches were used at railway entrances,[107] and it is interesting to see the engineer Robert Stevenson (1772-1850) giving the elegance of a Mughal minaret to his beautiful lighthouse at Girdleness, near Aberdeen (1833).[108] The 1888 Glasgow exhibition, which was mounted in Joseph Paxton's great Kelvingrove park opposite the tenement was known as `Baghdad  by the Kelvin' because of its strikingly Orientalist architecture. [109]