Current Events > All the most famous Western architecture was stolen from the Middle East, lol

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/aug/13/looted-landmarks-notre-dame-big-ben-st-marks-east-stealing-from-the-saracens

Excerpt:

As Notre-Dame cathedral was engulfed by flames last year, thousands bewailed the loss of this great beacon of western civilisation. The ultimate symbol of French cultural identity, the very heart of the nation, was going up in smoke. But Middle East expert Diana Darke was having different thoughts. She knew that the origins of this majestic gothic pile lay not in the pure annals of European Christian history, as many have always assumed, but in the mountainous deserts of Syria, in a village just west of Aleppo to be precise.Notre-Dames architectural design, like all gothic cathedrals in Europe, comes directly from Syrias Qalb Lozeh fifth-century church, Darke tweeted on the morning of 16 April, as the dust was still settling in Paris. Crusaders brought the twin tower flanking the rose window concept back to Europe in the 12th century.

It is not only the twin towers and rose window that have their origins in the Middle East, she pointed out, but also the ribbed vaults, pointed arches and even the recipe for stained glass windows. Gothic architecture as we know it owes much more to Arab and Islamic heritage than it does to the rampaging Goths. I was astonished at the reaction, says Darke. I thought more people knew, but there seems to be this great gulf of ignorance about the history of cultural appropriation. Against a backdrop of rising Islamophobia, I thought it was about time someone straightened out the narrative.

And so she has, with Stealing from the Saracens, an exhilarating, meticulously researched book that sheds light on centuries of borrowing, tracing the roots of Europes major buildings from the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey to Chartres cathedral and St Marks basilica in Venice back to their Middle Eastern precedents. It is as much a story of political power, wealth and fashion as it is of religious belief, with tales of looting Crusaders, fashion-conscious bishops and globe-trotting merchants discovering new styles and techniques and bringing them home.

Tbh I'm not really surprised to learn this, but I did think it was interesting. >_>

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Does it matter though?

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Wait, so they did not actually steal any physical artifacts, but instead theyre talking about the designs? Like, the Westerners were so inspired by what they saw that they implemented it into their own architecture? Did I read that correctly? Has someone mentioned to this Diana Darke yet that almost every bit of technological invention used in the Middle East and around the world is from the West?

If you want to make an argument about stealing items, you can definitely point to museums that house many artifacts taken through conquest. The English are holding on to some choice pieces of history, but theyre definitely not alone in that regard.

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The Enlightenment only really occured through contact with the Muslim peoples around the time of the crusades
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Man, I can't believe the White House was stolen from the Middle East!
#ReturnTheWhiteHouseToMiddleEast

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Total_Lost2 posted...

Does it matter though?

Idk. The bottom of the article it mentions that apparently there's some weird, white supremacist meme that's been using famous Western designs as some sort of dog whistle. But I've never seen it, or even heard about it, before this article.

I just mostly was interested to learn the history of how the designs migrated from their origin and how they were adapted/transformed by Western architects. I'm not personally invested in the political slant of the article, because it's not something I have any experience with lol.

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#defundwesternarchitects

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Painting this as stealing is pretty dumb.

And if the point is to accuse Europeans of "stealing" designs from Islamic architecture, maybe a church that predates Islam by nearly two centuries wasn't the best example to use.
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Cancel western architecture because of cultural appropriation pls

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I ain't seen any building from the middle east that resemble Notre Dame