ABSTRACT
Spatial articulation corresponds to or defines a society’s orientation in the world and its relation to the environment. Ordering, manipulating, and building the environment corresponds to patterns of seeing and understanding and are objectifications of projected cultural meanings. As making and revealing, space is a poetic construction. Regardless of geographical place, spatial articulations render identity to architecture without depending on regional effects. Therefore, it is the contention here that an understanding of the formal mechanisms of spatial articulation in sixteenth-century Ottoman architecture and site organizations, as well as other forms of articulation in Islamic architecture, can guide today’s architects of the Islamic world in creating forms and living contexts that are congenial to their culture and that can be modern without losing qualities belonging to their culture.
