Calligraphy interlaces with imagination across time and culture, bestowing a unique interpretation, feel, and perception upon a place.
It is an artform that tingles every sense, a fine dancing structure that beckons the viewer to read, think, visualise, and decipher. It draws you in and keeps you there, embraced within its smooth lines and curves.
These days, calligraphy has become such a specialised art, and a though occurred to me while on a trip to Uzbekistan last summer: why not crown our architecture in calligraphy like we once did? Why not embellish the glass and concrete of our structures with our beautiful alphabet?
As seen in Uzbekistan
In the cities of Samarqand, Bukhara, Khiva, and Termez, it was the calligraphy that fascinated me most about the mesmerising architecture. Atop these wonderful buildings, the writing makes you want to understand its laws.
Its measures and lengths, its dashes and dots, its mixture of abstract, aesthetic, and practical in a host of scripts - Naskh, Ruqaa, Kufic, Thulth, Diwani, Persian... It makes you ask: how could the spoken letter in those few, select words be of such value?