A lost art: Calligraphy in architecture

Before visiting these Central Asian cities, I had wandered the likes of Andalucía, Egypt, and Morocco, and concluded that only the wealthy ancients - particularly the enlightened, who had taste in the arts - used calligraphy on the murals of their houses, palaces, majlises (parliamentary buildings), and tombs.

The administrations of those states of yesteryear also took an interest in the engraving and painting of walls in schools as well as on the minarets, mihrabs, and minbars of mosques, while government and court buildings were also embellished with stylised verse, poetry, and maxim.

Mixing past and present

Much of this immortalised art highlights the history of those who came before us, shining a spotlight on their intellectual wealth.

Today, cultured visitors flock to calligraphy exhibitions. An enriching experience, they include paintings that reflect the art and thought of various calligraphy schools, as well as calligraphic artworks of brief, select excerpts of text from both classical and innovative movements.

Upon my return home, back to the fast, modern, innovative cities we more often live in these day, a nagging question persisted: why would we not adorn these modern buildings with our beautiful Arabic letters, engraved or drawn, to reflect our distinctive alphabet and those among its letters that no other language has the privilege to use?

Just imagine: our high-rise glass buildings covered with Arabic calligraphy, igniting a new artistic renaissance in modern architecture, with municipalities even embedding it within their list of technical requirements.

Imagine our government institutions, in the Gulf and Arab world, our houses, offices, and malls, all covered in the genius that is creative calligraphy, that imbues every letter with artistic value.

An architectural opportunity

The youth of today are drawn to modernity, which is understandable. Yet, in the Arab Gulf, few have modernised the historic architecture of their homes and buildings. Most modern buildings are recent additions, modelled on Western architectural ideas.

By contrast, save for restoration works, the original designs, quality, and elegance of our old buildings remain intact.

To instill reflections of the past in our shiny new cities of the future, it would make sense to adopt Arabic calligraphy of classical or modern schools in the architecture, and not just of houses and buildings, but of alleyways, markets, every small city corner. To do so would be to confer identity, belonging, and meaning on our cityscapes.

It would be no less than a rebirth, an artistic revolution, our metropolises reconnect to their aesthetic and cultural heritage, while keeping all their glass and cement. The future is adaptive, as is calligraphy, so as the building materials change, as the transport changes and the people change, so too would this art of structures.

In that sense, it would become a continuous art that embellishes our buildings with letters that resemble living beings with their own expression, proportions, and secrets.

Interlaced with imagination across time and culture, bestowing a unique interpretation, feel, and perception upon a place, calligraphy in architecture is an idea that now has its moment. Whether it is seized remains to be seen.