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K-State Today

February 6, 2024

Art and Math seminar to discuss geometry of Islamic traditional architecture ornaments

Submitted by Natalia Rozhkovskaya

Architectural Ornament

Asli Agirbas will present "The Geometry of Muqarnas" from noon to 1 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 8, at the online Art and Math seminar.

Muqarnas is a three-dimensional ornamental element mainly used in traditional Islamic architecture. This element can be found in various building parts such as main gates, column heads, mihrabs, lower parts of minaret balconies and dome transition elements. Although this building ornamental element appears to have a complex pattern when viewed from the outside, it is actually shaped by various three dimensional geometrical cells. In this talk, Agirbas will discuss 2D and 3D geometrical features of muqarnas geometry trough the buildings of Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan.

Agirbas is an architect with computational design expertise. Her research area includes parametric design, generative design and architectural design. Agirbas received her doctorate from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, architectural design program in 2017, and her Master of Science in architecture from Pratt Institute, New York in 2013. After graduating from Pratt Institute with the Excellence in Academic Achievement award, she worked as a parametric design graduate course assistant at Pratt. Agirbas received her other master's degree from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, architectural design program in 2012. She was awarded with Erasmus scholarship and worked on her thesis at Politecnico di Bari and UCLA. She received her undergraduate architecture degree from Yeditepe University, Istanbul and she worked at Zvi Hecker Architecture in Berlin. Since 2014, she teaches architectural design studios and parametric design courses at various universities.

Registration is required to participate in the seminar.