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Welcome to ARCHNET, an Open Access, intellectual resource focused on the built environment of Muslim societies.Our mission:&nbsp;<ul><li>Facilitate excellence in scholarship, and professional work by providing ready access to quality, unique texts, and media focused on architecture, urbanism, environmental and landscape design, conservation issues, visual and material cultures, and related topics, both historically and in terms of contemporary best practices.</li><li>Enable teaching and learning in these domains by providing educators with reliable, effective pedagogical material and teaching aids.&nbsp;</li><li>Serve serves as a platform through which scholars, practitioners, and institutions can bring their work to new global audiences.&nbsp;</li><li>Promote intercultural understanding and dialogue through reliable, high-quality, peer-reviewed material on the diversity of, and pluralism within Muslim societies and the interaction between Islamic and other religious, cultural, and philosophical traditions.</li><li>Enable easy access to a wide variety of resources via a custom-built, web-based, mobile-friendly platform optimized to minimize financial, infrastructural, linguistic, and other barriers to access.&nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul>Launched in 2002 after several years of development, ARCHNET is a pioneering digital resource that has proven a reliable authority on the built environment of Muslim societies, past, and present.&nbsp;ARCHNET is a partnership between the <a href="https://www.archnet.org/collections/1342" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Aga Khan Documentation Center, MIT Libraries </a>(AKDC@MIT) and the <a href="https://www.archnet.org/authorities/1903" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Aga Khan Trust for Culture</a> (AKTC), with support from the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard and MIT. ARCHNET NEXT was developed by <a href="https://www.performantsoftware.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Performant Software Solutions</a>.

About

Muhammad ibn Yaqub al-Nasir

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digital graphic

640px-Gold_coin_of_Almohad_ruler_Abu_'Abd_Allah_Muhammad_(r._1199-1213).jpg

patron

 Fès

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gate

Timeline: Almohad {1130-1269}

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Morocco

Medical centers characterized by a standard approach to planning and design, it revolves around the primary health care unit. A typical facility includes five P.H.C.U.'s, a dispensary, ward units, and operating theatres. It is designed to serve a population of 4000. Source: Aga Khan Trust for Culture

Timeline

Fez Photograph Album

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unknown

IMG27341

Bab Mahrouk

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IMG27342

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IMG27343

Gate of the Burnt 

Translated

La Porte du Brûlé

Alternate

Bab ech-Chari'a

La Porte de l'Oratoire

See <a href="https://www.archnet.org/collections/2353" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Timeline: Almohad</a> ﻿North African Berber dynasty which ruled over much of North Africa, Spain and parts of sub-Saharan West Africa. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The Almohads originated from the Atlas mountains of Morocco and were led by a religious leader who preached moral reform. They defeated the ruling dynasty of the&nbsp;<a href="http://archnet.org/timelines/48/period/Almoravid/year/1053" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Almoravids</a>&nbsp;and established the greatest empire of the western Islamic world. In 1170/565 AH the capital was moved to&nbsp;<a href="http://archnet.org/authorities/3944" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Seville</a>&nbsp;from where resistance to the Christian reconquest could be organized.&nbsp;City walls are equally demonstrative symbols of Almohad ideology with stepped crenellations and decorated gateway facades. The best examples of Almohad fortifications are the city gates at&nbsp;<a href="http://archnet.org/authorities/3900" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Rabat</a>&nbsp;with their complex bent entrances and monumental facades decorated with cusped arches.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Almohad architecture is characterized by its mosques and fortifications. The most notable feature of Almohad mosques are the large minaret towers which dominate the great mosques of&nbsp;<a href="http://archnet.org/authorities/3944" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Seville</a>,&nbsp;<a href="http://archnet.org/authorities/3820" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Marakesh</a>&nbsp;and Rabat. Under their predecessors, the Almoravids, minarets were thought to be inappropriate and were left out of mosque designs. The Almohads were responsible for reintroducing the minaret, first in a tentative form, as in the&nbsp;minaret of&nbsp;<a href="http://archnet.org/sites/1745" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Timnal</a>&nbsp;where it is a low tower behind the mihrab, and later in a monumental form. The design varied from one tower to another but the basic form was a square shaft containing a central core with a vaulted room on each storey. The exterior was usually decorated with windows set within frames made of cusped arches which formed networks of lozenge shapes. The form of these minarets established a tradition which was followed in mosques of the fourteenth century and later. Petersen, Andrew.&nbsp;Dictionary of Islamic Architecture.&nbsp;London and New York: Routledge, 1999.

Bab MahroukFes, Morocco

Bab Mahrouk
Fes, Morocco