Call for Papers /// Reimagining Islamic Architecture in the 20th and 21st Centuries, International Journal of Islamic Architecture (IJIA)
- s-architecture
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
International Journal of Islamic Architecture (IJIA) | Reimagining Islamic Architecture in the 20th and 21st Centuries
Special Issue: Reimagining Islamic Architecture in the 20th and 21st Centuries
Thematic volume planned for July 2028
Guest Editors: Emily Neumeier & Jennifer Pruitt
Proposal submission deadline: 15 December 2025
We invite submissions for this special issue of the International Journal of Islamic Architecture that investigates the modern reimagining of historical architecture from the Islamic world. Specifically, we are interested in the phenomenon of architects working in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries who refer to premodern Islamic monuments in their own practice. These ‘sites of citation’ can be understood to serve diverse functions and contexts, ranging from proclaiming connections to a perceived glorious imperial past, crafting new national identities through architectural revivals, recollecting a nostalgic homeland for diasporic communities, or even incorporating orientalist tropes to convey luxurious consumption or cosmopolitan sophistication.
Within the disciplines of Islamic art and architectural history, scholars have debated the logical terminus for the field’s timeline. Most of the major survey texts intended for undergraduate courses have ended around 1800, prior to the rise of European colonialism in the nineteenth century. This creates the distinct impression that the diverse regions of the Islamic world took up modernization efforts that were, at best, mimetic of western Europe, and therefore not worthy of investigation. As a corrective to these temporal restrictions and the resulting lacunae in the scholarship, a resounding call to extend the chronological framework of the field into the modern period has emerged in the past two decades (Flood 2007; Flood & Necipoğlu 2017). Yet scholars are only beginning to investigate how the forms and narratives of precolonial Islamic art history inform postcolonial architectural practice. In this special issue, we seek to build on the work of historians such as Nasser Rabbat and Mercedes Volait, who have demonstrated the importance of investigating revival architecture beyond a western European context to the Islamic world. We also take as a point of inspiration the scholarship of Kishwar Rizvi, whose examination of the transnational mosque open up discussion on a variety of state-sponsored religious constructions built in the postmodern and present neoliberal eras, all of which consciously adopt historicizing elements in their design.
We invite papers that will expand the investigation of Islamic architectures to include a diversity of architectural typologies. This special issue seeks case studies ranging from the late nineteenth century until the present, drawn from a wide geographical range inclusive of the Middle East, North and West Africa, the Americas, Europe, and South and Southeast Asia. We particularly welcome papers that address cross-cultural exchange and the transnational networks of architects, designers, and patrons. Case studies might address extant sites as well as ephemeral examples, like the pavilions from international expositions and theatre scenery. We envisage submissions that will investigate the reimagining of imperial Ottoman forms in twenty-first-century Turkey; the orientalizing anachronism of Shriner architecture in the United States; representations of Islamic spaces in theme parks and video games; or the adaptation of historical forms for restoration and cultural heritage projects in the Middle East. We are especially interested in examining how scholarly narratives of precolonial Islamic art history have shaped architectural projects, and thus also invite abstracts that explore how the built form references or translates the visual representations of historic monuments (i.e., etchings, photographs, ground plans, satellite views, 3D mapping) found in academic publications and mass media. In so doing, we seek to offer new insights that emerge specifically from the connection between modern and contemporary architecture and the historiography of Islamic art.
Additional questions may be addressed by contributors to this special issue:
To what extent has the reinvention of historical Islamic architecture prompted a revival, reactivation, or appropriation of traditional craft practices and building technologies? Who are the agents, institutions, and sources key to this transmission of knowledge?
Do modern and contemporary case studies reflect present-day conceptions about the ‘quintessential’ elements or forms of Islamic architecture? Is it possible to identify a canon of historical monuments?
How might our understanding of a single site shift when taking into account both top-down perspectives (i.e., architects, designers, patrons and donors, cultural organizations, and government institutions) and the everyday experiences of users and visitors? How can these meanings persist or change over a long period of time, in the course of subsequent mediations or renovations during the life of a particular monument or site?
Are specific practices of citation in architecture embedded within historical legacies, or an opportunity to think beyond colonialism, orientalism, and modernism? To what extent does architectural revival create a sense of anachronism, authenticity, and/or nostalgia for the past?
What negotiations or translations can take place when forms that were originally developed for Islamic sacred spaces are reinterpreted for non-religious purposes? Can such reimagining of Islamic architecture open up possibilities to revisit deep-seated assumptions about the separation of the sacred and secular?
In an age of consumption and neoliberalism, how do the demands for tourism, entertainment, and spectacle impact the designs of built environments that are marketed as looking to the historical architecture of the Islamic world?
Articles offering historical and theoretical analysis (DiT papers) should be between 6000 and 8000 words, and those on design and practice (DiP papers) between 3000 and 4000 words (notes are included in the word count).
Practitioners are welcome to contribute insofar as they address the critical framework of the journal. Urbanists, art historians, anthropologists, geographers, political scientists, sociologists, and historians are also welcome.
Please send a title and a 400-word abstract to the guest editors, Emily Neumeier (neumeier@temple.edu) and Jennifer Pruitt (jpruitt@wisc.edu), by 15 December 2025.
Authors of accepted proposals will be contacted soon thereafter and will be requested to submit full papers by 1 July 2026.
All papers will be subject to blind peer review and a rigorous editing process. For author instructions, please consult: www.intellectbooks.com/ijia
s-architecture is intended for scholars of Architecture (academe, practice, students, and the public). The list posts scholarship and grant opportunities, academic jobs, calls for papers, notices of conferences which will be of interest to academic staff, postgraduate students, and those in the profession with a scholarly turn of mind.
This blog/email and any attachments are confidential and intended solely for the recipient(s) listed. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately and delete this email. Any unauthorised review, use, disclosure, or distribution is strictly prohibited. While we take precautions to protect against viruses and malware, we cannot guarantee that this email is free from harmful elements. The views expressed in this email do not necessarily reflect those of s-architecture or the Association of Architecture Schools of Australasia (AASA).
