Nur Al-Din Madrasa - Architecture

Architecture

The structure is accessed from the east through a portal recess covered with a double cross-vault. In the 14th century, a low-lying arch was constructed across the recess in order to support the double arch of the original vault. The portal itself opens up to a cross-vaulted vestibule leading to the eastern iwan leading to the courtyard. To the south of the vestibule is a "horse-shoe" arched door topped by a 16-sided rosette window leading to the tomb chamber, and to the north is a staircase leading to the second floor which houses the madrasa's classrooms.

Read more about this topic:  Nur Al-Din Madrasa

Famous quotes containing the word architecture:

    And when his hours are numbered, and the world
    Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
    Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
    To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
    Built in an age, the mad wind’s night-work,
    The frolic architecture of the snow.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    Polarized light showed the secret architecture of bodies; and when the second-sight of the mind is opened, now one color or form or gesture, and now another, has a pungency, as if a more interior ray had been emitted, disclosing its deep holdings in the frame of things.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    No architecture is so haughty as that which is simple.
    John Ruskin (1819–1900)