Arabesque Thresholds : Artwork 6

The Muqarnas vault was the solution medieval Islamic architects found to a problem that had defeated builders for centuries: how do you move from a square room to a circular dome without it looking like a structural compromise? The answer they arrived at — a system of nested geometric cells that step gradually inward, each one a load-bearing element that also reads as ornament — is one of the most elegant solutions in the history of architecture. What it produces is a surface that is simultaneously ceiling, wall, and sky: the pilgrim entering a Safavid mosque looks up and cannot immediately determine whether they are looking at structure or at pattern, because in the Muqarnas tradition the answer is always both. This piece translates that ceiling experience into a wall surface: the compressed geometry of the dome brought into the room rather than placed above it.