“Visual Thinking, Seeing Through Time” is a five-book odyssey through the human experience in Architecture, the Arts, and Geometry from the dawn of consciousness to the frontiers of artificial intelligence.
Category: EARLY ISLAMIC PERIOD
Altair Designs and Jules Bourgoin. Bridges MathArt 2025.
Jules Bourgoin was a master of Early Islamic visual logic.
The Story of Visual Thinking—Geometry, Architecture, and the Arts. AI Audio Review.
An AI-generated 30 minute audio review of my latest book.
Girih Tiles & The Gunbad-i Qabud Tomb
Girih Tiles on the
Presentations & Workshops
PRESENTATIONS WORKSHOPS
SHAPE CHANGING POLYHEDRA
“3D Thinking” Page 238: Shape Changing Polyhedra The original idea for shape changing polyhedra came from studying muqarnas and playing with children’s building blocks. The featured image is of the Nasir al-Mulk Mosque Muqarnas in Shiraz, Iran. The building blocks were as in the photo: An introduction to the logic of this geometry can be seen in […]
A Geometry of Early Islam – Nesting Polygons
“3D Thinking” Page 190, 191: There are a number of Islamic design methodologies of which the “Nesting Polygon” method is one. The method places an arrangement of polygons within a polygon and continues infinitely placing the same but scaled arrangement within each polygon as it appears. The method was used to generate a lattice from […]
A Geometry of Early Islam – ABJAD, Circles and a Door
“3D Thinking” Pages 175 to 177 Islamic Geometry: This Seljuk period door dates from 13th-century Anatolia and stands as a possible example of a use of numeric values to communicate a message. The door’s design is based the Islamic “close-packing circle” method of design – in this case an arrangement of close-packing circles within a pentagon. The two primary numbers […]
A Geometry of Early Islam – The Dynamic Circle Method
“3D Thinking” Pages 187, 274: Using close-packing circles to create surface designs, during the early years of Islam, requires a method to generate different close-packing circle arrangements. The dynamic sphere geometry provides such a method. Applying the geometry, starting with a 5-circle arrangement within the unit triangle of a square, generates many arrangements including the […]
A Geometry of Early Islam – The Circle Method and a Window
“3D Thinking” Page 187: The animation below shows the Arabian “close-packing” circle method that was used to create the window design of the 1356CE Madrasa of Amir Salf al-din Sargatmish in Old Cairo, Egypt. The design method dates back to the Abbasid period – a time of great creativity. The development starts with (i) a […]
