Stealing from the Saracens by Diana Darke : Book Signing & Talk

Book Signing and Talk | Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture Shaped Europe by Diana Darke Yunus Emre Institute in London, in collaboration with Hurst Publishers, hosted a talk and book signing by Diana Darke, on her fascinating book, Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture Shaped Europe, on Thursday 31st March 2022 at 7 pm. The event, moderated by noted architect Samie Iqbal Kayani, started with a talk by the author and the Middle East Cultural Expert Diana Darke and followed by a Q&A session and book signing. The book’s author, Diana Darke, led the audience through an unrevealed history of architectural ‘borrowing’ by tracing the origins of European architecture. Challenging normative Eurocentric narratives, the talk touched on the Islamic architectural influence present across the Middle East, the Mediterranean and Iberia. Visiting different structures, regions, cultures and spaces in time, Darke took the audience on a whistle-stop tour of the architectural history and styles of monumental buildings. Starting with St Paul’s Cathedral, Darke drew on the misnomer that is ‘Gothic architecture’ and highlighted the Saracen style it was based on. Harking back to the title of her book, ‘Stealing from the Saracens’, she pointed to its hidden irony as she played on the idea that Europe ‘stole’ from the Saracens who named after a derivation of the Arabic word to steal. The Islamic influences, Darke pointed out, were repeatedly removed from Europe’s history while appearing repeated in its architectural heritage. From Notre Dame Cathedral to the Houses of Parliament, countless buildings in Venice to the White House, the vibrant Arab and Islamic roots are unmistakable and unmissable as cultures interact and build on one another. Darke’s talk ended on a pertinent point often forgotten: the culture we see around us today is built by civilisations and people across history, pushed forwarded and added to by countless hands to reach us today. Darke’s history of architecture was a rich tale of cultural exchange and a signal to all we have achieved by learning from one another.