Americanization of Islamic Cultural Design: Erasure, Orientalism/Exoticism, and Americanization

Author

Peter L. StanleyFollow

Date of Graduation

12-2020

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Landscape Architecture

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Landscape Architecture

Advisor/Mentor

Scott E. Biehle

Committee Member/Reader

Kimball Douglas Erdman

Committee Member/Second Reader

Ethel Sara Goodstein

Abstract

Islam arrived in North America primarily through the importation of Muslim African slaves. Subsequent suppression of the slaves, and by extension their religion and places of worship, generated a lack of understanding and misunderstanding about Islam. Over time, this misunderstanding evolved into xenophobic and orientalist representations of the religion. This Capstone project researches Islam’s roots in colonial America through the period before the Columbian Exposition of 1893, and its evolution after the Columbian Exposition, with defining time periods expressed as Erasure, Orientalism/Exoticism, and Americanization. With the help of cultural trust organizations such as the Aga Khan Foundation, the contemporary Americanization era is now approaching Islam and Islamic cultural design more authentically. This capstone then addresses how contemporary design is working towards breaking away from past exoticized and Orientalized ideas and how it attempts to engage the non-Muslim populations through design more adequately.

Keywords

Midway Plaisance, Islamic cultural design, Columbian Exposition, Aga Khan Garden, Chini Khana, Service Learning

Citation

Stanley, P. L. (2020). Americanization of Islamic Cultural Design: Erasure, Orientalism/Exoticism, and Americanization. Landscape Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses Retrieved from https://scholarworks.uark.edu/larcuht/10