A Landscape, a Ledge, and a Shadow

Abstract

This paper is concerned with a creative practice that explores the experience of sacred space in architectural drawings. The drawings [re]present a spatial intervention where the sacred is experienced in the most ordinary of architectural gestures located amidst a juniper forest in Balochistan, Pakistan. The drawing practice that is central to this exploration, consists of a phenomenological enquiry, grounded in Ibn Arabi’s philosophy of the world as God’s shadow. This paper is a ‘disenclosure’ of our constant attempts to render every physical detail into a linear result of spaces as products to be seen. The unfolding research practice offers a discussion on ways of seeing the baatin, in physical forms — the zaahir. The drawings that emerge from this study critique conventional methods of architectural representation and call for a depth to become a part of how we visualise space in architectural practice and pedagogy.