Main Statement Page 

Photographing Islamic Architecture Across Eurasia

This project examines Islamic architecture across Eurasia by comparing photographs taken by William Brumfield beginning in 1972 with photographs taken by Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii at the beginning of the 20th century and with photographs from the rare imperial edition, Turkestan album dating from the early 1870s. This unique comparative study provides an opportunity to examine how Islamic architecture has been documented, preserved, and transformed over time.

The project spans a wide geographic area, including Uzbekistan, Tatarstan, Crimea, St. Petersburg, Moscow, the Ural Mountain region, and Siberia. These regions reveal the diversity of Islamic communities and architectural traditions within the Russian and broader Eurasian landscape. Uzbekistan, for example, contains many of the major historic Islamic cities of Central Asia, while regions such as Tatarstan, Crimea, and Siberia show how Islamic architecture developed in very different geographic and cultural environments.

By placing early Russian photographs alongside Brumfield’s, I compare how the same or similar architectural spaces appear across different periods. The photographs make it possible to examine changes in buildings, restoration, surrounding landscapes, and the ways Islamic spaces have been incorporated into changing cities and communities. At the same time, the images show which architectural features have remained recognizable despite political, social, and environmental changes.

The comparison is also about more than the physical buildings themselves. Both photographers documented these places within particular historical contexts, and those contexts influenced what they photographed and how they represented it. Gorskii worked during the late Russian Empire, while Brumfield photographed many of these regions decades later. Their photographs therefore provide different perspectives on the same broader architectural history.

Rather than presenting Islamic architecture as something fixed in the past, this project uses photography to explore how it has changed across time and place. Our comparative approach allows these buildings to be viewed not only as historical monuments, but as parts of living communities and landscapes throughout Eurasia.