Public and private architecture in Bukhara in the survey of Islamic art history, restoration science and building archaeology
The Old City of Bukhara (Uzbekistan), protected as UNESCO world cultural heritage, is one of the most important historical urban fabrics in Central Asia. It is marked by a large number of significant individual monuments and a unique cityscape of different quarters with an intact historical fabric.
As a joint German-Uzbek undertaking, the research project “Denkmal und Kontext” takes an interdisciplinary approach.
The quarter of Khoja Zainuddin is marked by comparatively intact ‘traditional’ structures. At its core lies the mosque of Khoja Zainuddin, a monument of overarching art historical importance.
Several project units will work on questions of structural history, building archaeology, art history and urban history, and will develop perspectives of conservation for the quarter. Detailed documentation of extant structures with modern technology (laser scan) will lay the basis for the writing of structural history.
An important share consists in the examination of wooden structures, in which dendrochronological methods will be applied. Stylistic comparison with other monuments aims at the position of the mosque and neighbouring buildings in the history of architecture, while the evaluation of written sources can help to describe their functions and their integration in the social fabric of the city.