Meandering writings

The THS building houses the offices of the THS as well as a library, which is quite good in terms of its holdings in Anatolian and Turkish history. What I find most interesting about this library is its architecture. I usually come here a couple of days a week to study on my dissertation. Despite the fact that the chairs and the desks are not modern and usable enough--especially when I compare it to the Regenstein Library at UofC---the building is inspiring. It tries to be modern yet it draws from the classical Ottoman architecture. The atrium in the centre of the building is three-stories high and it gets a lot of sunlight through the ceiling, which I find to be reminiscent of Ottoman---and Mamluk, mind you---madrasas. In some ways, I can think of the central atrium, covered by the offices, the library and the auditorium on three sides, a modern interpretation of a khan, or the Sultan Hasan Madrasa in Cairo. The major difference is of course the fact that the atrium in THS building...

Hello, salaam, peace to anyone who reads this post. I had been thinking of starting a blog to note things that occasionally came to my mind. Things that are pretty unrelated, in fact, so unrelated that I could not come up with a consistent blog idea. Now I suddenly have decided to do this blog which, I hope, would be a place I will post anything significant that I like to share with others. So be it, let me start by saying bismillah.