A fascinating symbol, a citation, a reference to the iconography of archaic, millennia-old cultures, an engineering masterpiece, a cultural artifact that continues to inspire contemporary architectural and artistic imaginaries and designs?
Mashrabiya is all this and more. It is where technique and thought unite fragments in the form of patterns, weaving the riches of tradition together with the challenges of modernity to create functional decorative elements that reconcile a deep sense of belonging and identity.
The word is derived from the Arabic “mashrafa,” meaning a place of refreshment or where water is stored to cool it, exploiting the breeze filtering through the grid patterns. Over time, the term acquired a broader connotation beyond the specific place to refer to the structure itself: a perforated wooden panel serving as decoration for windows and balconies, protecting the interior from sunlight an preserving privacy without breaking the visual connection with the outside.
The earliest traces of this technique date back to the 12th century during the period of the Abbasid dynasty in Baghdad, and its spread covered Egypt, Iraq, and the Maghreb, until it gradually lost popularity with the modernization of the Arab world in the 20th century. Yet today, in another form and especially as inspiration and citation, mashrabiya enjoys new attention starting with the materials and virtuosi patterns made with complex drawing and writing systems. A process augmented by the culture of sustainable and organic materials such as textile fibers, which regenerate that ancient tradition related to temperature and cooling, moisture and light management, and orderly but permeable separation that have historically allowed the mashrabiya to be both a functional choice and a relational device, linked to privacy in the spaces of public and private life.
The special fluidity that connotes it originates in a unique form of living architecture capable of transforming emptiness into a dense and meaningful fluid void, redefining how space is perceived and inhabited. The “fluid void” of mashrabiya is never static or inert; it is an essential component of the design, an active part of the construction that constantly adapts, shapes, and interacts with its surroundings. A permeable intermediate space that allows light, air, and the eye to pass through the forms in environments made dynamic by use and relationship.
Ultimately, mashrabiya are a link between worlds - between inside and outside, between private and public. With their structure made of textures and fretwork, it is a porous protection that welcomes without excluding, a threshold, a gateway where space, light, and shadow meet, break down, and recompose. This is also why the technical aspect is always an invitation to knowledge, contemplation, and dialogue with the outside world. It is what happens to that extensive design culture of wood or brick ensured the preservation of hay in barns or the perfect ripening of food during seasoning, with the meticulous and perfect control of temperature, humidity, and ventilation. This is what happens in monasteries where the enclosure is protected by grates that reference and interpret the idea of separation in unity. Thus, the concrete functions of rules entrust symbolic diaphragms with the power of quotation, the sense of ritual, and iconography.
The idea of the fluid void as connective tissue and matrix is also a metaphor for flexibility and adaptability to changing objective conditions, contemporary living, leaps of perspective, and visual and cognitive cohabitation determined by light and the virtuosities it can trigger in the relationship between nature, culture, and design.
The union of function and meaning referring to technical knowledge, culture, tradition, and lifestyle make mashrabiya a design philosophy whose passive ventilation allows a constant and fresh flow of air within inhabited spaces, and therefore thermal and environmental comfort.
The internal rules that characterize its construction-related openings in the upper part and narrower ones in the lower part with geometric or floral weaves, and the grid made of different materials, are the compendium giving rise to the management of climate and well-being under the exclusive banner of quality and environmental sustainability. If their origin is borrowed from the Islamic tradition, today mashrabiya are a valuable design resource for contemporary architecture influenced by the challenge of pressing, aggressive climate change that obliges – in terms of ethics and aesthetics, the built and the empty - to treasure ancient traditions and new visionary solutions.
The geometric patterns of mashrabiya are often based on complex mathematical principles that represent infinity and reflect the unity and cohesion of the universe. In Islamic tradition, these patterns have a deep spiritual and symbolic significance that refers to the connection between the creator and the created. A way and practice to reconcile opposites: light and shadow, inside and outside, private and public.
Although their origin is in the Islamic world, mashrabiya have influenced cultures and languages, and have been enriched with new meanings all over the world. During the Moorish period in Spain, we find examples of similar structures used with a cooling and protective function. In the Spanish language, the word celosía emphasizes the importance of separation as a value of confidentiality, alongside that of transparency and dialogue with the outside world. In Egypt and the modern Arab world, mashrabiya are a recognized cultural heritage, a symbol of high-quality craftsmanship. In Italy, the concept of mashrabiya has developed in architecture and construction in a similar way: gratings and perforated shutters have characterized the facades of dwellings for centuries, especially in Mediterranean areas where these elements protect from the sun, regulate the passage of light and air, and create harmonious ventilation in rooms. In Ottoman Turkey and the cities of the Arabian Peninsula, they have taken different forms and used different materials while remaining true to their original functional and symbolic principles. In India, jali or jaali (an umpteenth declension of net) means that technique of working perforated stone usually used as a screen and as a decoration with ornamental motifs constructed with the use of calligraphy, geometry, and natural patterns, essential for the management of light and air. The connection with ritual, contemplation, and prayer also recurs here. Indeed, it is the early shrines in India dedicated to Buddhism, Janism, and Hinduism that are the sites of choice for these design practices which, through complex configurations, patterns, and modes of carving and perforation, directed light onto sacred images to encourage devotion and contemplation. The design of jalis has experienced mixed fortunes, evolved, incorporated geometric and naturalistic motifs, and absorbed influences and backgrounds from different cultural contexts.
The legacy of mashrabiya connects past, present and future and represents a design front as well as multifaceted artistic and cultural poetics of great modernity. Contemporary architecture animated by technological and scientific research considers this technique a promising and questioning design frontier. On the one hand, the recovery of the matrices of building with natural criteria and materials borrowed from the tradition of peoples and places, on the other hand, the physics of virgin and regenerated materials and the frontier of parametric design, have in the historical, ethical and aesthetic experience of mashrabiya a dense origin of perspectives related to sustainability all over the world. For the management of climate, the government of light, the quality of air and environments, the style of relationship has passed between those textures and patterns.
In the time of globalization, the functional and aesthetic reasons for mashrabiya associated with the virtuous environmental peculiarities demonstrated by the centuries-long permanence of their application take on foundational value. The continuity between past and future, enhanced by the research of universities, businesses, and professional networks, regenerates motivation and inspiration, unites cultural heritage, sustainability, dialogue, and belonging to the imaginaries that inhabit communities, spaces, and public discourse.
