The photo essays by the architect and urbanist Luiz Augusto are partial records of the contemporary Islamic culture in Morocco and Turkey. The shots from his recent trip to the Arabic world differ from conventional touristic records, as they are captured by the lens of an historian that reflects on a contact with his own history.

Turkish and Moroccan cultural landscapes originate in the ancient world. Within historical migration flows, Moorish culture and aesthetics came to exert great influence in both Spain and Portugal, which, in turn, molded the formation of the first Brazilian settlements, especially Salvador, where Luiz was born.

His gaze, interested in architecture, arid landscapes, vibrant and colorful foods, as well as his sensitivity to sacred scenes, turned the trip that would be his first arrival to those lands and an experimentation of new places and landscapes into a case of surprising familiarity with the places. In a conversation about hereditary connections among Moroccan, Turkish and Bahian cultures, the architect suggested Antonio Risério’s extract:

Yes. Under the sign of race mixture. That is how the adventure we call Brazil began.

[…] Reacting against centuries-old theses of “discovery” and the New World, our historians established the beginning of Brazilian history in remote paleo-Asian migrations, the arrival of the first “yellow” groups who would have crossed the Bering Strait towards our recent territory.

Not wishing to leave out the indigenous presence, I think we should locate the beginning of Brazilian historical process in the encounters, in the crossroads of distinct historic-cultural trajectories that clashed and merged here. We have the expansionist history of tupinambás and tupiniquins, the history of Portugal, and African histories in our latest configuration. […]

We shall be reasonable. The Bering Strait, the Christian reconquest of the Iberic Peninsula, and the wars between nagôs and haussás were all indispensable to our formation (RISÉRIO, 2000).

The essay includes scenes of the desert, the Ouarzazate, mosques, arches and markets, presenting colorful sceneries with unique lightening. The exhibition causes a reflection on how those peoples built such majestic communities, their ability to live in extreme environments, and the preservation of their cultural values for thousands of years. Ruins and modern phenomena included, the work shows an amazing process of anthropomorphism in arid lands, led by a culture that simultaneously lives in harmony and contrast with these lands, as experienced in the scene of the Merzouga desert in Sahara.

At last, the work is an opportunity to invoke primitive instincts of belonging through something exotic, encountering sensations that might feel new, but are comprehensible within our past, and delighting oneself with the amazing architecture and landscapes.

1
Casablanca, Morocco. Mosque of Hassan II. January 2015.
Casablanca, Morocco. Mosque of Hassan II. January 2015.

2
Casablanca, Morocco. Mosque of Hassan II. January 2015.
Casablanca, Morocco. Mosque of Hassan II. January 2015.

3
Casablanca, Morocco. Mosque of Hassan II. January 2015.
Casablanca, Morocco. Mosque of Hassan II. January 2015.

4
The Merzouga Desert, Sahara, Morocco. January 2015.
The Merzouga Desert, Sahara, Morocco. January 2015.

5
Mausoleum of Mohammed V, Rabat, Morocco. January 2015.
Mausoleum of Mohammed V, Rabat, Morocco. January 2015.

6
Casablanca, Morocco. Mosque of Hassan II. January 2015.
Casablanca, Morocco. Mosque of Hassan II. January 2015.

7
Ouarzazate, Marrakesh, Morocco. July 2015.
Ouarzazate, Marrakesh, Morocco. July 2015.

8
The Sahara Desert, Marrakesh, Morocco. July 2015.
The Sahara Desert, Marrakesh, Morocco. July 2015.

9
Ouarzazate, Marrakesh, Morocco. July 2015.
Ouarzazate, Marrakesh, Morocco. July 2015.

10
Ouarzazate, Marrakesh, Morocco. July 2015.
Ouarzazate, Marrakesh, Morocco. July 2015.

11
The Sahara Desert, Marrakesh, Morocco. July 2015.
The Sahara Desert, Marrakesh, Morocco. July 2015.

12
The Sahara Desert, Marrakesh, Morocco. July 2015.
The Sahara Desert, Marrakesh, Morocco. July 2015.

13
Ouarzazate, Marrakesh, Morocco. July 2015.
Ouarzazate, Marrakesh, Morocco. July 2015.

14
The Merzouga Desert, Sahara, Morocco. J anuary 2015.
The Merzouga Desert, Sahara, Morocco. J anuary 2015.

15
The Merzouga Desert, Sahara, Morocco. J anuary 2015.
The Merzouga Desert, Sahara, Morocco. J anuary 2015.

REFERENCE

RISÉRIO, A. Uma história da cidade da Bahia. Salvador: Editora Omar G., 2000.

Author notes