IDC School of Geometric Patterns in Islamic Art with Prof. Majewski

This program at the Istanbul Design Center is planned as a one week regular course with about 30 hours of lectures and tutorial classes. This event will have a typical school / university structure – each class for 45-50 minutes, homework, certificate documents, etc. At the end of the program there will be an exhibition at the IDC displaying the works that students will have completed during the course. If you are a university student, you can consider it as a 2 credit course in the American or British system.

During the program on some afternoons we will have walking excursions to different places in the old town of Istanbul, exploring geometric patterns and evaluating them.

Program: we are going to cover Central Asian methods of geometric pattern design. The course will start completely from scratch and go to the medium level pattern design techniques. Large part of the course will be devoted to analysis and outcomes from Topkapi, Mirza Akbar Khan and Tashkent scrolls.

In the beginning of the course you will have to forget everything what you have learned before about constructing geometric patterns. For this reason the course will be perfect for complete freshmen. Note, we will rather concentrate on techniques and methods, than on specific patterns. The outcome of this approach is that participants will be able to start quickly their own designs.

This course is a unique opportunity to learn theory and methodology created by the presenter after many years of his research in Central Asian scientific literature (mostly in Russian), resources in museums and archaeological sites of Central Asia and Turkey, discussions with scientists from Uzbekistan and Iran.

The course content was never published or presented in the West. Small parts of it were published only in Polish journal Mathematics for Teachers in a series of articles in 2016/2017.

Dates: 12-17 February, 2018 (Basic Level) / 19-24 February, 2018 (Intermediate level)

Participants: Artists, architects, mathematics teachers, students.

(Since the participation capacity is limited, the participants will be selected from the pre-registrants by Prof. Majewski.)

Number of participants: 25 persons.

Language: English

All the students’ works made during the course are participant’s property with one exception: your final work that will be exhibited at the IDC at the end of the course and it will be left at the IDC for their archives.

Prof. Dr. Miroslaw Majewski

Born in Poland, educated in mathematics. M.Sc. and Ph.D. in non-classical geometries at the Nicholas Copernicus University in Poland.

Professor of mathematics and computer science in a few universities –

• Nicholas Copernicus University, Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science (assistant, senior assistant, adjunct professor),

• Papua New Guinea University of Technology (Senior Lecturer and later Associate Professor, teaching technical mathematics and computer science courses),

• Inter-University of Macau (now this is the Saint Joseph University, Full Professor, founding Dean of the School of Information Technology, teaching computer graphics and programming),

• Zayed University in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (Full Professor, teaching computer graphics, programming and multimedia courses),

• New York Institute of Technology (Full Professor & Assistant Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, teaching business mathematics and quantitative methods for business).

• Visiting Professor of Korea National University of Education (2014-15), and American University in North Africa (2015 – to date).

• Since May 2013 official title ‘Professor Emeritus’ of New York Institute of Technology, College of Arts & Sciences.

Author of about 50 papers and books on computer graphics, applications of computers in education, mathematics and computer science education, geometry in art and architecture. Some of his recent papers and books are related to the geometry in Islamic art and history of medieval Islamic mathematics. His book ‘Islamic Geometric Ornament in Istanbul’ shows modern detailed geometric constructions of many geometric ornaments that can be seen in Istanbul. His new series of books ‘Sketches on geometry and art’ is a systematic overview of various geometric ideas embedded in ancient as well as in modern architecture and architectural decorations. The most recent book in this series will be a detailed review of Central Asian methods in designing geometric patterns used in Islamic art and architecture. More about his works at majewski.wordpress.com In private life he is an enthusiast of gardening, mountain hiking, photography and geometric art. His Symmetrica project (symmetrica.wordpress.com) combines various applications of geometry in art, in particular in Islamic art.