The Al-Attarine Madrasa in Fez, Morocco. Colorful tiled wall.
Wikipedia: The Al-Attarine Madrasa or Medersa al-Attarine (Arabic: مدرسة العطارين, romanized: madrasat al-ʿattārīn, lit. 'school of the perfumers') is a madrasa in Fes, Morocco, near the Al-Qarawiyyin Mosque. It was built by the Marinid sultan Uthman II Abu Said (r. 1310-1331) in 1323-5. The madrasa takes its name from the Souk al-Attarine, the spice and perfume market. It is considered one of the highest achievements of Marinid architecture due to its rich and harmonious decoration and its efficient use of limited madrasa is a two-story building accessed via an L-shaped bent entrance at the eastern end of Tala'a Kebira street. The vestibule leads to the main courtyard of the building, entered via an archway with a wooden screen (mashrabiya). The south and north sides of the courtyard are occupied by galleries with two square pillars and two smaller marble columns, which support three carved wood arches in the middle and two smaller stucco muqarnas stucco arches on the sides. Above these galleries are the facades of the second floor marked by windows looking into the courtyard. This second floor, accessed via a staircase off the southern side of the entrance vestibule, is occupied by 30 rooms which served as sleeping quarters for the students. This makes for an overall arrangement similar to the slightly earlier Madrasa as-Sahrij. The entrance vestibule also grants access to a mida'a (ablutions hall) which is located at its northern side. At the courtyard's eastern end is another decorated archway which grants entrance to the prayer hall. Most of the Marinid-era madrasas were oriented so that the main axis of the building was already aligned with the qibla (the direction of prayer), allowing the mihrab (niche symbolizing the qibla) of the prayer hall to be allowed with the entrance of the main courtyard. However, the space into which the al-Attarine Madrasa was built evidently did not allow for this layout, and instead
Size: 6000px × 4000px
Location: Fez, Morocco
Photo credit: © Bert de Ruiter / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
Keywords: al-attarine, arabic, architecture, bert, ceramic, colorful, colourful, cultural, culture, de, decoration, fes, fez, geometric, historic, horizontal, islamic, landscape, madrasa, maghreb, marinid, moroccan, morocco, mosaic, oriental, religion, religious, ruiter, school, tiled, tiles, tilework, traditional, wall, zellij
