Interlocking Chiral Patterns of the Silk Road
Trade routes provide more than just exchanges of textiles and spices. They enrich understanding, broaden horizons, and spread knowledge and possibility across the lands. Languages, stories, beliefs, technological innovations, and also ornamental designs all travelled along established trade routes.
In this six-part course, we begin in eastern China: the fountainhead of the Silk Road, where we will study and draw geometric wooden lattice designs. We then follow the historic trade route through India, Uzbekistan, Iran, Syria, Turkiye, Malta, and Sicily, exploring architectural ornamentation as a manifestation of connectivity. We will learn to draw a range of patterns based on rotated interlocking shapes, exploring design terrain outside of the star and rosette patterns which often dominate our Islamic geometric curricula.
Students will learn how to construct square and triangular grids with ruler and compass, and learn how to develop these grids into a wide variety of diverse yet interconnected patterns. We will observe certain common features used to structure and organise our designs, including revolving symmetry motifs and chirality (“left and right handedness”) and discover connections across regions through shared motifs and shared geometric methodologies.
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Trade routes provide more than just exchanges of textiles and spices. They enrich understanding, broaden horizons, and spread knowledge and possibility across the lands. Languages, stories, beliefs, technological innovations, and also ornamental designs all travelled along established trade routes.
In this six-part course, we begin in eastern China: the fountainhead of the Silk Road, where we will study and draw geometric wooden lattice designs. We then follow the historic trade route through India, Uzbekistan, Iran, Syria, Turkiye, Malta, and Sicily, exploring architectural ornamentation as a manifestation of connectivity. We will learn to draw a range of patterns based on rotated interlocking shapes, exploring design terrain outside of the star and rosette patterns which often dominate our Islamic geometric curricula.
Students will learn how to construct square and triangular grids with ruler and compass, and learn how to develop these grids into a wide variety of diverse yet interconnected patterns. We will observe certain common features used to structure and organise our designs, including revolving symmetry motifs and chirality (“left and right handedness”) and discover connections across regions through shared motifs and shared geometric methodologies.
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