The Expansions of the Great Mosque of Cordoba
With just a pair of compasses...
The Great Mosque of Cordoba was built by the Umayyads of Spain, after they were kicked out of Damascus. The mosque started as a square structure, thought to have been 74 or 79 meters per side (completed in 787, during the reign of And-ar Rahman I). In the course of the next two centuries, it was enlarged four times, with geometry!
Let me explain how the Umayyad builders used only a pair of compasses and a ruler to create new volumes for each expansion.
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