Necipoğlu, Gülru GNXIE, YUE2026-06-0920262026-06-052026XIE, YUE. 2026. Registan: The Rise of Madrasa-Anchored Urban Squares in Central Asia, 15th–17th Centuries. Doctoral Dissertation, Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.32701962https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/42740380Samarkand’s Registan square is defined by three monumental madrasas built across three centuries. Why did these structures come to anchor the Registan? More broadly, why did madrasa-anchored urban squares emerge across Central Asian cities (Samarkand, Bukhara, and Balkh) between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries? The remaking of the Registan under the amir-governor Yalangtush Bahadur (d. 1655/56), this dissertation argues, was not a derivative continuation of a Timurid model, but a deliberate urban project with its own formal and institutional logic. The dissertation traces the three-dynasty transformation in which the madrasa rose from one component within larger dynastic complexes into the dominant architectural and institutional anchor of major public squares. Moving from the fifteenth-century Ulugh Beg madrasa to sixteenth-century Bukhara and the seventeenth-century Registan, the study combines architectural analysis with waqf documents, chronicles, epigraphy, and evidence for school curricula and postgraduate careers. This evidence examines the madrasa across two interlocking registers: the architectural — forms, functions, and typological relations — and the social and institutional — patronage, endowment, education, residence, and lived experience. Such an approach expands this building type beyond its pedagogical function and repositions the madrasa as an engine of urban economy and centrality. Post-Timurid architectural innovation, in turn, emerges as a form of institutional strategy and urban problem-solving.application/pdfenIslamic architecturemadrasapremodern Central Asiapublic squareSamarkandurban historyArt historyIslamic studiesCentral Asian studiesThesis or Dissertation2026-06-090009-0007-6338-9171