mashrabiya

This window may take its name from drinking water.

It's called a mashrabiya: a window that juts from the upper floor, closed with a lattice of turned wood.

Water jars were set inside it to cool in the breeze. That is the usual story behind the name.

Smaller openings low down, larger ones higher up: air moves through, and you see the street without being seen.

It flourished in Ottoman Cairo, faded in the late nineteenth century, and returned with modern architects.

Its cousins: the rawshan in Jeddah, the shanasheel in Baghdad, and the cumba in Istanbul.

Mashrabiya. A window that breathes.