This survey of the contemporary scene presents projects ranging from buildings commissioned by wealthy private individuals and local Muslim communities to imposing State Mosques serving as symbols of national prestige. Mosques with strikingly modern designs for which the latest materials and construction techniques have been used contrast with examples in regional architectural styles - notably in Southeast Asia and West Africa - using traditional materials.
Kishwar Rizvi, drawing on the multifaceted history of the Middle East, offers a richly illustrated analysis of the role of transnational mosques in the construction of contemporary Muslim identity. As Rizvi explains, transnational mosques are structures built through the support of both government sponsorship, whether in the home country or abroad, and diverse transnational networks. By concentrating on mosques--especially those built at the turn of the twenty-first century--as the epitome of Islamic architecture, Rizvi elucidates their significance as sites for both the validation of religious praxis and the construction of national and religious ideologies. Rizvi delineates the transnational religious, political, economic, and architectural networks supporting mosques in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as in countries within their spheres of influence, such as Pakistan, Syria, and Turkmenistan. She discerns how the buildings feature architectural designs that traverse geographic and temporal distances, gesturing to far-flung places and times for inspiration. Digging deeper, however, Rizvi reveals significant diversity among the mosques--whether in a Wahabi-Sunni kingdom, a Shi&8219;i theocratic government, or a republic balancing secularism and moderate Islam--that repudiates representations of Islam as a monolith. Mosques reveal alliances and contests for influence among multinational corporations, nations, and communities of belief, Rizvi shows, and her work demonstrates how the built environment is a critical resource for understanding culture and politics in the contemporary Middle East and the Islamic world.
The design principles necessary to create functional and dynamic contemporary mosques can be hard to grasp for those unfamiliar with the Islamic faith. Design Criteria for Mosques and Islamic Centers provides an easy-to-use and practical set of guidelines for mosque design, illustrated with 300 line drawings. Case studies of urban mosques in New York, Washington, Boston, and London and Birmingham amongst others, demonstrate how mosques and Islamic centers have evolved to integrate into the urban scenario. The book also compares tenets from Western and Eastern religious and secular philosophies and discusses their relation to architectural creation, place-making, meaning, and identity. The book shows how mosques fulfill multiple faith-based and social roles through their design; it provides a wide-ranging, basic understanding of Islamic liturgical conventions and secular functions to enable architects, designers, and community advocates to work with confidence. Design Criteria for Mosques and Islamic Centers is the first dedicated design guide for mosques and Islamic centers available. It: features case studies from the USA, UK, and Europe explains fundamental principles to make it easy to create viable design solutions for these exacting buildings that fulfi ll a range of social and religious roles.
FOREWORD INDIES Book of the Year Awards — 2017 GOLD Winner for Architecture One of the most important and authoritative books to celebrate mosque architecture and Islamic design, featuring many exquisite newly commissioned photographs. This visually striking volume illustrates over sixty of the most venerated mosques from historic monuments such as the Great Mosque of Córdoba and Istanbul’s Süleymaniye Mosque to today’s most dynamic new designs exemplified by the Sancaklar Mosque. Essays by prominent architecture and design authorities include Professor Sussan Babaie, Andrew W. Mellon Reader in the Arts of Iran and Islam, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London; Distinguished Professor Walter B. Denny, Department of the History of Art and Architecture, University of Massachusetts at Amherst; Heather Ecker, Visiting Professor, Art and Archaeology, Columbia University; Professor Mohammed Hamdouni Alami, Archaeological Research Facility at University of California, Berkeley; Professor Renata Holod, Professor of Islamic Art, University of Pennsylvania, and Curator in the Near East Section, Penn Museum; Philip Jodidio, author and independent scholar in art and architecture, Geneva; George Michell, author and independent architectural historian, London; Fatima Quraishi, PhD candidate, The Institute of Fine Arts, New York University; Matthew Saba, Visual Resources Librarian for Islamic Architecture, Aga Khan Documentation Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries; and Angela Wheeler, PhD student in Architectural History, Harvard University. Mosques from Europe, the Indian subcontinent, North America, North Africa and the sub-Sahara, the Middle East, and Russia and the Caucasus are showcased. This book covers their earliest origins in Mecca and Medina to contemporary masterpieces, illuminating their stylistic transformations and providing examples from Islam’s great dynasties—the Umayyads, the Abbasids, the Mamluks, the Ottomans, the Safavids, and the Mughals. Original and archival photographs offer exterior and interior views along with images of adjacent gardens and fountains that grace these sanctuaries. Stunning mosque calligraphy and tilework, as well as furnishings and illumination, enhance this volume.
This edited volume explores the dynamic relationship between the Friday mosque and the Islamic city, addressing the traditional topics through a fresh new lens and offering a critical examination of each case study in its own spatial, urban, and socio-cultural context. While these two well-known themes--concepts that once defined the field--have been widely studied by historians of Islamic architecture and urbanism, this compilation specifically addresses the functional and spatial ambiguity or liminality between these spaces. Instead of addressing the Friday mosque as the central signifier of the Islamic city, this collection provides evidence that there was (and continues to be) variety in the way architectural borders became fluid in and around Friday mosques across the Islamic world, from Cordoba to Jerusalem and from London to Lahore. By historicizing different cases and exploring the way human agency, through ritual and politics, shaped the physical and social fabric of the city, this volume challenges the generalizing and reductionist tendencies in earlier scholarship.
The Modern Mosques Design monograph is the latest compilation of mosque (masjid) architecture by ATSA Architects in the year 2017. This 418-page monograph is the produce of our arduous efforts since the year 2014 collaborating with various architects to compile the unique design of modern and contemporary mosques from around the world. This monograph is likely the first attempt to collate the intriguing and inspiring architectural designs of mosque architecture, paved to break from the monotonous and the orthodox symbolism of the existing architectural language in mosque building designs. Highlighting over 50 mosque designs located in various Muslim and Western countries, the featured works proffer a new and unconventional approach to mosque architecture, whether have been built or yet to be built. Some featured works were commissioned, while some others were the entries of several design competitions held globally. Each featured work is presented with pictorial and 3D images, along with design statements and drawings supplemented by the respective architects.
This volume examines the emergence of alternative spaces and architectural landscapes of Islamic practice in contemporary Africa through the lens of the masjid, whose definition as a "place of prostration" has enabled Muslim populations across the continent to navigate the murky waters of the contemporary condition through a purposeful renovation of spiritual space. Drawing from multiple disciplines and utilizing a series of diverse case studies, Michelle Apotsos reflects on the shifting realities of Islamic communities as they engage in processes of socio-political and cultural transformation. Illustrated through the growth of forward-thinking and in flexible environments that highlight how Muslim communities have developed unique solutions to the problem of performing identity within diverse contexts across the continent, she re-imagines the major themes surrounding definitions of Islamic architectural space in the contemporary period in Africa and the nature of the "modernity" as it has unfolded across diverse contexts on the continent.
This book presents the first overview of Muslim architecture in Britain, from the earliest examples in the late 19th century, to mosques being built today. Key architectural stages are identified and explained alongside the social history of Muslim settlement and growth. The analysis focuses on the way in which the mosque as a new cultural and architectural form has benefitted into the existing urban fabric of Britain’s towns and cities, and how this new building type has then impacted its urban landscape, socially, culturally and architecturally.The British Mosque is an architectural as well as a social history, and describes the evolution of Britain’s Muslim communities through the buildings they have built. By presenting this architectural narrative for the first time, the book opens up a new field of British Islamic Architecture. The architectural story charts a course from the earliest mosques formed through the conversion of houses, to other large scale conversions through to purpose built mosques and with these the emergence of an Islamic architectural expression in Britain.As the mosque is not solely considered in terms of its architectural style, but also from its social history and cultural meaning, this book provides an observation into the character of British Muslim life and practice and how these have been embodied through its buildings. The future of Islamic architecture in Britain is also considered, and how this will be affected by the growing cultural and social diversification of Britain’s Muslim communities.
"This text will be the classic work in the field.... It will be extremely useful for general Islamic studies, for studies of religion in America, and for the study of Islam in America." —Aminah Beverly McCloud, Associate Professor of Islamic Studies, DePaul University, Chicago From the avant-garde design of the Islamic Cultural Center in New York City to the simplicity of the Dar al-Islam Mosque in Abiquiu, New Mexico, the American mosque takes many forms of visual and architectural expression. The absence of a single, authoritative model and the plurality of design nuances reflect the heterogeneity of the American Muslim community itself, which embodies a whole spectrum of ethnic origins, traditions, and religious practices. In this book, Akel Ismail Kahera explores the history and theory of Muslim religious aesthetics in the United States since 1950. Using a notion of deconstruction based on the concepts of "jamal" (beauty), "subject," and "object" found in the writings of Ibn Arabi (d. 1240), he interprets the forms and meanings of several American mosques from across the country. His analysis contributes to three debates within the formulation of a Muslim aesthetics in North America—first, over the meaning, purpose, and function of visual religious expression; second, over the spatial and visual affinities between American and non-American mosques, including the Prophet's mosque at Madinah, Arabia; and third, over the relevance of culture, place, and identity to the making of contemporary religious expression in North America.
