Archinect - News

Dabbagh Architects’ first mosque project gives an enlightening new spiritual resource to Dubai's Al Quoz district

2021-12-21T17:04:00-05:00

A bright new spiritual center is finally open in Al Quoz, the industrial heart of Dubai.

Dabbagh Architects is behind one of the first mosques in the Emirates ever designed by a female architect.

Photo: Gerry O’Leary

A masterwork of materiality and form, the newly-completed mosque evokes a sense of inner calm to its worshippers, offering a spiritual break from the materialism of the outside world as promoted in the Quran.

Sumaya Dabbagh is one of only a handful of Saudi women architects and is considered a leader in the Gulf region for her designs, which “place an emphasis on the intangible in architecture; seeking to create meaning and a sense of the poetic in order to form a connection with each building’s user.”

Photo: Gerry O’Leary

“At the end of each project, my hope is that the building will evoke the feelings and emotions that were envisioned at the outset,” the architect said in a statement. “There is a defining, magical moment when the building is born and claims a life of...

Chinese Hui Muslims resist order to demolish new mosque

2018-08-10T14:27:00-04:00

Hundreds of Muslims in north-western China are engaged in a standoff with authorities to prevent their mosque from being demolished. Officials said the newly built Weizhou Grand Mosque in the Ningxia region had not been given proper building permits. But worshippers refused to back down. One resident said they would not "let the government touch the mosque".

The new mosque was completed only last year, and city authorities initially wanted it torn down by Friday, citing a lack of proper planning and construction permits. Amid public outrage, authorities softened their demolition order to a "rectification plan" that demanded a less 'Arab' and more Chinese look.

"The first version of that plan called for the mosque’s 'Arab-style' domes to be replaced with traditional Chinese-style pagodas but was swiftly rejected by worshippers," reports the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post. "The government then asked the mosque’s management committee to remove eight of the nine domes that top the mosque, leaving the largest one in the centre. That, too, was deemed unacceptable by most members of the community."

Earlier this week, the unannounced demolition of the influential Beijing studio of Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei sparked international outrage.

Muslim-built Taj Mahal in the crosshairs of Hindu nationalists

2017-10-30T15:47:00-04:00

Times are tough for India’s monument to love. Air pollution is turning its marble surface yellow. Restoration work is obscuring its famous minarets. Tens of millions of tourists still flock to Agra each year, but numbers are reportedly waning. Critics of the Taj Mahal are also growing increasingly bold. In past months, religious nationalists in the Hindu-majority country have stepped up a campaign to push the four-century-old Mughal monument to the margins of Indian history.

"Resentment at the fact the country’s most recognisable monument was built by a Muslim emperor has always existed on the fringes of the Hindu right," The Guardian writes. "But those fringes have never been so powerful."

Legal limbo continues for Christoph Büchel's Venice Biennale Mosque

2015-08-12T14:20:00-04:00

A court in Venice has refused to fast-track a legal claim filed by the Icelandic Art Center (IAC) seeking the reopening of artist Christoph Büchel’s mosque, which launched earlier this year in a disused church in Venice as part of the Biennale. The IAC is the commissioner of the controversial project, which was housed in the former Catholic church [...]. The mosque closed at the end of May after only two weeks when city officials claimed that it breached health and safety regulations.

Previously in the Archinect News: Police Shut Down Mosque Installation at Venice Biennale

Police Shut Down Mosque Installation at Venice Biennale

2015-05-22T17:21:00-04:00

The police in Venice closed an art installation in the form of a functioning mosque on Friday morning, after city officials declared the art project a security hazard and said that the artist who created it, Christoph Büchel, had not obtained proper permits and had violated laws by allowing too many people inside the mosque to worship.

"There is no mosque in Venice, so the thousands of Muslim tourists visiting Venice must pray in a converted factory in Mestre, which is the polluted part of Venice.

This until the swiss artist Buechler converted an abandoned and unused former catholic church into a functioning mosque for the duration of this year's Art Biennial.
Short lived though, Venice Municipal Authorities just yanked the permit.
Reason: Security andSafety-it was too popular, too many people wanted to see it or pray in it.
As usual security trumps everything"

As quoted by a friend.

Khamenei's fight against "un-Islamic" architecture in Iran

2014-12-11T13:33:00-05:00

For centuries, the spatial layout of house design in Iran reflected the patriarchal structure of the society through the rigid segregation between the andaruni and biruni, private and public space. [...] Modern architecture is also considered erotic because, unlike the spatially introverted pre-modern architecture of Iran, it faces outward with windows that shamelessly offer strangers a peek at the buildings’ private parts.

What makes a building sacred?

2014-10-22T13:47:00-04:00

The new science of neuroaesthetics [...] tells us much about the way pure form is dealt with by the brain. [...] V S Ramachandran, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Diego, and William Hirstein, a philosopher at Elmhurst College in Illinois, argue that we are innately attuned to recognise things as unified objects – such that we find brushstrokes or architectural features that can be mentally assembled into a coherent whole more beautiful.

Barcelona Debates Turning an Abandoned Bullring into a Mosque

2014-07-08T13:49:00-04:00

One of Spain’s largest bullrings could soon start an unlikely new life as a mosque. That might sound like a strange metamorphosis, but the city of Barcelona is currently considering plans suggested last month by the Emir of Qatar to convert Barcelona’s Plaza Monumental into a place of prayer for up to 4,000 worshippers. [...] With a projected cost of €2.2 billion, the Qataris are presumably planning something rather lavish for this already grand shell.

2013 Aga Khan Award for Architecture winners announced

2013-09-09T19:50:00-04:00

The prestigious Aga Khan Awards for Architecture program has announced the 2013 winners at a ceremony in Lisbon, Portugal. Established in 1977, the Aga Khan Award for Architecture is given every three years to recognize all types of building projects that positively affect today’s built environment in communities in which Muslims have a significant presence.

The five projects selected by the 2013 Master Jury are:

Islamic Cemetery in Altach, Austria by Bernardo Bader Architects
Revitalization of Birzeit Historic Center in Birzeit, Palestine by Riwaq - Center for Architectural Conservation
Rehabilitation of Tabriz Bazaar inTabriz, Iran by ICHTO East Azerbaijan Office
Rabat-Salé Urban Infrastructure Project in Rabat, Morocco by Marc Mimram Architecture
Salam Center for Cardiac Surgery in Khartoum, Sudan by Studio Tamassociati

Foster + Partners completes Bedouin tent-inspired Jordan Airport

2013-03-27T13:32:00-04:00

Foster + Partners recently added another international airport to its portfolio, the just-opened Queen Alia International Airport in Amman, Jordan. According to a press release, the flight hub boasts a “highly effective passive design, which has been inspired by local traditions,” namely a canopy of shallow concrete domes that mitigate Amman’s hot climate and mimic forms in Islamic art.

Culture, ethics & architecture

2013-02-22T13:02:00-05:00

Today, many Muslim societies like Pakistan are facing enormous challenges in terms of the built environment. At times construction-related activities are driven largely by economic forces with less consideration for their impact on common people and the environment. It is also observed that sometimes, buildings are constructed while copying from other contexts without considering the local context/culture. This process has posed critical challenges.