Abdullatif Al Fozan Award for Mosque Architecture Announces the Short List of Qualified Mosques for the Fourth Cycle (2020-2023)
The Abdullatif Al Fozan Award for Mosque Architecture announced twenty-two (22) mosques shortlisted of the 4th cycle (2020-2023), this announcement has been issued after reviewal sessions of the international jury that were held during the month of February 2022 headed by the architect Rasem Badran ( Jordan) and presence of members of the committee: architect […]
Mosque Financial Independence
Financial Sustainability is the most ferocious threat endangering more than 3.6 million mosques all over the world. It is a prime hindrance, which should be investigated in the light of the newfangled mosque development speculations. Lamentably, mosques have never been addressed; as independent associations of a private financial property.
Historical Mosques in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: Investigating Architectural Styles Typology
Geographical parameters and temporal framing are the factors of categorizing each architectural style. However, in the vastness of the Saudi Kingdom, it might be more adequate to limit the study on a comparative spatial illustration, and refrain from the historical and architectural narratives. Thus, it would be a straightforward approach to mosques characterization for several millennia, since the birth of Muhammad’s (PBUH) divine message; as the springboard of Mosque Architecture.
Of Mosques and Light
Whenever I enter the mosque, I can’t help but let my mind wander away as it analyzes the space and the potential it has to evoke a greater sense of faith—something that seems to be architecturally lost in this day and age.
Mobile Mosques
This Article is not a scientific article, but a reflection of the meditation and observation of the concurrent scene. Yet, it is a continuum of the mosques and Utopian spaces concerned articles. Utopian spaces are always related to humans and their spontaneous needs.
The Great Mosque in Ezbet Al Nakhl (Village of the Date Palms)
It is allocated opposite to the Metro railway station in Ezbet Al Nakhl district, Cairo. It is entitled as The Great Mosque. The mosque has been a charity work, where the beneficiaries of the district and their neighborhood started collecting donations since 2004, to get it funded, yet the quest is still on. The design work progress has lasted from 2009 till 2017.
Preliminary Critique of Abdulatif Al Fozan Award Candidate Mosques (2) – Egypt and North Africa
Admittedly, the visual identity of mosque allocations has imprisoned any ideological or professional renovation attempt. This discrepancy stood beyond the designers’ intuition, to get over the claimed sanctity of the historically enforced identity. Therefore, the renovation wave has targeted these areas in the first place.
Common Architectural Approaches to Mosque Architecture (1) The Historicist Culture of Practice
The Mosque is a rich building typology with a great history, long architectural traditions and a wide potential for expression and symbolism. Contemporary mosque architecture shows an ongoing competition over representing this richness, producing varied outcomes that reflect the different cultures of architectural practice behind their conception. The term ‘culture of practice’ refers to the set of foundational ideological beliefs that inform the path of a certain mode of practice in architecture which in turn distinguish it from other modes of practice.
Preliminary Critique of Abdulatif Al Fozan Award Candidate Mosques (1)
The conception of Mosque Architecture is of a trilateral controversy. First, mosques are of cultural and functional worth. They are part and parcel of Muslims’ daily life, for they are visited five times a day. Thus, mosques could not be regarded; as mere houses of worship, but educational, cultural and social institutes. These are the grounds of their validity, and multiplication till the time being. Second, the named field did not witness any developmental progression throughout the late two centuries.
In Mosques Which Allah Has Ordered To Be Raised
{[Such niches are] in mosques which Allah has ordered to be raised and that His name be mentioned therein; exalting Him within them in the morning and the evenings}Al Nur; (24:36) . The holy verse describing the highness conception of mosques has been preceded by the verse {Allah is the light of heavens and the […]
