The mosque between modernity and tradition : a study of recent designs of mosque architecture in the Muslim world

In this study of four recent projects of mosque architecture in the Muslim

world, the works of architects Abdel Wahid El-Wakil, Rasim Badran, Robert

Venturi and Halim Abdel Halim conciliate the cultural heritage of Arab-Muslim

societies with the Western modernizing design methods that have been introduced

since the beginning of the twentieth century.

The designs of the four architects addressed the apparent dilemma of the

duality between tradition and modernity, in an effort to suggest a character for the

identity of the contemporary mosque architecture in a dynamic cultural environment.

The study seeks to discern and to evaluate the theoretical models and the

methodology employed in the design process of each project, with the intention of

understanding their cultural compatibility. All the projects are located within the same

general area, Iraq,Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and all are based on the hypostyle

mosque,although they differ in their fundamental use of the architectural

vocabulary. Reflecting on the hypostyle mosque and its traditional place in the

liturgy as well as its identifiable historical transformations, we can weigh the

responses of each design solution to its contextual requirements and to a historical

continuum.

Thesis Supervisor: Stanford Anderson

Title: Professor of History and Architecture

The mosque between modernity and tradition a study of recent designs of mosque architecture in the Muslim world.pdf