holesum studio
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architecture
queen house
fern house
hills house
inland
sisters
habitat house
bloom house
perch
hollow house
main cabin
holesum studio
Coral Walls and Green Awnings: Mosques in Sharjah and New York City
Azza Aboualam
Prayer is Islam’s only pillar with a physical and spatial dimension, outside the prominent pilgrimage of Hajj and its connection to the architectural symbol of the Ka’aba. While praying at home has minimal requirements–a mat facing the qibla, prayer at the scale of the city is reflected in the architecture of the mosque. Today, mosques serve as emblems of Islam, often erroneously expected to boast a minaret and a dome. There are myriad forms of mosques with significance that goes beyond the religious rituals that occur within their walls. With an emphasis on social interaction, they act as a shared space for prayer rather than solely exalting architectural image.
The use of the term ‘mosque’, especially in the Quran, denotes a wide variety of structures with no specific guidelines for architectural elements and design. As a result, these spaces take on a multitude of styles and scales, manifesting differently based on their location and time of construction. There are roughly three hundred mosques in New York City, making it, informally, one of the most diverse Muslim cities in the world. In comparison, Sharjah is home to the largest number of mosques in the UAE, counting approximately 2,000 mosques dating from historic and contemporary periods.
While different, similarities can be drawn between mosques in both locations, especially in relation to their architectural form. New York’s storefront mosques express themselves with green awnings and mesh with the urban fabric of the city, appearing alongside local restaurants. Similarly, in both their form and material, historic mosques in Sharjah insert themselves into their context. The coral, plaster and mangrove trees used to construct these structures recall the emirate’s natural landscape at the time the mosques were built.
Although the mosques appear integrated with their surroundings, their spatial makeup conflicts with the growing and shifting urban fabric that surrounds them today. With regard to the remaining historic Sharjah mosques, air conditioning, ablution structures and imam housing quarters have been added, while others are awkwardly located in the city, such as in the middle of a roundabout. New York mosques continue to expand their interior spaces vertically and horizontally. Despite fitting within the urban grid, inhabiting existing apartments or townhouses, their interior space must adapt to face the Ka’aba during prayer, creating tension and odd corners. Walls, doors and other elements within the space are cut and molded in order to fit the diagonally oriented qibla.
This project responds to the lack of documentation of these structures in both New York and Sharjah. Funded by a grant from Zayed University, the displayed drawings and images are original and constructed from site surveys and in depth analysis of the selected buildings. The exhibition celebrates these spaces that still act as a support infrastructure for their communities today. With constant shifting and expansion of the urban fabric, the emirate of Sharjah is making way for new sprawling mosque complexes that overshadow historic ones built with more rudimentary techniques. Simultaneously, rent increases in New York City leave storefront mosques in a precarious position. Not only do the mosques presented here act as an agent in the construction of Islamic identity, but they reflect the growth of the city and the continuously evolving nature of devotion.