Award-winning architects Marks Barfield, working in association with Professor Keith Critchlow, have been appointed by the Muslim Academic Trust to design the new Cambridge mosque. Marks Barfield are internationally-renowned for striking projects such as the London Eye and the Kew Treetop Walkway.

On behalf of the Trust, Chairman Tim Winter said:

‘Moving the mosque to this new location represents a hugely exciting opportunity for Cambridge. Working with Marks Barfield, we can create on the Mill Road site a superb place of worship to replace the overcrowded facility on Mawson Road.

‘This building will be truly inclusive, sustainable, safe, secure and respectful of the neighbourhood. It will be a landmark building which will inject new life into the Mill Road area of Cambridge of which the local and wider Cambridge community can be proud’.

Located a few hundred yards from the current Mawson Road mosque, in a predominantly residential neighbourhood, the new building will stand on the site of the derelict Robert Sayle warehouse, while retaining and enlarging the existing community garden at the front.

The new design has the additional advantage of including ample space for off road parking in a new underground garage.

Rising from 2 storeys to a maximum height of 3 storeys above ground level, the new building will be consistent with the height, scale and massing of the surrounding built environment.

The overall design for the site has been developed from the concept of a calm ‘oasis’, with the ‘trees’ set out on a generous 7.8 x 7.8 metre grid forming the main mosque structure. The concept will be reinforced across the site with about 20 new cypress trees creating a new permeable green edge around the building. The ‘oasis’ will offer a significant new open space in a built-up area of Victorian terraced houses.

The façade of the complex will be completed in brick, complementing the materials already used in the neighbourhood. Integrating site services, offices and residential accommodation the building will be set in a hard and soft-landscaped area. Car parking and mechanical plant will be located in the single basement level with bicycle racks at street level.

Inside, the new Mosque will accommodate a congregation of up to 1000 men and women. In addition to the Mosque’s dedicated areas (ablution, teaching, children’s area, morgue) there will be a café, teaching area and meeting rooms for use by the local Muslim and non-Muslim communities.

‘The new Mosque will be a real neighbourhood as well as a spiritual centre, easily accessible by public transport and on foot, with facilities for formal and informal community group meetings as well as a leisure destination,’ said Tim Winter.

Green issues have been paramount in the design. The building will be naturally lit throughout the year, very well-insulated and heated and cooled using energy efficient and locally generated energy from ground source heat pumps.

In the coming months the mosque project team will consult local stakeholder groups in the process of preparing the detailed scheme and planning application in 2010. The balance of the funding for the £13m project is being sought from a number of donors and benefactors.

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From TimesOnline

Bess writes: This is an image from the “American Qur’an”, a series of pictures matching Sura or specific chapters from the Islamic holy book to recent American disasters such as Hurricane Karina, and wildfires in California or else scenes from contemporary America: gangsters, migrants labouring in fields, etc.
So far the artist Sandow Birk has copied half the Qur’an’s 114 Suras onto 16 x 24 inch panels, in a style reminiscent of urban graffiti.

They are now on display in San Francisco and Culver City near Los Angeles. Eventually the plan is to the turn the panels into a book reports AP.

Birk admits the concept is Christian: “When you go to a church here, the minister read a passage from the Bible and then he spends 30 minutes talking about, “How does this passage relate to your life in the 21st century?” That’s a familiar way that Americans have of dealing with religious texts.”

Creative – certainly – but is it blasphemy? The Qur’an forbids the making of idols, says this piece in the LA Times, the hadith contains restrictions on the use of figurative imagery.
The issue, it concludes, is open to interpretation.

Obviously, the question of which verses Birk matches with which event is highly interesting. For 9/11 - depicted above - for instance, he choses Sura 44 (10-12)

44:10 But watch thou (O Muhammad) for the day when the sky will produce visible smoke

44:11 That will envelop the people. This will be a painful torment.

44:12 (Then they will say): Our Lord relieve us of the torment. Lo! we are believers.

Is this just a case of match-up-the-verse-to-the-event? Or is this a call to convert to Islam? Amboy's take? [it]"implies that the 9/11 attacks were Allah's punishment for not accepting Islam." What do you think?

Ruh's comment:

This is a situation that Muslims often hate to see, verses from the Qur'an (or any Holy Text for that matter) being taken completely out of context. This artwork is merely the artist trying to use the controversy that surrounds Muslim issues to generate talk and interest. The verses used are entirely the artists interpretation and a deliberate attempt to define a meaning.

The other concern that many Muslims will have is the use of figurative work alongside the holy verses of the Qur'an. Again the artist must have known this is an issue and widely held interpretation (hence the lack of any figurative work in mosques), so it seems quite deliberate.

Islam is not like Christianity and nobody speaks for God, in Islam, or what has occured in any given situation. Muslims largely regard 9/11, along with other senseless terrorism, as one of the most disgusting and un-Islamic acts against humanity.

I never managed to visit the museum but glad to see it being reopened soon...

After years of restoration work on its fine neo-Mameluke buildings and exhibitions of Islamic art, Cairo's Museum of Islamic Art is close to reopening to the public. Nevine El-Aref took a tour.

On Port Said Street in the Bab Al-Khalq area of Cairo stands the lofty, honey- coloured edifice of the Museum of Islamic Art, its neo-Mameluke architecture and luxurious façade featuring the rich patterns and elaborate decoration of the Islamic style.

However, inside the institution the picture that greets visitors will soon be far less familiar. Following years of restoration work, visitors to the museum will soon be able to roam around spacious galleries showcasing the museum's collection of rare wooden, metal, ceramic, glass, rock crystal and textile objects from across the Islamic world.

Following years of negligence, the Museum of Islamic Art has finally been undergoing comprehensive rehabilitation not only of its building and interior design, but also of its exhibition design and displays.

"Restoring the Museum of Islamic Art is an ambitious and challenging task that illustrates Egypt's commitment to preserving one of the country's Islamic institutions, in addition to its Pharaonic and Coptic heritage," Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni said in an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly.

Hosni added that over the last five years, renovation work to the tune of LE85 million had been carried out at the museum, with work continuing until December 2009 when the institution will celebrate its official reopening.

Full Article

Islamic Design House offering £5 vouchers for you and your friends with lovely E-Card messages (artwork by Visual Dhikr).

"We give you the chance, this Ramadan, to surprise FIVE of your most beloved friends with a little £5 gift voucher and beautiful email message. Simply use our form below to send a warm ..."

Click here

Renowned Islamic calligraphy artist and VCUQatar Joint Advisory Board member Mohamed Zakariya has been commissioned by US President Barack Obama to create a gift for King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia.

The gift is a work of Islamic calligraphy in Arabic Sulus script with ink and gold on Ahar paper, with Ebru borders and backing, for the occasion of Obama’s visit to the Middle East.

Taken from the Qur’an (Chapter 49: Verse 13), the English translation of the script reads: “O people, we created you from the same male and female, and rendered you distinct peoples and tribes, that you may recognise one another. The noblest among you in God’s sight is the most conscientious of you. God is All-Knowing, All-Aware.”
While echoing King Abdullah’s important calls for interfaith and intercultural dialogue, Obama included this quote from the Qur’an in his speech at Cairo University in Egypt on June 4.

“I am deeply honoured that President Obama chose my work as part of his historic initiative to open new doors between America and the Muslim world. I believe Islamic art can be a fitting ambassador of much-hoped-for policy change,” Zakariya said.

The artist has been represented exclusively since 2005 by Linearis Institute, whose co-principal and managing director Suleyman Cooke remarked that “the profound power of art has played a key role in the President delivering his message of inclusion.”

Zakariya is described as an American master of Islamic calligraphy.
With no formal education, he learned his trades in aerospace industry machine shops, in the Los Angeles atelier of Oscar Meyer, the French impresario of antiques and objects de virtue, at the British Museum and at Istanbul’s Research Centre for Islamic Art, History, and Culture, where he earned two licences in Islamic calligraphy - the first Westerner to do so.

Since settling in the Washington, DC, area in 1972, Zakariya has travelled frequently to Turkey and the Arabian Gulf and has exhibited and lectured extensively in the US and abroad.

Known for his design of the “Eid Greetings” US postage stamp, he concentrates primarily on classical Arabic and Ottoman Turkish calligraphy.

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Super cool prayer space, love the interior architecture and wall graphics (by Peter Gould of Azaan).

The new state-of-the-art Islamic Prayer Facility at the University of Melbourne is designed to accommodate 300 praying people.

The brilliantly coloured welcome of “peace be upon you” adorns the entry door in contrast with the sombre and tranquil main prayer space where softly lit ceiling domes, raw colours and materials and pure simplicity of space prepare one to bring to rest whirring thoughts of the mundane world.

More here

Do you have a cool prayer space local to you? Leave your comments below.

Navid Akhtar examines the influence of Islamic design and values on the life of the Victorian designer, poet, craftsman and socialist radical William Morris.

Morris was inspired by Turkish ceramics and Persian carpets to create a new movement in British design. For him, the Muslim world had managed to preserve the art of the craftsman and avoid the ills of industrial production. He espoused the philosophy that art should be affordable and hand made; this was already a reality in the Islamic world.

Not stopping at arts and crafts, he was a passionate advocate of social utopianism and believed in the rights of the worker. Today, these ideals have profoundly influenced a new generation of British-born Muslim artists, as they rediscover Morris and look to his artistic work and socialist ideas for inspiration.

Listen in on: Tue 7 Jul 2009, 11:30, BBC Radio 4

Hamra Abbas and Hassan Hajjaj compete alongside seven other artists and designers in this groundbreaking exhibition founded by Mohammed Abdul Latif Jameel

IT looks like a Moroccan-themed coffee bar - but this jolly little salon is in fact one of the first contenders for Islamic art's answer to the Turner Prize .

The installation, by London-based artist Hassan Hajjaj, goes on show at the Victoria & Albert Museum this week.

It shows how brands have invaded and been absorbed by traditional culture in Islamic countries.

Hajjaj is one of nine artists shortlisted for the inaugural Jameel Prize, funded by Saudi businessman Mohammed Abdul Latif Jameel and run by the V&A to help raise awareness of the importance of Islamic art.

The first ever winner of the £25,000 cheque, to be awarded every two years, will be unveiled at a ceremony tomorrow (Tuesday) night.

The shortlisted works range from jewellery to photomontage, turned wood and screen prints.

A spokeswoman said: "They show how dynamic Islamic tradition can be, and how complex and eloquent the art and design inspired by this tradition has become."

Mohammed Abdul Latif Jameel conceived the idea for the prize after providing the financial support for the renovation of the V&A’s Jameel Gallery of Islamic Art, which opened in July 2006.

The nine artists and designers are:

Hamra Abbas with a paper collage work, Please do not step: Loss of a Magnificent Story, using traditional Islamic patterning and laid out on the gallery floor.

Reza Abedini's has designed four posters using mixed calligraphy showing the human form.

Afruz Amighi’s 1001 Pages (2008) is a shadow piece where light is projected through a sheet of plastic with a complex hand-cut design.

Sevan Biçakçi is displaying five jewelled rings that reflect the life and architectural traditions of Ottoman Istanbul

British-Moroccan artist Hassan Hajjaj has created a site-specific installation called Le Salon, which shows how brands have invaded and been absorbed by traditional culture in an Islamic country.

Iranian Khosrow Hassanzadeh's acrylic and silk screen prints on canvas combine photography and Arabic script to evoke the challenge to the present from Iran’s 19th-century past.

Susan Hefuna's wood and ink on paper works are inspired by traditional mashrabiyyah screens from Egypt.

Seher Shah’s complex drawings - Black Cube Series II and Jihad Pop Progression 4 mix architectural and other references to the Islamic world and beyond.

Camille Zakharia’s Markings I and Markings II (2008) are photomontages printed on rag paper and reflect his experience of exile.

The Jameel Prize, 8 July-13 Sep, V&A, Cromwell Road, W7 2RL

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Found this interesting piece:

Traditional Gulf urban layouts have all gone. Swept aside by the perceived need to produce ‘modern’ developments, their replacements reflect and represent in many ways the new States with their growing importance and self-confidence and the perceived need to reflect foreign standards and institutions. In some respects the change from Islamic planning layouts parallels those which were seen in the Ottoman empire in the latter part of the nineteenth century. It is interesting to note that, in Salonica for instance, European socio-political values developed rapidly with increasing prosperity, the town witnessing the concomitant introduction of a burgeoning expatriate community and European urban vocabulary.

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