Visual Dhikr™
returning to remembrance


Distressed over domes

Interestning article:

Can an architectural element ‘belong’ to a people? Can it be ‘moral’?

A COUPLE of recent events prompted me to ponder the question of whether the dome is an exclusively “Islamic” element in architecture.

One was a request for help from one of my students who is writing his dissertation on whether the dome is still relevant in Islam. The greater impetuts, however, came from a consultancy meeting I attended during which a former senior civil servant, who had been a planner, said that the dome is the best representation of Islam, implying that it is “morally” correct to build mosques with domes. Another person at the meeting added the notion that the dome had been “perfected” by Muslims and, thus, is justifiably unique to Muslims.

read full article

What do you think?

This entry was posted on Monday, December 21, 2009 at 11:33 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.

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At 8:03 PM, Anonymous Kashif Pasta said...
If everyone kept architectural features exclusive, architecture itself would never advance.

I don't think Muslims have exclusive rights over domes… here in Metro Vancouver, only our oldest mosque even has a dome; it's the Sikh Gurdawaras that all have one or some variant.

I think the author of the article makes a good point out of showing different mosques in different places adjusting to their environment. Bringing it again to the Vancouver area where I live, our last three mosques were all designed by the same guy, but are all uniquely suited to their cities and locations. The mihrab in our suburban masjid is marble on the inside and copper on the outside, with the copper facing into the parking lot. One in a neighbouring city, however, is next to a forest, and has a mihrab made of glass, increasing the closeness of worshippers to nature.

Domes are great, and a dome w/minaret has definitely come to signify a mosque, but I don't think we "own" them at all, else we wouldn't have many of the stadiums and arenas that we do today :D    

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