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The Modern Mosque: Assyafaah Mosque SingaporeAssyafaah Mosque in Singapore, designed by Singapore-based Forum Architects, breaks the traditions with its modernity.
The domeless four-story mosque stands in a neighborhood of highrise residential buildings on the north side of the island.
Tropical climatic conditions were not the architects' only concern when they started designing the mosque for the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS).
The city's high population density and ethnic complexity mean that Singaporeans "have to relate to each other in a harmonious, or at the very least, tolerant manner," says Forum Architects principal Tan Kok Hiang.
"So I am interested in relieving buildings of artificial or contrived boundaries," Tan explains.
"The architecture should provide as few barriers as possible to the community at large.
A Malay design would not make a Chinese convert feel at home.
Middle-Eastern imagery would be too alien to our culture.
Its design had to sit comfortably in a multiracial, multireligious country.
And it also had to signal to the Muslim community that it is a mosque."
The ten-story minaret tapers skywards and is built from rusted steel plates coated with colorless polyurethane.
Originally, Tan worked with a young Malay artist to create an abstract design based on elif, the first letter in the Arabic alph
more: www.architectureweek.com/2005/080... (1,649)
August 4, 2005 | Viewed 31,510 time(s)
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