Word: space
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...whole world is a mosque, the Prophet Muhammad once said. With pious intent, a faithful Muslim can conjure a mosque almost anywhere, transforming a desert sand dune, airport departure lounge or city pavement into a sacred space simply by stopping to pray. The first mosque was Muhammad's mud-brick house in Medina, where a portico of palm-tree branches provided shade for prayer and theological discussion. As the young religion spread, Arabs - and later Asians and Africans - developed their own ideas of what made a building a mosque. But that innovative spirit has slowed in recent decades, leaving most...
...Singapore, the architects of the Assyafaah Mosque, which was finished in 2004, cater to the country's multicultural population by creating an aesthetically neutral space, sleek and futuristic, where the island's Malay and Chinese Muslims can both feel comfortable...
Unsurprisingly, it's immigrant Muslim communities that are pushing the biggest changes. "The Western mosque is fast becoming the site of contestation between the kind of Muslims who espouse the traditional mosque, and those who want to win proportionate space for women," says MIT's Khalidi. "The second generation are the ones demanding, and often getting, that kind of space." Architectural historian Khan estimates that until recently, North American mosques gave only about 15% of their space to women. Over the past five years or so, the space women have access to has increased to at least...
Back in Europe, a group of young Dutch architects led by Ergün Erkoçu wanted their concept for the Polder Mosque to achieve a similar level of cool. Riffing on the Dutch idea of seeking consensus, their design features not minarets but windmills. Inside, they planned space for a hammam (or bathhouse) and a row of shops. The mosque was never meant to exist but to generate discussion. Mission accomplished: elders have sniffed that it isn't traditional enough and Dutch-born Muslims eager to see the mosque's role expand beyond prayer have applauded...
...seat flyers in the back, the reasoning is that there's got to be a sizable segment of business flyers who wouldn't mind saving thousands and leisure travelers who will pay a little more to get 20-in. (50 cm) seats and tons of legroom and not share space with wailing babies and tour groups. For road warriors, this concept is a no-brainer. "It was a third the price and at least three times the experience, an inverse proportion," notes Mary Egan of the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a recent OpenSkies passenger to Amsterdam...