Submission

Abstract

A reflection on a Bachelor of Architecture thesis design from over twenty-five years ago which broached a subject—the design of a mosque—which was an act of infidelity to the western-centric education leading up to it. The process of research and design was motivated by a critical questioning of contemporary gendering of mosque spaces, creating another layer of infidelity. This fraught exercise—its processes and infidelities—became the seed of over two decades of scholarship and pedagogy.

Keywords:

• Mosque
• architecture for Muslims
• gendered spaces
• Canadian mosques
• architecture thesis
• architecture education

Notes

1 Tammy Gaber, submission for Bachelor of Architecture Thesis, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada, 1999.

2 The Aga Khan Award for Architecture is one of the largest prizes in the profession, founded in 1977 by the leader of the Ismaili Muslim community, the Aga Khan. The awards cycle (every three years) would short-list and award remarkable buildings by and/or for Muslim communities. The resultant publications became an incredible resource that recorded the impact and processes of creating contemporary spaces for and by Muslims. To date there have been 15 awards cycles and documentation created for over 9000 buildings—and 128 have received awards. These materials are freely available on the Aga Khan Award for Architecture website and on Archnet.org: Aga Khan Development Network, Aga Khan Award for Architecture, https://the.akdn/en/how-we-work/our-agencies/aga-khan-trust-culture/aga-khan-award-for-architecture Archnet is a partnership between the Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT (AKDC@MIT) and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC), with support from the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard and MIT. https://www.archnet.org/pages/about.

3 Sherban Cantacuzino, ed., Architecture in Continuity (New York: Aperture, 1985).

4 Azim Nanji, ed., Building for Tomorrow (London: Academy Group Ltd., 1994).

5 Tammy Gaber, “The Space and Place of Women in Mosque Architecture, Between Realities and Misconceptions,” (PhD diss., Cairo University, 2007).

6 Tammy Gaber, Beyond the Divide: A Century of Canadian Design (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Press, 2022). In this study of 90 mosques in 53 cities across the country I examined many aspects of the community, culture, and architecture of mosques including gender segregation. In approximately ten percent of the mosques studied there was full, unbarred inclusion of women. Mosques such as the Islamic Society of Niagara Mosque and the Winnipeg Central mosque were both established and continue to have all members pray in a single space without architectural separation; as a result women are far more active in governance structures of these boards and in community activities, and there are stronger ties of second, third, and fourth generation Muslim-Canadians to these mosque spaces.

Scholar and mosque architect Gulzar Haider has published a critique of mosque board structures in North America which are often composed of all-male members; his satirical coining of the typical ‘magnificent seven’ in his essay notes the patriarchal nature of these boards. See Gulzar Haider, “Brother in Islam, Please Draw us a Mosque Muslims in the West: A Personal Account” in Expressions of Islam in Buildings, ed. Hayat Salam (Singapore: Concept Media/The Aga Khan Award for Architecture 1990), 155–66.In my research I found that such governance structures lead to gendered mosque spaces which in turn limit interest and ability for women to become part of the governance structures in a loop that results in further distancing not only women, but subsequent generations of Muslims who are made to feel unwelcome in an already othered space.

7 Gaber, Beyond the Divide.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tammy Gaber

Tammy Gaber is director and associate professor at the McEwen School of Architecture, Laurentian University, which she joined as founding faculty in 2013. Gaber has won several federally funded grants and has published extensively and taught in architecture programs for the past two decades. In 2019, Gaber won the Women Who Inspire Award from the Canadian Council of Muslim Women and in 2020 she was awarded Laurentian University’s Teaching Excellence Award for a full-time professor. Gaber’s book Beyond the Divide: A Century of Canadian Mosque Design was published by McGill-Queen’s Press in 2022.