BIG to Design Mosque & Islamic Center in Albania

These breathtaking images are of a mosque, cultural center, and museum to be built in Tirana, Albania. The competition was won by Danish architects Bjarke Ingels Group in collaboration with Martha Schwartz Landscape, Buro Happold , Speirs & Major, Lutzenberger & Lutzenberger, and Global Cultural Asset Management.

I know it feels a bit ironic that a Danish firm wins the competition especially with some Muslims  boycotting them for the 2009 incident.

This specific area in Albania has been going through a restoration phase where all three major faiths that co-exist are getting new buildings, an idea I personally believe is wonderful. The images of this mosque give the impression of holiness just at the sight, the details, the fluidity of the buildings, the translucent nature of the buildings are just amazing.

The mosque will accommodate 1000 worshipers for daily prayers, with the ability to open up to the courtyards and plaza and accommodate up to 10,000 people on special ceremonies and holidays.

 

“The capital Tirana is undergoing an urban transformation which includes the restoration and refurbishment of existing buildings, the construction of a series of new public and private urban structures, and the complete reconceptualization of Scanderbeg Square. This important square is the site of the new cultural complex that will consist of a Mosque, an Islamic Centre, and a Museum of Religious Harmony.Albania is the crossroads of three major religions: Orthodox Christianity; Catholicism; and Islam. With the recent completion of two new churches, all three religions will now have new places of worship in the heart of Tirana. The complex will not only serve the Muslim community of the city and surrounding areas, but will educate the public about Islamic values and serve as a beacon for religious tolerance.BIG’s winning entry was selected out of five finalists, including Spanish Architect Andreas Perea Ortega, Architecture Studio from France, Dutch SeARCH and London-based Zaha Hadid.”

For more details check BIG Website

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About BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group

from their website

“BIG is a Copenhagen based group of architects, designers, builders and thinkers operating within the fields of architecture, urbanism, research and development. The office is currently involved in a large number of projects throughout Scandinavia, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. BIG’s architecture emerges out of a careful analysis of how contemporary life constantly evolves and changes.
Not least due to the influence from multicultural exchange, global economical flows and communication technologies that all together require new ways of architectural and urban organization. We believe that in order to deal with today’s challenges, architecture can profitably move into a field that has been largely unexplored. A pragmatic utopian architecture that steers clear of the petrifying pragmatism of boring boxes and the naïve utopian ideas of digital
formalism.
In our projects we test the effects of size and the balance of programmatic mixtures on the triple bottom line of the social, economic and ecological outcome. Like a form of programmatic alchemy we create architecture by mixing conventional ingredients such as living, leisure, working, parking and shopping.
By hitting the fertile overlap between pragmatic and utopia, we architects once again find the freedom to change the surface of our planet, to better fit contemporary life forms. In all our action we try to move the focus from the small details to the BIG picture.”

BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group
Nørrebrogade 66D, 2nd floor
2200 Copenhagen N
Denmark
[email protected]
+45 72 21 72 27

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