Brussels Mosques. Basic configuration issues

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Published: Jun 1, 2014
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3917/clara.002.0097

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Bertrand Terlinden
Faculté d'Architecture La Cambre Horta - Université libre de Bruxelles

Abstract

This essay addresses the question of the mosque in terms of its form and particularly its basic layout. It classifies Brussels mosques into three categories, or 'generations', which are more logical than chronological. Contrary to the quick assumption of a contemporary critique that claims the mosque is malleable to the most formalist research, the place where Muslim rites are performed, as long as it has not been subjected to the sophisticated interpretations of architects, continues to respond to a set of architectural norms that are not imposed by any authoritarian power, but are the result of long shared experience. The recognition of these norms - which deal with the elementary morphology as well as the morphatic and configurative levels of the mosque - opens an alternative path to the gruelling one forced by the current compromise between structural 'modernisation' and ornamental conservation.
This elementalist path - particularly with regard to the most basic levels of its configuration - could well concern not only the mosque, but also the future of architectural objects. 

Article Details

Issue
No. 2 (2014): Brussels mosque as a project
Section
Thematic section
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Author Biography

Bertrand Terlinden, Faculté d'Architecture La Cambre Horta - Université libre de Bruxelles

Bertrand Terlinden (1965) is a doctor of architecture (IUA -Venice, 1996), practitioner and lecturer at the Faculty of Architecture La Cambre-Horta of the Université libre de Bruxelles. His research interests cover landscape, territory, sedimentation, town-country relations, the history of construction in Europe and architectural typology. He also conducts research and teaching projects in Morocco and the Democratic Republic of Congo. His writings, documents, projects and works in progress or completed can be consulted on his blog: www.betrandterlindenarchitecture.wordpress.com. 

 

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