Modeling Meanings in Contemporary Mosque Architecture

Abstract

The article discusses the ability of mosque architecture to express meanings beyond those that are purely religious — first of all, to serve as an instrument of political rhetoric. In contemporary Islamic architectural practice (including Russia) following historical patterns, into which other meanings are invested, is becoming widespread. Using the historic neoOttoman trend in the architecture of the Republic of Turkey as an example, the author demonstrates the use of a mosque to proclaim the current doctrine of neoOttomanism, which combines nationalist and religious ideas. The spread of this trend as a result of the “diplomacy of architecture” led to a narrowing of the scale of formal searches in the construction of mosques at the turn of the 20th–21st centuries, and very different meanings could be invested in the same borrowed architectural forms (panTurkism, panIslamism, appeal to national traditions). The recent competition of projects for the Kazan Cathedral Mosque demonstrates, on the one hand, an attempt to limit the spread of neoOttoman forms and create a new example of the national style, but, on the other hand, it showed the dependence on existing patterns and the inability of architects to offer a clear alternative to these forms, which would be close to believers and understandable to the citizens. The ability of the architectural image of a contemporary mosque to rhetorically convey certain meanings (even not taken into account by customers and architects) is more important than the very fact of creating a mosque as a religious building.