Main prayer hall is replaced by two identical sacred spaces side by side in new design

Sancaklar Mosque - Emre Arolat Architects

A Turkish architect is carving a niche for himself designing highly contemporary but respectful sacred spaces. Emre Arolat, whose latest venture is Emre Arolat Architects which he founded a decade ago with Gonca Paşolar in Istanbul, is the man responsible for these unexpected structures. 

The most mould-breaking is a mosque in an outlying Istanbul suburb, which sweeps away many architectural conventions for such buildings in Turkey, replacing them with an austere but none-the-less faithful alternative. The architects describe the site as a prairie landscape, cut off from the nearby gated communities by a traffic-laden highway.

Sancaklar Mosque - Emre Arolat Architects

Rather than eye-catching domes and minarets, and women praying in a separate room behind the men, Sancaklar Mosque is an unassuming semi-submerged structure of roughly-hewn brickwork and dry-stone walls. This finish contrasts with the thin reinforced concrete slab, which acts as a 6m-long canopy into the building. This, believes Arolat demonstrates "the tension between the manmade and natural" worlds....Continue Reading

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