_A Mosque in a Mosque

The impact colonialism on Senegalese architecture produced a new type of mosque. Constructed in durable materials and consisting of an amalgam of church architecture and North African elements, this model was to be adopted in many parts of West Africa; on an ideological level, it would appear that such a style was used to perpetuate the notion of the superiority of “white” or Arab Islam over local “black” Islam. Between mid-1920s and mid-1930s, however, Christian references were abandoned in favour of a more “Islamic” repertoire giving rise to another stylistic fusion: Islamic elements are integrated with the latest trends of “modernist” styles issuing from the Métropole.   In this context, la mosquée Blanchot’s numerous extensions and transformations provide a visual record of these evolutions.