Minarets of the Arabian Gulf

Mosque architecture has evolved over fourteen centuries and has revealed remarkable developments on many levels that include spatial and contextual compositions. The mosque, as an architectural output, has betrayed various relations governing the production mechanism that recalls rigorous deep understanding of the underlying influential embedded factors. In the twenty first century mosque design reflects to a certain extent such important developments that adhere to time and place, as well as contextual factors, including living practices and conditions. These factors and conditions have marked a milestone in the development of mosque architecture across its long history. In this context, some remarkable contemporary attempts represent a departure point from the historical formal context characterized by formalism, as these attempts offer distinct «spiritual» interactions between internal and external spaces, within a complex environmental, psychological and aesthetic design systems. The mosque as such has been introduced as an incubator for creativity and a natural outcome of the relationship between elements like natural light infiltrating the interior of the prayer hall and the balanced relationship with the exterior within carefully placed sequential transitions that start from the outside gate ending in the Mihrab. This infiltrating light means more than sensual connotations but rather symbolizes philosophical relations that define balanced interactions between shade and light, matter and spirit, and most importantly between the «material» exterior and the «spiritual» interior.