Reintroducing the coastal desert landscape. The masterplan emphasizes this duality by dividing the site diagonally into two contrasting landscapes. On the one hand, a plain, soft and open desert landscape around the fort reinstating the building as a free-standing landmark on the sand like it was before the modern city rapidly sprung up. On the other, a paved and programmed area with intensified planting around the Cultural Foundation, combining the desert landscape with the modern city grid structure.
The geometries intentionally land somewhere between building and landscape. Along the transitional zone, the landscape changes from horizontal planes to slanting surfaces and gradually grows into actual buildings, culminating with the Musallah. All components, from sitting bollards to building volumes, merge with the park to appear as natural landscape elements, leaving the Fort and the Cultural Foundation as the two main visual anchors.
Al Musallah. As an important element of the cultural park, the prayer hall is located at the north-eastern corner of the site as a series of small interconnected buildings that form a cave-like structure pushed halfway into a large water feature. The Musallah stands in water to create a subtle privacy barrier without using walls, which provides calm and secluded spaces for prayer without visual disturbances. At the same time, the water is used as a symbol of spiritual purification flowing around and in between the interior functions. The individual spaces are connected by glass tubes bridging over water, which symbolically purifies the mind when moving through the light-filled passages from one area to the next.
Each volume contains its own function so that the plan layout creates two mirrored flows, where female and male worshippers respectively progress along a sequence of spaces that create an immersive spiritual experience, following the ritual for prayer. Walking from the open landscape of the park along the narrow passages between the “rocks”, the noise and bustling life of the city slowly fades away and visitors enter the cave-like entrance halls, where you can rest and talk before prayers. An experience and atmosphere that refers to the Cave of Hira, where Prophet Muhammed received his first revelation. From here, one proceeds to the ablution spaces for washing and mentally preparing for prayer and finally reaches the large prayer halls. The prayer halls are orientated in the qibla direction, while a concrete relief with inscriptions appears on one of the rock volumes, visible through a window that is concealed from the outside.
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