Here are a few assorted mosques built during the Asaf Jahi dynasty, which ruled Hyderabad from the 1700s all the way up until a couple of years after Indian independence.
#MosquesofIndia #MosquesofHyderabad
The #Nizam built two schools side by side in typical Asaf Jahi style...
#MosquesofIndia #MosquesofHyderabad
The #Nizam built two schools side by side in typical Asaf Jahi style...
...of architecture, Madrasa-e-Mahbubia for girls and Madrasa-e-Aliya for boys at #Abids. The Jama Masjid Aliya is contained in this heritage complex, right next to ASI.
Spanish Mosque #Begumpet or Masjid Iqbal-ud-Daula is a Paigah mosque inspired by Moorish Architecture built bu the Paigah noble family. This is Indo-Saracenic Architecture, a revivalist style by European architects, a sort of Eastern version of Neo-classical style in Europe.
It is reminiscent of La Mezquita, Córdoba (ironically no longer a mosque), whose double-material arches are seen in this mosque but will be more familiar to those who’ve visited the Grand Mosque in Mecca that has the same arches!
Shahi Masjid in #PublicGardens is entirely white and popular for weddings. It was built by the last ruling Nizam around the 1930s in a stylistic departure from the typical Asaf Jahi style.
Taking a detour from mosques, the final ruling #Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan, built the Mecca Madina Wakf building, better known as Madina Building in #Patthergatti just before Hyderabad was annexed by India. Rents collected from this complex were sent to Mecca and Madina.
...This is one of the mosques I've had the good fortune of praying in, I offered the Eid salah here and felt proud that it was built by the Nizam of Hyderabad!
Probably the only truly contemporary mosque in Hyd was built in the70s. Chiran Mosque, #KBRPark was called Tamba Masjid(it was funded by sale of brass utensils of King Kothi).Symmetrical with a “suspended” waffle roof & faux minarets that reflect in the pool, it appears to float.
With so many types of mosques, different scales, styles, materials, colors and with different elements, what defines a mosque?
Back in architecture school, I decided to take a sabbatical and explore the answer to this pressing question that was always in my mind. I traveled around a bit and visited quite a few mosques in India and Saudi Arabia.
At the end of my serendipitous design journey, I realized that a mosque is nothing but a clean space on a ground plane to touch your forehead on in supplication and an orientation device to point you in the direction of the Ka'aba.
A mosque does not need to be green or white, to have a dome or minarets, or even a structure. It doesn't need carpeting or chandeliers, and it doesn't need ornamentation to qualify as a mosque. It only needs worshipers.
Here's my design from that semester off, just a plane that wraps around to go from ground to mihrab to roof. Nothing else.
*A niche that orients towards the Ka'aba.
*A niche that orients towards the Ka'aba.
Since a minaret's main purpose was for administering the call to prayer or Azaan, which is now done via loundspeakers, the single minar in this mosque is only as an identifier of a mosque, and it is more importantly a wind tunnel that brings in cool air into the prayer hall.
Of course there's a dedicated women's section and a library, as I felt a mosque needs to become a community space and education center, esp in the selected location of Hitec City where people move from all over for work, away from their communities. I designed this 12 years ago.
More recently, here’s a tiny mosque (musalla) I had the opportunity to design+build 2yrs ago. It was a study in developing a vocabulary for contemporary mosque architecture.
Read more about it here: tinyurl.com/vbwzllg
Here's a video of the process: tinyurl.com/sl8uvp7
Read more about it here: tinyurl.com/vbwzllg
Here's a video of the process: tinyurl.com/sl8uvp7
