Maryam Eskandari Interview with BBC

Muslim American Move Away from Minaret

By Jane O'Brien
BBC News, Washington


In post 9/11 America the construction of new mosques in the US has sometimes sparked controversy and even confrontation. Is that why some new Muslim houses of worship are being built without the most recognisable features of Islamic architecture - minarets and domes?

Architect Maryam Eskandari, former associate director of the American Institute of Architects, is touring the US with a photo exhibition illustrating the transition of American mosques from traditional to postmodern design. She says Islamic Architecture has long been subject to personal interpretation and set in a cultural and historical context. "The Kaaba itself doesn't have a dome, it doesn't have a minaret - that was built later on," she says, speaking of the Mecca building hat is Islam's most holy site.


"Its just a cube. So traditionally speaking that is the idea of Islamic Architecture."
Read More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16825976

Massachusetts Institute of Technology news

September news flashes from SA+P

Updates on faculty, students and alumni from the School of Architecture + Planning

Scott R Campbell

School of Architecture + Planning

Eran Ben-Joseph's Bronx practicum was one of 10 winners out of 150 submissions to a design competition sponsored by the Institute for Urban Design; their work was showcased in an exhibit and a special publication at the first ever Urban Design Week Festival in New York City.

Masoud Akbarzadeh MArch '11 has been awarded a $20K Research and Travel Fellowship from the Skidmore, Owings & Merrill Foundation; this is the second year in a row the fellowship has gone to a student from SA+P: last year the distinction went to Azra Dawood SMArchS '10; both continue their studies here this year.

Marcelo Coelho MAS PhD '12 and Jamie Zigelbaum MAS SM '09 won Honorary Mention in Interactive Arts at Ars Electronica this year for their project Six-Forty by Four-Eighty, a lighting installation composed of magnetic, physical pixels, stainless steel and remote controllers.

Eric Jay Dolin PhD '95 has received a slew of awards for his most recent book, Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America, including being chosen as one of the best books of 2010 by The Seattle Times and one of the top 10 books of 2010 by the Rocky Mountain Land Library.

Maryam Eskandari SMArchS '11 will present her thesis '(Re)Constructing the Place of Gender in Contemporary American Mosque' at the ACSA Conference in Houston in October.

Tony Pizzigati SB '92, an early advocate of open-source computing, died in an car accident on his way to work in Silicon Valley in 1995; his legacy is honored by the annual Antonio Pizzigati Prize for Software in the Public Interest, the nation's highest honor for software developers working with nonprofits to help advance innovative social change. Nominations have now opened for this year's $10K prize.

Nithya Raman MCP '08 has published an article in the inaugural issue of Urban Affairs, a peer-reviewed publication put out by Economic and Political Weekly; 'The Board and the Bank: Changing Policies towards Slums in Chennai' is based on her MCP thesis

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48th Annual ISNA Convention: Loving God, Loving Neighbor, Living in Harmony

Friday July 01, 2011

Islam, Pluralism and Social Harmony

Description: America finds itself at a crossroads with a financial crisis at home and war abroad. At every critical juncture in history, social movements—from civil rights to anti-war—have brought people of all races and creeds together around common values and aspirations. This session will offer reflections on the collective movement that is needed for our times, and the sacred place of love and non-violence in realizing the call for social harmony in a pluralistic society.

Speakers: Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf
Ingrid Mattson
John Esposito
Zaid Shakir




Saturday July 02, 2011

Role of Islamic Tradition in Addressing Contemporary Challenges-Conversation Between Tariq Ramadan and John Esposito

Speakers: Tariq Ramadan
John Esposito

Sunday July 03, 2011

Inclusive Mosques in the 21st Century
Description: When we create sacred spaces that affirm human dignity, we acknowledge the spiritual potential of all who enter. The inclusive mosque synthesizes our architectural legacy, recognizes the contributions of women and welcomes those seeking answers. This session presents steps to ensure mosques are places that give life to strong, loving communities that stand against injustice.

Speakers: Akel Kahera
Maryam Eskandari
Aisha Al-Adawiya

Sacred Space: Islamic Architecture 2.0

July 1, 2011 | Illume Magazine

Maryam Eskandari interview with ILLUME Magazine


How did you become interested in architecture and why is it important?

I was introduced to architecture through my paternal grandfather. Each summer I would spend time with him in Iran, and got acquainted with the world of construction and architecture. He started off with a few lessons of drawing the living room, gradually we moved towards outdoors and by the end of the summer, he had me designing and I help him redo the interior of his house. That summer I was 15 years old and I knew I wanted to be an architect.

read more of the interview at ILLUME

Sacred Space for Muslim Americans

Front Cover of New York's Elan magazine

Mosques have been a reason for intense debates both within the Muslim community and outside of it. Maryam Eskandari, an architect at the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard and MIT, currently has a traveling exhibit on American Mosques. She brings a new angle to the debate discussing the role of architecture as an identity issue. Her exhibit, Sacred Space: (Re)Constructing the Place of Gender in the Space of Religion is touring the nation. We sat down with the architect and artist for an interview.

How did you choose this topic for your exhibit?

This “mosque” project actually started 5 years ago when I was working on another project in Seattle Washington. It was during the holy month of Ramadan. I got an opportunity to engage with the Muslims in Seattle, in which they commissioned my firm to design their mosque. During the design process, we constantly were confronted with, allocating an accurate space for the performance of prayers. It is amazing to see how emotional people get when the issue of space is discussed. What was fascinating to see is how this particular community was able to come together during their mosque project. From my first mosque, it led me to numerous projects for the various Muslim communities throughout the States. However, one project was confronted with a huge obstacle. While we were designing, and going through case studies of various mosques in the states, we started to realize that as Muslims, we do not necessarily have an identity, an American Muslim identity, when it comes to mosques, while other countries---particularly in the Middle East do. So the questioning of identity and gender kept coming up in the design projects. That was when finally last summer; the Aga Khan Program in Islamic Architecture funded my research to visit 32 American Mosques that reside in a highly dense Muslim population across the US. However, while engaged in the project, it lead to over 100 mosques and it still continues. We were able to capture the history, space, and architecture of each mosque, along with the stories that either the community would share with us, or our own adventures that we had.

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Gender, Sexuality and Urban Spaces

This was a great, if in cohesive group of panelists. They’ve each done really interesting research on different architectural expressions of ‘women’s spaces’ in three different US institutions: contemporary Mosques, Gymnasiums at the turn of the century, and Settlement Houses in the early 1900′s.

Maryam Eskandari gave a very compelling presentation on the need to re-examine mosque typology and explore the gender hierarchy assumptions embedded in that typology. Essentially, her work has determined that mosques prioritize men’s space, making the front of the mosque inaccessible to women, and allocating the separate women’s prayer space as ½ to 1/5 the amount of space allocated to the men. She talked about radical activists in the US staging Rosa Parks-style interventions in this model. And, she advocated for the role of architects in changing the typology, making contemporary mosque design reflect the changing politics of the practice of Islam in the US where communities are more open to mixed gender prayer spaces.

read more @ Plural Titanium

follow the conference @ Gender, Sexuality and Urban Space

The Green Mosque

November 2, 2o10 | Maryam Eskandari

Featured in New York's Elan Magazine

Last week, the Chicago based nonprofit organization, Faith in Place, announced its winner for “Building: Problem or Solution?” competition. 26 design firms, representing 11 states, and six countries participated. Of which, the winner for this year was a team of four young Muslims, from Pasadena, California whose winning entry was the Sustainable Green Mosque. The Sustainable Green Mosque played on the notion of weaving the sustainability concept, along with the traditional mosque elements, into a modern urban context.

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