Light & Engineering 33 (5) 2025

Volume 33
Date of publication 10/20/2025
Pages 24–31

The Influence of Daylighting on the Architecture of the Newest Mosques: Part I. The Top and Side Lighting of the Mihrab L&E, Vol.33, No.5, 2025

Articles authors:

Elena V. Ermolenko

Elena V. Ermolenko, Ph. D. in Architecture. Associate Professor at Moscow Institute of Architecture (State Academy). She is a Member of the Presidium of the Moscow Union of Architects, Member of the Council of the Interregional Public Organization for the Promotion of Architectural Education (MOOCAO), Deputy Chairman of the Moscow Branch of the MOOCAO Moscow Art Institute, and the author of more than 70 scientific articles on modern architecture. Her research interests: contemporary architecture, urban planning, spatial organization of cultural institutions (museums, theatres, libraries, concert halls), as well as stylistic differences and innovations in the architecture of religious buildings

Abstract:

The article presents the results of a study of the buildings of the latest mosques to identify common techniques and patterns of daylighting systems. The options for illuminating the wall of the Qibla and the main prayer niche of the mihrab with overhead and side lights, including through a spatial grid of shanashil or mashrabiya, are shown. Highlighting the mihrab with a directed stream of light is an innovative technique that has been actively used in mosque architecture only in the 21st century. It is noted that in modern houses of worship, the architecture of which demonstrates, it would seem, a clear rejection of traditional Islamic methods, daylight acquires the most important importance, endowing the religious space with semantic and valuable content. The main objects of the study are modern mosque buildings, which at first glance do not fit into the Islamic traditions of architecture, built by architects E. Arolat, A. Kazmaoglu, Cubeinside Bureau, Forum architects, Nakshabid architects and others in the period 2005–2025 in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

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Keywords

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33383/2025-017

Article in RUS:
Svetotekhnika # 4, 2025, pp. 74–79

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