Photomontage of the Flying Mosque at dusk
The Flying Mosque was selected for the 20th Islamic Arts Festival in Sharjah, which responds to this year’s festival’s theme of “Impact.”
The project aims to create s sense of place with a collection of intricate, calm and simple lace objects on impact. The softly glowing and mysteriously floating forms, contrasting against urban landscape and night sky create a sense of surprise and wonder, contributing to a memory of the time and place.
The lace symbolically weaves different people and cultures, while physically the openings in the surface create patterns of light against the sky, water and city, a juxtaposition of a permeable surface on different visual layers. It is intended that the viewers see a different glimpse of the familiar environment through a visual filter, rediscovering their city and the surroundings.
Generally, lace is small in scale, and often private. Shown in a large scale in a public place, it creates a visual impact that is unexpected and memorable. Lace is used as an embellishment for a special celebration. The softly glowing, hovering lace forms create a visual celebration of the festival.
Seeing the glowing and hovering large lace forms against majestic skyscrapers and dark water creates a sense of magic as if time has stopped, which makes the viewers halt and gaze. This momentary pause of the mundane routine of our life would hopefully give us an opportunity to find the poetry around us.
The geometric forms are made entirely from thin cord crocheted, an inherently a repetitive and mathematical method of creating a surface. The collection of forms appear floating, undisturbed by each other, allowing visitors to meander between and through each form, occupy the volumes and touch their surfaces, exploring and interacting with the detailed hand work. When a viewer aligns with the central axial arrangement of these forms, the collective composition transforms, becoming legible as a unified whole, a floating mosque.
This project emphasizes the meditative process of finding the whole, while providing a new way of looking at the old and familiar, with one of the most recognizable structures of Muslim world, seen glowing and taking a flight into the sky.
Photomontage of the Flying Mosque at dusk: finding the aligned forms of the mosque
The design and images of The Flying Mosque are copyright 2017, Choi+Shine Architects and may not be used without written permission. The Flying Mosque™ is a trademark of Choi+Shine Architects.
