The Extraordinary Cambridge Central Mosque (2021-10-11) ​

0:00:00 according to the bbc one of britain's
0:00:03 best new buildings is a mosque
0:00:07 the extraordinary cambridge central
0:00:10 mosque has geometric columns these are
0:00:13 made of timber timber trees which form
0:00:15 the structural support for the roof so
0:00:18 i'm just going to share with you uh just
0:00:20 a couple of minutes of this bbc article
0:00:24 a bbc news item
0:00:32 the rebus sterling prize for britain's
0:00:33 best new building will be announced next
0:00:35 week the shortlist includes a footbridge
0:00:37 in the south west of england a boat
0:00:39 museum in the lake district and a
0:00:40 university building in southwest london
0:00:42 over the coming few days we're going to
0:00:43 look at each of the six buildings on the
0:00:45 shortlist today it's the cambridge
0:00:48 central mosque which features geometric
0:00:50 columns
0:00:51 timber trees which form the structural
0:00:54 support for the roof
0:00:59 when you enter this space it feels very
0:01:01 other and hopefully uplifting i don't
0:01:04 think as architects we can hope for
0:01:05 anything more than that really
0:01:08 my name is julia barfield i'm one of the
0:01:10 co-founders of box barfield architects
0:01:12 and we are the architects of the
0:01:15 cambridge central mosque
0:01:18 we hadn't designed a mosque before so of
0:01:20 course we did a lot of research to find
0:01:22 out about mosque design throughout the
0:01:24 world and what we discovered was that
0:01:27 historically and globally mosques
0:01:29 generally took on the character of the
0:01:32 place that they were in and the time
0:01:33 they were in so what should a british
0:01:35 mosque of the 20th century be like
0:01:39 david my partner was the one who came up
0:01:41 with this idea of the glade
0:01:44 of trees and the garden of paradise
0:01:48 trees in this glade of trees became
0:01:50 these structural trees this is an
0:01:52 entirely timber structural building
0:01:54 timber is beautiful it's very
0:01:56 sustainable but also it's got that
0:01:58 connection with nature which is in islam
0:02:01 very important that's also one of the
0:02:03 kind of features of this
0:02:05 phase is that you naturally somehow look
0:02:07 up
0:02:08 which seems appropriate for a sacred
0:02:11 space
0:02:12 it's a space that's used by the whole
0:02:14 community not just the muslim community
0:02:17 the idea is that the mosque is not just
0:02:19 a place for worship it's so lovely to
0:02:21 see there's that sense of pride and
0:02:23 ownership from not just muslims in
0:02:25 cambridge but also the wider community
0:02:27 too
0:02:29 you're sort of met with this immediate
0:02:30 calm and sense of peace and it's
0:02:32 something that visitors get to
0:02:33 experience multitasking they visit but
0:02:35 something i get to experience every day
0:02:36 so it's just phenomenal we've kept the
0:02:39 energy usage down as much as possible as
0:02:41 well as trying to address embodied
0:02:43 carbon
0:02:44 in the choice of materials all the
0:02:47 rainwater is captured
0:02:49 it's used to flush the toilets and also
0:02:51 to help water the garden
0:02:53 in a sense we were trying to
0:02:55 kind of combine the english sacred
0:02:58 architecture with islamic traditions
0:03:01 we wanted to construct something that
0:03:04 was a symbol of hope that this
0:03:06 difference is not just about problems of
0:03:09 integration but it's about the inherent
0:03:11 interests of bringing together different
0:03:13 narratives different civilizations
0:03:14 different ethnicities languages cultural
0:03:17 communities it's a kind of celebration
0:03:20 of the very central contribution that
0:03:22 islam brings to the
0:03:24 rainbow diversity that is what makes
0:03:27 modern britain so fascinating
0:03:28 muslim islamic culture has been part of
0:03:31 british culture for so long and i hope
0:03:32 this building reaffirms that it brings
0:03:35 the two together
0:03:36 Music
0:03:39 and one of the interesting features of
0:03:41 this uh building is the fact that the
0:03:44 architects were english architects
0:03:46 they've never built a mosque before
0:03:49 and they decided to combine the english
0:03:52 style of sacred architecture with
0:03:55 islamic traditions to produce this
0:03:57 amazing
0:03:58 synthesis and in their research for this
0:04:02 mosque they were commissioned to to
0:04:04 build they discovered an interesting
0:04:06 fact which is worth emphasizing and they
0:04:09 say quote historically and globally
0:04:12 mosques took on the character of the
0:04:14 place and time they were in
0:04:18 so moss weren't sticking out like a sore
0:04:20 thumb they blended in with their
0:04:22 environment taking on the character of
0:04:25 the buildings around them and the
0:04:26 culture what a beautiful idea
0:04:29 so one of the questions is what should a
0:04:31 21st century british mosque look like
0:04:35 and i think this if there's going to be
0:04:37 an answer this is going to be it it's
0:04:39 such an extraordinary building
0:04:41 and the one of the key concepts the
0:04:43 architects mentioned you can see this in
0:04:45 the video is this idea of a glade of
0:04:48 trees
0:04:49 and the garden of paradise and of course
0:04:52 paradise
0:04:53 is a key
0:04:55 concept found in the quran and it is
0:04:58 like a garden in many ways and it exudes
0:05:01 calm and peace both in paradise and in
0:05:04 this mosque as the people who go there
0:05:07 will tell you
0:05:09 and um if there is a future where
0:05:11 the best of british english architecture
0:05:14 and the best of islamic architecture can
0:05:17 come together in this beautiful
0:05:19 synthesis this has got to be it so
0:05:22 all credit all kudos to the english
0:05:24 architects
0:05:25 and to professor
0:05:27 tim winter who is the genius behind this
0:05:30 project at the university of cambridge