The Venice Architecture Biennale is the most important event in the international
architecture calendar, and the theme this year was 'How Will We Live Together'.
We chose to explore it by looking at immigration,
hybridity and multiculturalism through three London buildings.
The exhibition is called Three British Mosques and it's about the history of
muslim architecture in Britain, and we're representing that history
through reconstructions of three adapted buildings that have been converted into mosques in London.
The three mosques are the Harrow mosque which is in North Eest London, Brick Lane mosque which is
in East London and Old Kent Road mosque which is in South London, and we chose those three mosques
because they're each representative of different types of adaptation of buildings into mosques.
Harrow mosque is a pair of semi-detached houses – and the house was really the earliest type of
mosque that was made in this country, because it was the easiest kind of building to obtain by
new migrant communities. So the house is a real archetypal
sort of mosque building, so that's why we chose Harrow.
We got some plastic sheets and metal sheets, and we make like a room – a big
room for Friday prayer. Also Saturday and Sunday people use it for boxing.
Brick Lane mosque was built as a Huguenot chapel in 1743.
It was then used as a methodist chapel about 80 or 90 years later and then again about 80 years
later it was used by the Jewish community as a synagogue, and then in 1976 it was purchased
by the local Bangladeshi Muslim community, and became a large mosque in the east end, so Brick
Lane represents this reuse of a single religious building by different religious communities.
The Old Kent Road mosque is in South-East London, and it's a mosque which has been
created by the Nigerian Muslim community, and it was a former pub – a victorian pub,
so it really represents that kind of hybridization of different cultures in one building.
When immigrant communities came to this country and started up mosques, it was often in existing
buildings. They improvised their mosques – we call it the ad hoc mosque – in places like cinemas,
pubs, libraries, former churches. They were buying their own buildings gathering money from amongst
themselves and incrementally adapting those to create places of worship. So the history
of the mosque in Britain is really responsive to the needs of the community. As it's grown,
these ad hoc structures are being demolished as successful communities fundraise to build
purpose-built mosques in their place. So we wanted our Venice exhibition
to document and record the improvised mosque before it's lost forever.
We've chosen to recreate various sections of the various case study mosques
that we're looking at. So we've reconstructed the mihrab and the minbar from each mosque,
and then we've taken elements of interest from each building – so for example with the Harrow
Mosque, which was a pair of semi-detached houses, we reconstructed the front doorway
which is a very domestic suburban architectural type, but it has all
the signage that denotes that it's a place of worship and denotes that it's a mosque.
With Brick Lane, we reconstructed a dormer window which is in the attic space. It's used for
Islamic education for children, and each pane of the window has been used to put in
a letter of the Arabic alphabet, so the historic fabric becomes reused
as a kind of teaching facility for the current users of the building.
We also reconstructed a sundial on the pediment of Brick Lane mosque,
and that was built in 1743 by the Huguenots. The sundial has a latin phrase underneath which says
'Umbra Sumus' which means 'We are Shadows'. It connects the idea of mortality and the
idea of belief across all the different communities that have used that building.
With the Old Kent Road mosque we reconstructed the wall of the pub, and the existing decorative
cornices have been painted by the mosque, so that wall really has the paraphernalia
that you'd find within the mosque for daily use, so it's a real kind of – visual feast.
Actually many of the younger people in the community have been coming there since they were
children, right through to when they're adults, and there's a sort of connection and an emotional
bond between people and the building that you don't necessarily see in public buildings.
"I've been coming here for 20 plus years every week."
"We are the pillar of the community. Without the pillar, the home will not be solid".
"It is like walking in and seeing your extended family."
"We have people of different cultures that come in here,
and they come and pray, and they are the community."
Brick Lane mosque is again a different story – a different type of community, and they recognized
the need for a large building because they anticipated the community was going to grow.
"Having acquired the building, it was in a poor condition. The radiators wasn't always working,
so the evening madrasa in the winter time, we would be double
jacketing up. It was a bit of dingy place,
but nevertheless it was it was a safe space, and we felt – you know – a sense of comradeship."
Within the exhibition there are video screens, and on those screens we have footage of people who use
the mosque – so congregants and community members who are talking about how they use the mosque,
and the significance of the building to them. And we also have footage of the Assembly film
that Julie Marsh has made within each of these spaces. Julie Marsh is a filmmaker working with
the communities and visually representing and recording their practices of worship.
One of the things that we made for the exhibition was a 3D scan of each
of the buildings, and that was a digital three-dimensional record of each space
at a particular moment in its history. The digital scan is
then looked at alongside the one-to-one replicas, so the two work alongside each other.
The Architecture Biennale is a place for the V&A to experiment – to explore new ways of
representing architecture and new avenues of collecting. And some of the things we've
exhibited will return to South Kensington and go on display in our architecture galleries.
For me, the significance of the Victoria and Albert Museum is the way in which the museum
tells particular stories through designed objects, so we're celebrating contemporary muslim
architectural history and the way in which our different communities live together in one city.
You know, we hope that this pavilion will increase understanding and encourage people to appreciate
the muslim experience and also the muslim contribution to the architecture of Britain.