Building Details
Construction of the three-storey East London Mosque began in 1982 on land left empty after bombing during World War II, and was completed in 1985. The architect was John Gill Associates. The exterior is a distinctive brick pattern in two colours, with the front facing Whitechapel Road and the rear on Fieldgate Street. The mosque is capped with a gold colour dome of about 8.5m diameter. The minaret rises to about 22m above ground level, and the main entrance is finished with two smaller copies of the minaret. The mosque has two large halls, a gallery, classrooms, offices and a retail unit.
Construction for phase 1 of the mosque's expansion, called the London Muslim Centre, began in 2002 and was completed in 2004. Adjoining and connected to the mosque, it is a six-storey building with a prominent entrance featuring a sweeping mosaic pattern. The centre has two multipurpose halls, a seminar suite, a nursery, classrooms, a fitness centre, a small Islamic library, a radio station, retail units and offices. The centre was designed by Studio Klaschka Architecture and Design.
A further significant expansion commenced in 2009: Phase 2, to be known as the Maryam Centre, is a nine-storey addition on the Fieldgate Street side, on a site originally used by the mosque's funeral services. When construction is completed in 2012, the Centre will add a new main prayer hall and improved funeral services. It will also add substantial facilities for women, including a prayer space, full- and part-time education facilities, and a health and fitness centre. The building includes a mezzanine level around the main hall which will accommodate a visitor centre. The design was once again by Studio Klaschka Architecture and Design.
Read more about this topic: East London Mosque
Famous quotes containing the words building and/or details:
“We have our little theory on all human and divine things. Poetry, the workings of genius itself, which, in all times, with one or another meaning, has been called Inspiration, and held to be mysterious and inscrutable, is no longer without its scientific exposition. The building of the lofty rhyme is like any other masonry or bricklaying: we have theories of its rise, height, decline and fall—which latter, it would seem, is now near, among all people.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)
“Different persons growing up in the same language are like different bushes trimmed and trained to take the shape of identical elephants. The anatomical details of twigs and branches will fulfill the elephantine form differently from bush to bush, but the overall outward results are alike.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)