Pop-up link to Video: Presentation Istanbul   ISTANBUL POLICY CENTER-SABANCI UNIVERSITY-STIFTUNG MERCATOR INITIATIVE 

Mosques in Europe and Turkey Faith and Aesthetics in Public Space 

Chair
Nilüfer Göle (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales; Mercator-IPC Senior Fellow) 

Panelists 
Emre Arolat (Emre Arolat Architects) 
Paul Böhm (BÖHM & PTNRS) 
Cihan Bugdaci (Gentlemen A.R.T.) 

Wednesday, December 18, 2013, 18:30 Istanbul Policy Center 

The panel aims to bring together social scientists and architects in order to engage in a comparative discussion regarding mosques. The mosque debate points to a series of sociological issues ranging from the place of faith in public space, the language of the sermon in migrant contexts, and the adaptation of mosques within the European landscape. Mosques represent different meanings according to their size, location, and scale: Invisible prayer rooms, mosques of the neighborhood, or mosques as a new marker of the city. Should mosques in Europe replicate the home countries’ traditional/national styles, or find new vernacular forms? Can mosques be perceived in urban life as a micro public sphere bringing together different publics, both pious and secular, migrant and European? The debates on the aesthetics of transparency, spirituality, and visibility are closely related with the ways in which Islam is reconfigured in space both in Muslim majority and Muslim migrant countries. Several mosque projects in Istanbul, Cologne, and Rotterdam can serve as a point of entry for discussing issues of aesthetics, faith, and publics.