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  Confrontational Architecture: Europe's Mosques Move from Back Alleys to Boulevards

Confrontational Architecture Europe's Mosques Move from Back Alleys to Boulevards

By Ulrike Knöfel

Part 2: Dodging the Real Issue

The plans for the Cologne mosque call for an expansive and almost futuristic edifice. The sprawling shell of the building, which is broken up in several places, forms a dome flanked by two minarets. Ilyas says this fusion of Islamic tradition and Western "feel" is in line with her own notions of what a modern mosque should be.

Paul Böhm is the architect in charge of the Cologne mosque, and he's a participant in the evening's discussion panel in Berlin. Böhm, who comes from a family of master church builders, insists that a city should be allowed to have visual points of reference "other than department stores and football stadiums."

Offhandedly, Böhm even adds that all architecture is political and that "it would be great" if, at some point, Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses" could be read aloud in his mosque.

Sitting next to Böhm is his Dutch colleague Wilfried van Winden. Van Winden is building a fanciful, postmodern mosque of monumental proportions in Rotterdam, which will number among Europe's largest. He admits that the decision to finally design a sacred building came to him while he was on vacation a few years ago.

In a discussion like this, it would seem natural to discuss the fault lines developing in Rotterdam's predominantly Moroccan Muslim community after some of its members rejected financial assistance in building a mosque from two Dubai sheikhs fearing that accepting such generosity could influence sermons. But the panel discussion steers completely clear of the issue.

After two hours, the panel discussion is over. As the water, wine and champagne start pouring, Ilyas wanders around looking slightly lost.

Compromises

In his new book, "Euroislam-Architektur," art historian Christian Welzbacher, who was also the panel discussion's moderator, praises the efforts made by many mosque designers to use forms to connect cultures. Welzbacher calls for "a debate on the quality of the new form of Islamic architecture in Europe" and argues the case that the structures be accepted as part of European culture.

This actually happens sometimes. The ornate Islamic Forum in the Bavarian city of Penzberg designed by Augsburg architect Alen Jasarevic, for example, is already considered one of the most beautiful examples of contemporary religious architecture.

However, despite all the pleas and successful buildings, it is fairly often the case that the situation is much more complex and contradictory than the architecture would lead one to suspect.

Such complexity can perhaps be illustrated best using the example of the projects undertaken by the Ahmadiyya community. In such cases, women are allowed to design the mosques, and women are allowed to finance them, too. Nevertheless, the religious organization still has a reputation for oppressing its female members. For her part, Ilyas says she wears a headscarf voluntarily. She's also quick to point out that she's achieved more than many other architects her age.

Although her building in Berlin's Heinersdorf district is unobtrusive and much less gradiose than some of the other projects, its dome and minaret still catch peoples' attention. It rises in an area where the city frays into many arterial roads, right behind a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant.

Every day, thousands of motorists speeding along the nearby traffic artery can't help but notice her mosque. If the community's intention was to creep into the general awareness starting from the edge of the city, the location was a shrewd choice.

"We didn't think about that," Ilyas counters. "We were just happy to be allowed to build at all. And, of course, mosques are symbols. But of what? Everyone has a different interpretation, which is part of the problem. For us, they're places to withdraw to; for others, (they are) an expression of power."

Open Mouths, Closed Minds

On a late-summer afternoon, Abdullah Uwe Wagishauser, the German chairman of the Ahmadiyya community, welcomes a group of students to his new mosque in Berlin. Wagishauser converted to Islam at an early age. He welcomes the nearly 30 participants of a seminar on "intercultural coexistence," who come from countries spread around the globe, including the United States, Canada and Ukraine. "Mosque conflicts" is one subject on the class's study plan.

Wagishauser seems cheerful, almost excited. He laughs when he shouts to the group, "We've got to mind costs; we have no oil, no Qaddafi to finance us." He also laughs when he says, "Churches are being closed; mosques are being opened."

One sentence is repeated a number of times: "When we build mosques, we become visible."

During the question-and-answer period, it becomes clear that the students are less interested in minaret heights than in the Ahmadiyya worldview. Wagishauser is asked how the community treats its homosexual members and why women have to wear headscarves.

Homosexuality, he answers, is unnatural for people and, he adds, "there's no religion that supports it." Regarding headscarves, Wagishauser tells the group that they are meant to protect women from the desirous looks they'd otherwise get -- "are we supposed to change men's nature?"

If you subtract Wagishauser's smile from his comments, you're left with quite a bit of argumentativeness. This encounter makes it plain that frank talks don't always lead to understanding or even conciliation.

In any case, the students' curiosity is more appropriate than the preconceived opinions and failures to differentiate that are otherwise driving the debate. While one side indulges its prejudices, the other -- in its boundless and obstinate tolerance -- regards all demands for transparency as being politically incorrect. This, however, is only a different and no less questionable form of indifference.

A Matter of Images

Either way, true integration is being obstructed because it requires an honest exchange of opinions -- even if the truth is unpleasant to hear. Both the opponents and supporters of integration are so entrenched in their own views that they are incapable of conducting a rational debate about this individual case.

A lot of questions come rushing to mind: What financial and ideological influences, what worldview, what interests are being promoted by the individuals financing particular mosques? What's their attitude toward democracy?

For example, most Germans were probably unaware of the predominantly Pakistani Ahmadiyya community until its London-based leader announced plans to build 100 new mosques for its followers in Germany, which the group estimates to number around 30,000. While adherents describe the more than century-old Muslim community as a liberal reform movement, critics are more likely to compare it with a sect. Wagishauser says building five mosques per year in Germany is a realistic goal, which is indeed an indication of a strategic expansion in the group's presence.

The pace of new mosque construction is unlikely to slow in the coming decades, either. "You've got to decide how to handle this architectonic outgrowth of immigration," says Reinhold Zemke, a Berlin urban planner and mosque expert. The problems, he points out, start with the sites.

"Would you banish a church to an industrial zone?" Zemke asks. "Mosques are being pushed to the outskirts, although they'd be less conspicuous and irritating at more central locations."

Nor does Zemke think the conflicts will die down. "That would be wrong anyway," Zemke adds. "Asking all the questions has to be allowed."

As Zemke sees it, people can -- and must -- argue. But the question is: Who sets the rules for the debate? Jörg Hüttermann, for one, a sociologist who has published a study of mosque conflicts, sees them as hierarchical struggles within society -- and necessary learning processes. He writes of "learning-by-doing conflicts" but warns of the kind of confrontation that could turn violent. Terms such as "parallel society" are downright dangerous, he says, because they're basically meant as blanket accusations.

Even the old ideological groupings within German society no longer hold true when some of the country's main opinion-makers start teaming up with a few neo-Nazis from Heinersdorf to oppose the mosques. This is an explosive issue in and of itself.

In the final analysis, it always comes down to images -- to worldviews, bogeymen and symbols. Correcting their distortions and interpreting them accurately is a difficult task. But it would be wrong not to try.

In many German cities, including small and medium-sized ones, the population is already ethnically diverse. As more and more mosques are built, the extent of this diversity will only become clearer. Some of them look almost European in style, while others are dubbed examples of "homesickness architecture" owing to their oriental appearance.

Either way, the mere presence of the mosques expresses the immigrants' fundamental desire to have truly "arrived" in Germany, to really feel at home here. "It's important that we show ourselves, that we don't stay hidden," Ilyas remarks, adding that she believes she can express a stance and effect change by means of architecture.

But frankness shouldn't be limited to discussing the aesthetics of mosques, either. Everyone is responsible for making integration a success. Mosques should be a reminder of that, too.