Machine summary:
Forum A Moment in the American Desert: Hassan Fathy’s Dar al-Islam Tammy Gaber Dar al-Islam isthe realized vision of anAmerican-born Muslim, anAmerican educated Saudi businessman, the award-winning architect Hassan Fathy (1900-89).
The purpose-built educational center and mosque was built in the early 1980s, sits in New Mexico’s mesa landscape, and today functions as an educational retreat.
The vision for a new Muslim community required the design conceptu alization by an architect interested in the unique qualities of the project and the site.
It was serendipitous that Durkee, while in Cairo, was introduced to Hassan Fathy – an architect who was just gaining notoriety for his far-reaching architectural approaches that carefully considered environment and tradition.
Architec ture focused on his experiences with designing a mud-construction village in Gourna (Egypt) during the mid-1940s that utilized ancient Nubian cate nary vault and dome construction and the local residents’ participation.
Enamored with the similarities of landscape and adobe construction to his homeland, he spent months on the design in his studio-home-architecture hub-guest house in Darb al-Labbana in old Cairo and received the daily feedback of Abiquiu resident Walter Abdur Ra’uf Declerck, who stayed with him.
During graduate school, I looked closely at his projects, especially Dar al-Islam, in order to understand various ap proaches and the phenomena of designing mosques in the West.
The vision of Durkee, Kabbani, and Fathy for an ideal Muslim space in the United States has grown.
Sharp New Mexico Desert light on the undulating forms of Dar al-Islam’s Mosque and Madrasa complex designed by Hassan Fathy.