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ABSTRACT

The mosque is the prominent and perhaps only religious building in Islam. It is a building type which often reflects the impact of the manifestation of local architectural traditions, which later on formed the core of Islamic architecture. Indeed the mosque is sometimes considered the prime symbol of a countrys religious stance, or national identity. In an attempt to assert its national identity, the State of Kuwait has constructed numerous mosques over the past few decades. Through various ministerial agencies, funds were raised for mosque-building schemes. This paper attempts to provide a visual and architectural survey of the mosques built by the Ministry of Awqaf & Islamic Affairs [MAIA] in Kuwait. It investigates the similarities and differences in the design patterns, and searches for underlying endeavours to create distinctive styles that reflect traditional values of Kuwaiti mosque architecture.

The primary objective of this paper is to document the design process of MAIA mosques as well as to provide a glimpse of their architectural features with the intention of searching for underlying similarities and differences in their design patterns. There are very few documented studies on mosque architecture in general in Kuwait (Al Roumy 1988). But certainly there is no study, whatsoever, on the MAIA mosques, which represent one third of government mosques and around 14% of all existing mosques in Kuwait. This makes this preliminary reconnaissance study, which documents qualitatively all MAIA mosques and which visually analyses their architecture, the first in its field and an initial contribution to the study of this important topic.

Keywords: components; design; mosque architecture; visual analysis.