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Bâtir une mosquée

Djamaâ el-Djazaïr – La Grande Mosquée d'Alger par KSP Engel

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The world’s third-largest mosque and Africa’s tallest structure to date: the Djamaa al-Djazair in Algiers, designed by KSP Engel, is a monument of superlatives

French edition
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Title Details
Edited by Jürgen Engel, Christian Welzbacher
2022
Hardback
248 pages, 190 color and 32 b/w illustrations
23 x 31 cm
ISBN 978-3-03860-275-0

Symbol of Islam, monument of superlatives, and the heart of an entirely new metropolitan district: the Djamaa al-Djazaïr is an edifice with many different facets. In 2008, Frankfurt-based architecture firm KSP Engel’s design won the international competition for Algiers’s new Grand Mosque, which was completed in 2019 after more than a decade of planning and construction work. The vast structure runs along the Bay of Algiers’s shoreline for well over 650 yards. A giant 230 feet-high dome covers the main prayer hall, and the 870 feet-high minaret constitutes Africa’s tallest building to date. Surrounded by extensive gardens, the entire complex houses a range of facilities, including a museum, a theological college, a library, a convention center, and a cinematèque. It forms a unique religious, cultural, and economic center that is a magnet for the entire region. And it unites as an intercultural undertaking genuine Algerian craftsmanship with superb Chinese efficiency, and meticulous German planning and engineering skills.

With rich detail and lavish illustrations, this French language edition tells the full story of how Algiers’s Djamaa al-Djazaïr, the world’s third-largest mosque after those of Mecca and Medina, was created and constructed. A historical and typological classification of this singular structure in the long history of mosque construction rounds out this stunning volume.

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