The writings beckon at Education City Mosque

Five years on from its opening, the Education City Mosque (Minaretein), a landmark building at Qatar Foundation (QF), continues to inspire thought – including through its calligraphy. A milestone for regional architecture, the QF building has become an education hub for the Middle East, according to a statement.

One of the most striking elements of the mosque is the calligraphy, which is the work of Taha al-Hiti, an Iraqi architect and calligrapher based in the London suburb of Worcester Park. “The main challenge was that the letters of the Qur'an had to be present [on the mosque] somewhere,” he says. “The space allocated for calligraphy included the minarets, which are a very vertical element, and the assumption was the Arabic writing would be horizontal. But I always disliked the idea that you would have to tilt your head to read it.”

Al Hiti’s solution was to render the calligraphy vertically, which he did to stunning effect. “One of the most challenging aspects was to do the writing vertically, yet to keep it readable. My aspiration was always to have your eye move from the ground upwards to the sky, so even when the eye is on the minaret, you will be wondering about the creation of the Qur'an.”

It’s clear that al-Hiti thinks deeply about his work, which is evident to visitors to the mosque; and his work as an architect informs his work as a calligrapher and vice versa. “Calligraphy brought me a lot of work, and I have used it in a lot of my architectural work,” he says. “I studied with a very talented calligrapher in Baghdad who taught me the secrets of the art form, like the relationship of the shape of the letters to the proportions of the human body.”

And this expertise was brought to Education City, particularly as many of the challenges faced were specific to the site. “There were reflections of the calligraphy on the courtyard floor, which would mean people would end up stepping on Qur'anic text,” he says.

“I wrote a long essay on how the reflection of the letters was an inverted reflection and this meant it was OK to be ‘stepped on’. So there were many challenges. The whole project was a collaboration of a team of artists, architects and calligraphers to create this beautiful building.”

Five years on from its opening, and it’s still a project al-Hiti thinks of with great fondness. “I am very proud of what we have achieved and I’m very proud of the challenges that we overcame,” he says.

The writings beckon at Education City Mosque

Source: www.gulf-times.com