A Study on African Vernacular Mosque: A Lesson from Tradition

摘要

Mosques as a symbol of Islamic cities have a significant place in Islamic Architecture and it prompts architects to create admirable, magnificent buildings. While several studies have done on features and prototypes in this field but mainly it leaded to exaggerate dominance of dome as inseparable component of mosques. Although dome construction is costly, it is not that much adaptable to different climates and even it is not a good culture indicator of different countries, still there is a strong insist on presence of dome in mosques everywhere. This paper aims to study African mosque example which deeply relied on vernacular architecture. Various styles of design in Mali as case study investigated in terms of material, design concept, to arrive at concrete results.