The Western Mosque

Please refer to: The Religious/Political Significance of Physical Spaces

Thinking about the intersection of and interaction between socio-politics and religion in physical spaces (churches, mosques, synagogues) and more specifically the integration of a large Muslim immigrant population into Amsterdam (a topic I cannot seem to drop), it seems that the Western Mosque (pictured above) is a synecdoche for these wider themes. As Sunier says, "places of worship have constituted the most controversial and symbolically laden areas" with respect to religious issues--emancipation, integration, evangelism, etc. The Western Mosque was designed to combine traditional elements of Islamic worship with Dutch architectural styles in order to align itself with "the physical and social environment," and its construction was politically controversial. This mosque is more than just an example of cultural integration and the physical and spatial manifestation of politcial and social intent-- it actually stands in for a larger phenomenon of religious instutitions using their physical space to push a political and social agenda.