Contemporary
The Great Mosque of Algiers
Djamaa el Djazair on the bay, c. 2019 CE
1440 AH / c. 2019 CE
Educational historical reconstructionWhere
Djamaa el Djazair, the bay of Algiers, Algeria
36.7245, 3.1297 · View on OpenStreetMap
Background
The Great Mosque of Algiers, in Arabic Djamaa el Djazair, completed around 2019 on the waterfront of the bay of Algiers, is one of the largest mosques in the world and the national mosque of Algeria. Built through the 2010s on a monumental scale on ground by the sea, it has an immense prayer hall under a broad dome, able to hold great numbers of worshippers, set within a vast complex of esplanades, gardens, a library and other institutions; and beside it rises a single colossal square minaret, for a time the tallest in the world and the tallest in Africa, visible far across the city and the bay. Its architecture is clean and modern but draws deliberately on the western Islamic tradition of the Maghrib, above all in the square section of its minaret, which recalls the great minarets of Morocco and al-Andalus rather than the round or pencil minarets of the east. The mosque was raised as a statement of national and religious identity by a modern Muslim nation, generations after Algeria won its hard independence from colonial rule. This scene depicts the mosque on its bay: the great prayer hall and dome and the towering square minaret on the waterfront, the white city of Algiers climbing the hills behind, the Mediterranean before it. In keeping with the project's ethics any worshippers are anonymous and at a distance.
What you see
A vast modern mosque on the shore of a Mediterranean bay, a great prayer hall under a broad dome and, beside it, a single colossal square minaret that is among the tallest in the world, rising far above the city.
The forms are clean and modern but draw on the square-minaret tradition of the Maghrib; an immense esplanade and gardens spread before it, the whole built on a monumental scale on reclaimed ground by the sea.
Behind the mosque a great white North African city climbs the hills above its bay, the capital of a country on the Mediterranean coast of the Maghrib.
Built in the 2010s as a national mosque on a colossal scale, with the tallest minaret in Africa, it is a statement of the place of a modern Muslim nation, raised generations after independence from colonial rule. The scene shows the mosque on its bay.
The city is Algiers, capital of Algeria, on the bay of the central Maghrib coast; the mosque stands on the waterfront below the old and new city.
The Great Mosque of Algiers (Djamaa el Djazair), completed around 2019, carries the tallest minaret in the world for a time and one of the largest prayer halls; it is the national mosque of Algeria. The scene depicts the mosque and its setting.
Further reading & cross-references
Records of the construction of the Great Mosque of Algiers (Djamaa el Djazair): Used for the date, the scale, the record minaret and the standing as the national mosque.
Architectural accounts of the mosque (Maghribi square minaret, the complex on the bay): Used for the broad dome, the colossal square minaret and the waterfront complex.
Histories of modern Algeria: Used for the framing of the mosque within a nation generations after independence from colonial rule.
The standing Great Mosque of Algiers (extant, material): The present building and its bay setting constrain the depiction.
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