Image credit: Iwan Baan
The Al-Mujadilah Center and Mosque for Women has been completed in Qatar, the first purpose-built contemporary women’s mosque in the Muslim world. Initiated by Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of Qatar Foundation, and designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the 50,000-square-foot Doha center houses religious, educational, and social functions.
Image credit: Iwan Baan
The main prayer hall, spanning 9,400 square feet, is oriented 17 degrees off-axis to align with the Qibla. The hall features a curved Qibla wall, skylit mihrab, and a custom-designed carpet that scales the pattern of a traditional prayer rug to accommodate up to 750 worshippers. During Ramadan, the hall’s capacity expands to 1,300 with the extension of prayer space.
Image credit: Iwan Baan
The scheme’s design draws from the mosque’s historical role as a civic center. The roof, punctuated by over 5,000 light wells, filters sunlight into a diffuse light and extends beyond the building to shade outdoor areas. Two olive trees pierce the roof, designed to reinforce the Islamic tradition of harmony with nature.
Image credit: Iwan Baan
Additional features include an open-air ablution space with volcanic stone finishes, classrooms, and a secluded garden landscape modeled on a desert oasis. A reinterpretation of the minaret features speaker clusters that ascend and descend a 39-meter steel-mesh tower for the call to prayer.
Image credit: Iwan Baan
“Al-Mujadilah challenged us to design our first house of worship: How to interpret a traditional architectural typology through a contemporary lens?” said Elizabeth Diller about the scheme. “The mosque’s role of seamlessly bringing together worship and study under one roof led to the building’s distinguishing architectural feature. Its undulating roof arches to shape a grand space for prayerat one end and morphs downward into a slung surface that shelters an intimate space for education at the other.”
“The roof harvests diffuse, sublime daylight from a field of light wells while minimizing heat gain from Doha’s strong sun,” Diller added. “The design was also inspired by Islamic art and architecture in which abstraction serves to represent the transcendent nature of the divine. As a woman, the project was a special opportunity for me to design a space exclusively for women that is flexible and responsive to real-time, everyday needs.”
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