Ramadan Tent Project and V&A present the Ramadan Pavilion 2023, an architectural installation inspired by the holy month of Ramadan, which starts today. The Ramadan Pavilion 2023 is designed by architect Shahed Saleem and will be open to the public at the Exhibition Road Courtyard of the V&A South Kensington until May 1, 2023. As part of the annual festival, the pavilion is accompanied by a series of events, performances, and workshops curated by the Ramadan Tent Project.
Saleem’s design of the Ramadan Pavilion is a response to the first-ever mosque built in the UK by architect Sir William Chambers in the 18th Century. His installation attempts to deconstruct and abstract the 21st-century mosque, alluding to the exotic impact of the first mosque on the European community. The design also draws inspiration from V&A’s print collection of mosques and Islamic architecture. The pavilion with bright colors showcases a modern mosque, exploring the dynamic history and evolution of this architectural symbol in Britain. Furthermore, the pavilion plays around with worship, belonging, and identity themes.
The more I looked at mosques across the country, the more I saw buildings that defied all notions of convention and taste, usually self-designed and built by highly marginalized and economically deprived communities. In this, I saw great resilience, determination and inventiveness. These communities were creating new architectural meanings by drawing from their own lived experience and according to their own rules. In my work I explore this formal vocabulary through sketches and experimental maquettes, and these have now come to fruition in the Ramadan Pavilion which embodies years of observation and exploration.
-- Shahed Saleem, designer of The Ramadan Pavilion.
Islamic Architecture has long been acknowledged as a significant and influential typology in the built environment. Mosque architecture specifically has heavy cultural significance in any country with Muslim inhabitants. Last year, Kuwait held the 3rd international conference on mosque architecture, encouraging a reimagining of religious buildings into a more contemporary, cross-cultural context. Other Islamic architecture typologies have also been significantly explored and deconstructed. In Brighton, Syrian architects Marwa Al-Sabouni and Ghassan Jansiz brought the traditional Riwaq to Brighton’s annual festival.
