From Mud to God: The Mosque of Djenne

It is clear that religion play a significant role in our lives. It is a power to be reckoned with, a source of inner strength, an inspiration for many. This has been true in the past, and it is quite possibly more so now. It comes as no surprise that most architectural landmarks of mankind stem from the need to be loved by God - or gods, as we think of buildings as a way to impress our deities into liking us more than the next civilization, and favoring us above the rest. This is probably why, even in the remotest corners of the world, most structures that have survived the wrath of nature and the cruelty of passing time are those devoted to worshipping. We tend to keep our houses of worship in better condition than our houses of residence.

When one thinks of Africa, the first thing that comes to mind is poverty; this has been the case for much of our recent history. An entire continent - the second largest and the second most populous in fact, with a fifth of its surface area and a seventh of its population - that has been mired with wars, internal and external conflict, disease, drought, famine and corruption and that has become synonymous with "Third World", it is home to more than a billion people. And yet, one has to think very hard to come up with a recent significant accomplishment from the continent, whether in terms of architecture or, anything else for that matter. Yet, even amidst all the poverty and desolation, African people manage to honor their deities. The Great Mosque of Djenne is a testament to that dedication.

Located in the historic town of Djenne in the Inland Niger Delta region of central Mali - which sits in the flood plain of the river Bani, the principal tributary of the Niger river in Mali - the Great Mosque of Djenne is a marvel in the middle of nothing. It is a building built entirely of adobe (the Spanish word for mud brick, which is a brick-like material made of sand, clay, water and any kind of fibrous organic material such as straw or sticks). The choice of material and the architectural style the building is constructed in is consistent with the Sudano-Sahelian style: An umbrella term used for indigenous architectural styles used commonly in Islamic West Africa.

The Sudano-Sahelian style characteristically features adobe, along with large wooden support beams that protrude from the building's facade - the beams used for both decoration and also as scaffolding during the maintenance of the structure. The style dates to as early as 250 B.C., and is still in use in the same region, which makes it one of the longest-lived architectural styles ever.

The first mosque to have occupied the spot is thought to date to the 13th century, although an exact date cannot be given. A wide band of over 120 years is estimated between 1200 A.D. and 1320 A.D. for the construction of this first structure - no actual document referencing the original mosque remains.

The first references to the mosque were made in 17th century, mentioning the building of a mosque by Sultan Kunburu, who converted to Islam and as a consequence, demolished his palace to make space for a new mosque. French explorer Rene Caillie - the first European ever to return alive from Timbuktu - in his trip to the area in 1828 wrote about the mosque, describing it as "a mosque built of earth, surmounted by two massive but not high towers; it is rudely constructed, though very large".

In fact, Caillie's visit coincides with the Fulani people's jihad and conquest of the town of Djenne. The Fulani people, one of the largest ethnic groups of Africa, had taken over the town, and their leader Seku Amadu had abandoned the original mosque in favor of a new and much more austere mosque that he commissioned between 1834 and 1836. This meant that the original mosque was left to fall into disrepair, a certain death verdict for an adobe building in the harsh African climate.

The disuse of the original mosque continued until the end of 19th century - with the French conquering Djenne in 1893, the fate of the building started to change. In 1906, French administrators of the town ordered the rebuilding of the original mosque, using forced labor, although there is strong doubt whether the final structure followed the plan of the original mosque in all aspects.

The current mosque, dating to the French-overseen construction in 1907, features sun-baked adobe walls joined by sand and earth mortar; the walls are coted with a special plaster that endows the structure with a smooth surface. The beams that jut from the walls, called toron, are of rodier palm tree trunks, and ceramic half-pipes are used on the roof to route water away from the building.

The mosque is built on a roughly square platform of 75 meter sides, raised 3 meters above the surrounding plain to protect from flooding of the Bani river. The corners of the outer walls are not precisely orthogonal, meaning that the building plan is not an exact square.

The prayer wall of the mosque faces east - towards Mecca as in all mosques - and is dominated by three boxy minarets, the talles being 16 meters high. The pinnacles on top of these three minarets are  - interestingly - topped with an ostrich egg. The prayer hall has a roof that is supported by arches almost as high as the roof itself, which results in a web of pillars that clutter the interior of the mosque, significantly reducing visibility. The floor of the prayer hall is of sandy earth.

The maintenance of the mosque is an annual event that the entire community takes part in. It involves food and music, and significant amount of hard labor that is required to restore the building to its state before the damages caused by the annual rains and cracks caused by temperature changes. First, the plaster that will be used during the repair is prepared in pits, overseen by guild masters, and children are employed in the constant stirring of the plaster during its preparation - an effort that can last a few days. Then, several men climb the scaffolding of the mosque and apply the plaster onto the building, while other men carry plaster from the pits to the building. Women carry water to the pits and to the workers during the entire effort. The mosque, above all, is a source of pride for residents of Djenne.

The Great Mosque of Djenne has been on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list since 1988, and rightfully so. As an important Islamic learning center since its construction - thanks to its madrasa (Islamic school) complex, it has been a cultural center for the region since its inception. And above all, it is a symbol of a poor people's dedication to their God, year after year.

In Memoriam: WTC Twin Towers

As the world completes yet another full rotation around the sun, another anniversary of one of the most tragic events in recent history is upon us. The September 11th of 2001, a balmy day in fall in New York City, is now almost universally associated with the terrible act of terrorism that occurred on that fateful day. As we conmemorate the 13th year of the September 11 attacks, the most meaningful piece of architecture to look at are the very same ones that were destroyed in those attacks - the World Trade Center twin towers - and remember them not only with their destruction along with many innocent lives, but also with their architectural significance.

The WTC twins, part of a vast seven-building development dubbed the World Trade Center, occupied multiple blocks of prime real estate in Lower Manhattan. The 110-story twin towers - namely the North Tower and the South Tower - were the crown jewels of the development, soaring 417 meters to the sky and holding the honor of being the tallest buildings of the time when they were completed on April 4, 1973. Along with five other buildings that made up the WTC complex, the center offered a whopping 1,240,000 square meters of office space to the city. Until their destruction in 2001, the towers carried an iconic meaning and stayed as highly visible landmarks of New York City.

Plans for a new development at the southwestern tip of Manhattan island were floating as early as the World War II period. The war had left the country's finances in shambles, and a return to normalcy would require the restoration of a sound financial sector. To do that properly, a financial center worth of global scale was needed, and New York City, specifically Manhattan, desperately in need of revitalization and full of opportunities, was the most obvious choice. In 1946, a bill was passed in the New York State legislature that envisaged the establishment of a world trade center which founded a corporation specifically for this purpose. An initial plan of 21 buildings built on ten city blocks was developed; although this plan was later put on hold in 1949 after the dissolving of the World Trade Corporation by the New York State legislature.

Later plans for a world trade center complex were pioneered by the business mogul David Rockefeller, who advocated that the Port Authority (of New York and New Jersey) - a transportation focused venture jointly owned by the two states neighboring the Hudson river, New York and New Jersey - should be the appropriate owner of the project. Following a yer of negotiations, the PANYNJ backed the project in 1961, and location scouting for the new center began. As Lower Manhattan had been left out of recent economic development that Midtown Manhattan had enjoyed, it was floated that this part of the island would be a logical choice for the location.

As the PANYNJ required the approval of both states of New York and New Jersey for the project, there was one issue: the project site would be in New York City, and that would mean spending of New Jersey's money for a project with little benefit to the state. To alleviate these concerns, the location for the center was selected on the shores of West Hudson close to New Jersey (contrary to earlier plans that called for an East Hudson location), and the H&M Railroad (later renamed PATH), a railroad company that operated between the two shores then in deep financial trouble, was acquired by the PANYNJ. Thus the project was born.

Further issues regarding the existing tenants of the location kept the project from going ahead, as courts were involved in the setllement of the issues pertaining to eminent domain. Finally in 1963, the courts gave the green light to the project, and the architect hired to design the center, Minoru Yamasaki, got to work on the daunting task. In 1964, initial plans for the center were made public, and further public outcry ensued: the sheer size of the project scared other real-estate landlords as a huge amount of subsidized office space would be flooding the market and eroding their profits. Nonetheless, these did not slow the project down.

The PANYNJ demanded at least 930,000 square meters of office space for the center, and Yamasaki had to come up with the eventual design that consisted of twin towers each with 110 floors to meet this requirement. An international style building was favored by Yamasaki, who designed two towers with square floor plans with 63 meter sides. His fear of heights dictated the size of the rather small windows of the building.

To overcome the puzzling task of fitting enough elevators to carry people within the towers, the concept of sky lobbies - earlier used in John Hancock Tower in Chicago - was adopted. In this design, several express elevators carried people to sky lobbies on floors 44 and 78, where people would transfer to local elevators to their floors. Other innovative techniques used for the center included the construction of a concrete slurry wall to keep the Hudson river water out of the foundation during construction, and wind experiments carried out in wind tunnels on small scale models of the towers.

Ather the groundbreaking in 1966, the construction team spent more than a full year building the slurry wall. Following the completion of the slurry wall, foundation works began; the actual work on the North Tower started in 1968 and on the South Tower in early 1969. Several mishaps occurred during the construction phase, including strikes, explosions, and other work-related accidents, all in all claiming the lives of 60 workers.

The topping out of the towers were in late 1970 and mid-1971 respectively, with tenants moving in the North Tower in December 1970 and the South Tower in January 1972. The 920,000 cubic meters of earth dug for the construction was used to add land to Manhattan along the West Hudson that measured 210 meters by 452 meters, which was used later for new development. The project overran its estimated budget of 350 million dollars by almost 200 percent, reaching nearly 900 million dollars.

The attacks carried out by al-Qaeda in 2001 led to the eventual collapse of both towers. The crash of the two passenger jets into the buildings resulted in a catastrophe that led to the death of 2752 people, including those present on the planes. The aftermath of the attacks involved one of the largest site clean-up efforts in modern times, and cost hundreds of millions of dollars. An architectural competition was carried out for a new WTC complex, and the proposal of Polish architect Daniel Libeskind was selected for the site. As of 2013, the crowning building of the new complex, the WTC Tower 1, had been completed, becoming the tallest building in the United States. May it have a trouble-free existence.

Reichstag: When a Building is Reborn from the Ashes

The histories of certain countries are more controversial, if not explosive, in nature. As opposed to nations with more serene pasts, these countries have a collection of wars, conflicts and cases of commotion under their belt. The US is one such nation; Japan is another. And Europe has no shortage of such countries, including the UK, France, and perhaps most notably, Germany.

As architecture is nothing but a reflection of the people that create it, it is a rather straightforward assumption that historical buildings of such nations is also full of controversy, not perhaps due to their unconventional architecture, but possibly because they have been - and perhaps still are - associated with the controversies attributed to the nation itself. Take for example the White House; in addition to being a major tourist attraction in Washington D.C., it is also a target for many fundamentalists around the world with a grudge against the US, thanks to its symbolism. Obviously then, the almighty Germany, being one of Europe's most aggressive nations throughout its history, has its own architectural blessing and curse, in the form of a federal assembly building: the Reichstag.

A new building to house the Reichstag - a term which itself was coined earler during the Holy Roman Empire period to denote the national diet - was born of simple necessity: The recently unified German Republic was in need of an assembly place for the national diet in its capital of Berlin. The unification in 1871 had meant that Berlin would house the nation's assembly, and temporary solutions devised to handle this task did not suffice and satisfy Wilhelm I, the first German emperor between the unification in 1871 and his death in 1888.

However, the location selected shortly after unification in 1872 for a new assembly building at the eastern end of Königsplatz was already occupied by an abandoned palace that belonged to Athanasius Raczynski, a wealthy Polish diplomat. Political wrangling between Wilhelm I and Otto von Bismarck regarding the contruction of the building and the issues related to the acquisition of the land for the Reichstag lasted for another decade; only in 1882 was an architectural competition held for the design works of the building.

Paul Wallot, a Frankfurt based architect, was declared as the winner of the competition among almost 200 contestants with his neo-Baroque design; although he was in fact given second place by the jury after his peer Friedrich von Thiersch (who was arguably a better architect than Wallot). Wallot moved to Berlin to oversee his work after this; in fact he did not produce any other significant architectural works throughout his career.

The construction of the edifice began in 1884, and lasted 10 years. Although Wilhelm I was able to be present at the laying of the foundation, he had passed away long before at its inauguration in 1894, which was instead presided over by his grandson, Wilhelm II. Featuring sculpture works by Otto Lessing (who also worked on Neue Kirche - New Church, Technical University of Berlin, Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, Berlin Cathedral, Berlin State Library and Konzerthaus Berlin - Concert Hall of Berlin, all in the capital), the diet building did receive both acclaim for its magnificence and criticism for its arguably over-use of various architectural styles. 

The words "Dem Deutschen Volke" - to the German people - were carved above the main entrance of the building in 1916, which was ironic as this call for dempcracy from the diet building of an empire was swiftly answered in 1918; the end of the World War I meant the proclamation of a republic. The Weimar Republic that rose from the ashes of German Empire would be housed in the same building from 1918 to 1933. That year was what spelled disaster for both the edifice and Germany; a huge fire ravaged the Reichstag on February 27 of 1933, resulting in two things. First was the immediate abandonment of the building as the national assembly. The second was, due to suspicion regarding the fire, the responsibility for the disaster being attributed by the Nazis to the communists - which eventually helped them increase their hold on their power and introduce more totalitarian practices.

The building fell into disuse after this period and was further damaged during Allied air raids, and throughout the period of two Germanies it stayed abandoned, save for a terrible attempt to partially restore it. Paul Baumgarten took the task of restoration to his hands between 1961 and 1964, and during this period he stripped the building of its statues, decorations inside - and partially outside - only to leave a bare-bones structure - a work much criticized later.

A much better attempt to restore the building was carried out by the renowned architect Norman Foster after the unification of East and West Germany in 1990. After the decision to house the unified capital in Berlin once again was given, an architectural contest was held in 1992 for the task of renovation. Foster won this contest, and was given the go to perform his transformation; but before he began his work, Bulgarian-American artish Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude wrapped the building in polypropylene - they had previously performed a similar exhibit at Pont Neuf in Paris - which was seen by millions of visitors.

Foster gutted the entire building, removed all modifications made by Baumgarten but left Cyrillic graffiti written by Soviet forces invading Berlin in 1945 intact. The reconstruction lasted until 1999, with first assembly of Bundestag - German diet - at the Reichstag on 19 April of that year, 66 years after the building was lost to fire. The reconstruction was such a huge success that the building became the second-most visited tourist attraction in Germany after Cologne Cathedral (with 2.7 million visitors in 2006). Visits to the Reichstag's magnificient glass dome - which offers 360 degree views of Berlin and the convening parliament down below - are possible by registration.

History is good at one thing, for certain: At repeating itself in various versions. The Reichstag building has found new life thanks to a twist of fate. Here's to hoping that the rest of its history does not repeat itself.