Category: Religious
Type: Mosque
Location: Karaağaç Neighbourhood, Büyükçekmece
Date: 2011-2013
Period: Republic of Türkiye
Designer: Emre Arolat
Photos: Emre Arolat Architecture (emrearolat.com)
Conceived for the Sancaklar family on a sloping site overlooking Büyükçekmece Lake amid suburban gated communities, the mosque rejects the conventional classical Ottoman scheme and instead pursues the “essence” of worship space through a topography-driven, almost disappearing architecture anchored into the earth. From the street, the complex is marked mainly by low, horizontal courtyard walls and a vertical prismatic stone minaret, while a descending sequence of terraces and steps follows the natural slope to a lower-level entrance court animated by supporting social functions such as a tea house, communal space, and library. The prayer hall is reached directly from this level as a cave-like, materially honest interior where walls and ceiling amplify a sense of humility and purification, and where the primary “ornament” is controlled daylight entering through slits and fractures along the qiblah wall to strengthen directionality and shift with time. Programmatically, the ensemble integrates ablution and restroom facilities, as well as an imam’s house with direct access to the hall, and it introduces a distinct elevated area for women that allows participation without relegation to the back. The building’s submergence and continuous green roof provide passive thermal moderation, while a low-maintenance prairie landscape strategy reduces water and energy demands, reinforcing the project’s aim to merge architecture, light, and ground into a quiet, contemporary sacred environment.
