A brutalist mosque explores light and spirituality in tropical Kerala

A new brutalist mosque in northern Kerala, India, echoes qualities found in Tadao Ando’s Church of Light – the simple concrete box in Osaka, cut through by a cruciform, remains one of the most iconic and pivotal statements of religious architecture from the late 20th century. Transforming raw materiality and atmosphere into carriers of faith, the Japanese structure made use of light itself as an intangible medium of architecture, poetically solidifying it through the void – a sensibility now found in this new, Indian project.

Tour this brutalist mosque in Kerala, India

Common Ground’s Masjid an-Noorayn, pared back to the elemental, is shaped from just one material: exposed concrete. With the austere gravitas of brutalist architecture and the contemplative simplicity of the Zen philosophy that first inspired Ando, it is configured with deliberate restraint into a low-lying silhouette, contrasting its tropical context. In stripping away the symbols, ornamentation, and forms that have come to typify Islamic architecture over the centuries (such as domes, arches, geometric motifs, crescents, and stars), the rectilinear planes evoke a return to its earliest origins, defined by simple forms and orientation alone.

A counterbalance to the mosque’s stark geometry is a cylindrical minaret and an entryway drawn out through a concave gesture above a pivoting door. This threshold leads worshippers from brightness into dark and heightens the sensorial shift of arrival into the meditative space within.

Inside, without the use of formal windows, the architects’ experimental explorations introduce light in various ways as a symbol of spirituality: a linear skylight follows the curve of an inverted arch and funnels light down across the walls; the minaret doubles as a lightwell; and a narrow incision between the building’s base and the ground invites a faint glow to seep into the prayer hall. A skylight is also positioned above a central mimbar, the pulpit at which the imam delivers his sermons, forming a symbolic link between the earthly and the divine, while softening and purifying the weight of the concrete and its rough textures.

Designing a community mosque today also inevitably carries cultural weight, and notably, Masjid an-Noorayn was conceived by a team of architects consisting of Muslim women. It was led by Common Ground’s founder, Simi Sreedharan, who, from the outset, ensured that women would have equal access to the space as men. The women’s prayer hall is thus given equal presence from the entrance, and nearby, Sreedharan has also integrated a community space that remains open outside of prayer hours, emphasising the mosque as a civic anchor in the community.