On a hot autumn day in southern Texas, monarch butterflies flit around the gardens of Houston\u2019s new Ismaili Centre. Fragile and gaudy, they are on their way south to overwinter in Mexico, travelling up to 3,000 miles in a typical migration cycle, an epic feat of insectile endurance.<\/p>\n
Their combination of delicacy and stamina is an apt metaphor for the Ismaili Centre, a building that has taken seven years to realise and is designed to last for a century or more. It\u2019s a place where Houston\u2019s 40,000-strong Ismaili Muslim community, one of the largest in the US, can practise their faith but it\u2019s also a venue for shared activities.<\/p>\n
Its architect is Farshid Moussavi, who elegantly eludes being pinned down to a signature style. Her buildings can be florid, like the John Lewis store in Leicester, wrapped in a gorgeous glass epidermis of ornamental curlicues, or they can be laconic, like the extension to the Zabludowicz Collection in London, contained in a monastically austere box made of long, thin Roman bricks.<\/p>\n
Each time she embarks on a project there is a sense of starting anew, rather than relapsing into stylistic cruise control. \u201cEach project is different,\u201d she says, \u201cbecause it deals with different circumstances and a different set of possibilities\u201d.<\/p>\n
Moussavi has built in America before. Cleveland\u2019s Museum of Contemporary Art<\/a>, completed in 2012, is a glittering cuboid pavilion, a kind of tailored Dark Star sheathed in black stainless steel. The Ismaili Centre could not be more different. Enveloped in what Moussavi describes as a \u201ctapestry of stone\u201d, it is conceived as an ensemble of spaces which subtly abstracts and refines the essence of Islamic architecture.<\/p>\n Traces of Persian tradition are evident in the perforated stone screens and in the eivans, or open-columned verandas, designed to provide shade and shelter in Houston\u2019s sizzling climate. Acting as social spaces and viewing platforms, they invite movement between inside and out, accentuating the building\u2019s permeability. Simple yet expansive moves are augmented by thoughtful details, conjuring a building that feels tranquil and timeless, rather than enslaved to the vagaries of fashion.<\/p>\n As the seventh Ismaili Centre to be opened in four decades, Houston forms part of a global network that extends from Dushanbe in Tajikistan to Vancouver on Canada\u2019s west coast, reflecting the geographic and cultural plurality of the Ismaili diaspora. Originating in the ninth century as a Shia Muslim sect and now with around 12 million adherents in over 70 countries, Ismailis are guided by a hereditary spiritual leader, or imam.<\/p>\n The current incumbent is Prince Rahim, Aga Khan V, who succeeded earlier this year on the death of his father, Prince Karim, Aga Khan IV. The latter was an especially active patron of architecture, establishing the triennial Aga Khan awards for architecture<\/a> in 1977, intended to honour buildings and development projects of exceptional quality across the Muslim world and its wider diaspora.<\/p>\n A softly glowing lantern \u2026 the Ismaili Centre, Houston, at night. Photograph: Iwan Baan<\/p>\n As places for spiritual reflection, cultural exchange and public dialogue, each Ismaili Centre is a set-piece project, freighted with the architectural ambitions of its particular era. But while the one in London, designed by genteel modernist Hugh Casson and inaugurated by Margaret Thatcher in 1985, is characterised by a slightly self-conscious appropriation of Islamic motifs, Moussavi\u2019s Houston iteration is a more nuanced distillation of geometric and spatial possibilities set within a luxuriant garden landscape.<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea was not to resort to representational mimicry,\u201d explains Moussavi. \u201cIf you look at the architecture of the Muslim world, it varies hugely with geography. So our project has been about using architectural instruments, such as geometry and the use of light, order, repetition and structure as ways to create certain kinds of spatial experiences. The aim is not to evoke nostalgia, but to look forward: a renewal rather than a reproduction.\u201d<\/p>\n Most obviously, the geometric device of a triangular grid threads its way through the five-storey building and its gardens. Unifying structure and ornament, the triangular motif also pops up in screens, light fittings, floors and furniture. \u201cI love that this deep sense of order becomes intuitive,\u201d says Moussavi, \u201cand that the idea of playing repeatedly with a triangle generates a kind of experiential serenity and simplicity, as it does in minimalist art.\u201d<\/p>\n Though she is not a member of the Ismaili community, the transmigration of Muslim culture mirrors the arc of Moussavi\u2019s early life, which extends from the Caspian Sea all the way to Dundee, where she initially studied architecture. Brought up in Sari, in northern Iran, her family came to the UK in 1979 following the Iranian Revolution. She founded her current practice, Farshid Moussavi Architecture<\/a>, in 2011 and currently combines a Harvard professorship with her role as \u201ctown architect\u201d of Lewisham, a new pilot scheme<\/a> developed by London mayor Sadiq Khan aimed at uplifting high streets and improving public spaces.<\/p>\n Within an hour\u2019s drive of the Gulf of Mexico, Houston may have a reputation for incubating alpha male oil barons and astronauts, but today it\u2019s one of America\u2019s most diverse cities. Occupying around the same area as London, but with a quarter of its population, Houston is a typically strung-out and sprawling North American conurbation. Here, the car is king.<\/p>\n From this perspective, the Ismaili Centre appears as a super-crisp volume of stone and glass, with overhanging roofs, like giant hat brims, shading the eivans. But after dark, the opacity of the stone dissolves into a pixelated mass as light percolates through it, transforming the building into a softly glowing lantern.<\/p>\n The stone carapace is a non-structural screen made from small square pieces threaded together by steel tension rods. \u201cIt\u2019s as if you\u2019re weaving a carpet on a loom,\u201d explains Moussavi, \u201cso it\u2019s something quite light and delicate despite it being in stone.\u201d Certain pieces have triangular or scallop-shaped cut-outs, so the \u201cweave\u201d of the stone screen changes according to the function of the spaces it encloses.<\/p>\n In the main event hall, scallop-shaped cut-outs at seated height gradually transition to triangular ones, allowing views out, but also admitting sunlight. \u201cThe shadows are really amazing,\u201d says Moussavi. \u201cIt suddenly becomes a room full of patterns.\u201d<\/p>\n Boundless in spirit \u2026 the prayer hall (jamatkhana). Photograph: Iwan Baan<\/p>\n Perforated screens also enclose the main atrium, whirling around a central void, as your eye is drawn ever upwards to a square oculus framing a chunk of sky. Public functions, such as a cafe, black box theatre, exhibition gallery and event hall are arrayed around this core space, with private offices and meeting rooms set on the topmost floors.<\/p>\n Throughout, various shades of blue predominate, from teal to sky and duck egg, a colour that holds special significance in Persian architecture. Here, however, the blue connects the building with the heavenly Texan sky, as well as the legacy of Islamic architecture. The blue soffits of the external eivans extend inward, bringing the sky closer and reinforcing a sense of openness.<\/p>\n At the heart of the building is the jamatkhana, or Ismaili prayer hall, a voluminous column-free space capable of accommodating 1,500 people. Its ceiling comprises two layers of gauzy aluminium lit from behind, so it shimmers lightly, almost dematerialising, while a patterned ivory carpet, a colour uniquely associated with the Persian city of Nain, covers the floor.<\/p>\n \u201cWe thought the prayer hall should be somehow boundless in spirit rather than weighing on you,\u201d says Moussavi. The intricate ceiling pattern recalls traditional Islamic jali screens generating a soft, seemingly infinite effect. Walls lined with American cherry wood are embellished with precisely pointillist Kufic script and instead of an ornately decorated mihrab, the direction of worship is indicated by a vertical band of light radiating from an illuminated niche.<\/p>\n Landscape is integral to the project, as an optimistic expression of cultural continuity, but also as a work of resilient environmental engineering to mitigate the impact of heat and flooding. The topography of the long, sloping site echoes ancient Persian gardens stepping down to a river. Landscape architect Thomas Woltz undertook a year-long study across historic sites in Spain, Egypt, and India to explore the spatial, sensory and cultural aspects of Islamic gardens.<\/p>\n Woltz\u2019s planting strategy is designed as a \u201ctransect of Texas\u201d, using exclusively native species, beginning with desert cacti and moving through the prairie to the Gulf Coast, mirroring the adaptability of the Ismaili community in new homelands. Conceived not as a static garden but as an evolving ecosystem, the site will bloom and mature over time. The migrating monarch butterflies will doubtless become regulars.<\/p>\n One especially resonant aspect of the project is how deeply it is rooted within the Ismaili community. Many locals assisted in the centre\u2019s construction or donated materials in kind. Now open to the public, the building will be largely staffed by volunteers. \u201cIt really is a community project in every sense of the word,\u201d says Moussavi. \u201cWe\u2019ve provided the community with the hardware \u2013 the building itself \u2013 and now, I\u2019m sure, the software, the people and activities, will bring it to life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On a hot autumn day in southern Texas, monarch butterflies flit around the gardens of Houston\u2019s new Ismaili…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88],"class_list":{"0":"post-303284","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}