A mosque overlooking the sea

A mosque, before being a sacred worship building, is a place. Faith is, by definition, professed within a community and, by extension, will find expression in people's attitude to life. Its multifunctional character, very different from a Christian church but similar to a synagogue, not only contemplates a religious function for personal/individual praying but also a space where meetings and debates take place. The project is an integration of typical forms of Islamic architecture with traditional architecture, avoiding any type of axiality, at least as regards the direction of orientation toward qibla with existing urban fabric in Via Nuova Marina in Naples already well compromised in the design of the plan. The building adopts the type to the Aula for the prayer room. On the sides of the room, according to a progression that relates to the Islamic rite of catharsis are collocated the service areas divided by gender, and turned with a portico towards the shan, the reception courtyard, which is also an outdoor praying place. At the entrance are located the pool of ablutions for the purification of the spirit. A minaret, almost echoing a beacon to the sea recalls the spiritual gathering and openness towards other cultures and religions in the Mediterranean. As a bell tower has a strong symbolic character: it signals the presence of Islam in a city as diverse and cosmopolitan as Naples. Surely we believe that realizing a mosque to Naples would give this city a great chance, an opportunity to boast, at last, a place of cultural exchange, and, above all, of confrontation and dialogue challenging unacceptable segregation, isolation or exclusion and witnessing his condescension to peaceful coexistence.