London Central Mosque
— — a gold dome over the plane trees.
Not only on a wall.
“The gold dome rises above Regent's Park, between Hanover Gate and the Outer Circle. The mosque opened in 1977 to a design by Frederick Gibberd, on land King George VI made over in 1944 in exchange for the Cairo cathedral site. The hall holds five thousand at Friday prayer. The minaret reads from the boating lake on a clear afternoon.
London Central Mosque, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
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The place, in three passes.
The London Central Mosque sits at 146 Park Road, on the northwest edge of Regent's Park in the City of Westminster. The site was granted by King George VI in 1944 in exchange for land for an Anglican cathedral in Cairo. A 1969 design competition was won by Sir Frederick Gibberd, the architect of Liverpool's Metropolitan Cathedral. The mosque opened on 21 July 1977. The main prayer hall holds about 5,000 worshippers under a single gold-glazed dome; an adjoining minaret of roughly 141 feet carries the call to prayer.
Gibberd's design rests on a square concrete frame faced in Portland stone and topped by a shallow gold-glazed dome reaching roughly 25 metres at its crown. Inside, the prayer hall opens uninterrupted under the dome, the floor laid with a single dark blue carpet patterned to mark prayer lines toward Mecca. The mihrab is faced in blue and gold tile. The chandelier was a 1977 opening gift. The minaret rises about 141 feet against the line of plane trees along the Outer Circle, a quiet landmark visible from the boating lake.
The mosque welcomes non-Muslim visitors outside the five daily prayers and the busy Friday midday window. The nearest tube is Baker Street, an eight-minute walk south along Park Road; Marylebone station is a similar distance to the southwest. Modest dress is required for both men and women; women cover the head before entering the prayer hall, and all visitors remove shoes at the threshold. There is no admission charge. The bookshop and the Islamic Cultural Centre on the same site are open most days.