Islamic Architectures of Self-Inclusion and Assurance in a Multicultural Society

Abstract

ABSTRACT Although Muslim migration to Australia’s new world settler society has a long pedigree, their population and civic presence have grown in recent decades. New generations of Muslim migrants require the nation to engage with their histories and post-secular religious pluralism. Part of their history can be traced through their places of worship. This includes temporary structures along the inland telegraph route (the 1850s), the first permanent mosques in South Australia (Adelaide, 1888) and Victoria (Shepparton, 1956–60), and a variety of contemporary mosques as the population grows – indicating more settled lives. The aim was/is to provide sites of communal, spiritual, cultural, social, and educational guidance. Mosques often comprise(d) hybrid designs using a combination of local materials to fit with the existing built environment and to integrate unobtrusively. Recent examples of mosque development indicate a qualitative shift based on interacting social imaginaries of both Muslims and non-Muslims, which serves two key symbolic and social functions: as architectures of self-inclusion, and as architectures of assurance to the dominant, non-Muslim public in a society that resolutely “others” the Islamic faith and Muslim people. This paper explores the complex implications of this two-fold self-inclusion/assurance discourse by way of two case studies: the Hobson’s Bay mosque in Melbourne and the proposed Bendigo mosque.