Grand Mosque, Abu Dhabi by Halcrow
As seen in arplus.com Halcrow architects have completed the Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi, named after Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nayhan, the late ruler and founder of the United Arab Emirates.This new mosque in Abu Dhabi gradually changes colour with the moon: it is illuminated bright white at full moon and lit deepest blue by the 14th day of the cycle. Jonathan Speirs, director of Speirs and Major Associates, the project’s lighting architects, explains: ‘In the same way as the moon has an impact on the tides, we wanted the moon to have an impact on the building. Our idea was to have a building that, by full moon, is lit pristinely with white light, but with a textural quality evocative of clouds slowly drifting in front of a full white moon. As the moon wanes over its 28 day cycle, the lighting grows gradually bluer to signify darkness. On the fourteenth evening the mosque is lit in deepest blue.’
