Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
“As an architect, I want to create a building that starts to dissolve the notion of hierarchical difference – it should represent universality and totality – something higher, that enhances the richness of human life,” says principal architect of Adjaye Associates, Sir David Adjaye.
Commissioned by the government of the UAE, Adjaye Associates’ Abrahamic Family House opened its doors last week, providing an inter-faith space for three religions incorporating several architectural styles traditionally found in mosques, churches, and synagogues around the world.
The project has been awarded a 2024 International Architecture Award by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
The Abrahamic Family House is a collection of three religious spaces: a mosque, a synagogue and a church, all of which sit upon a secular visitor pavilion.
The house will serve as a community for inter-religious dialogue and exchange, nurturing the values of peaceful co-existence and acceptance among different beliefs, nationalities, and cultures.
Within each of the houses of worship, visitors will have the opportunity to observe religious services, listen to holy scripture, and experience sacred rituals.
The fourth space — not affiliated with any specific religion — will serve as a center for all people of goodwill to come together as one.
The community will also offer educational and event-based programming.
The form is translated from the three faiths, carefully using the lens to define what is similar as opposed to what is different, and using the power of these revelations to make the form.
The design appears as powerful plutonic forms with a clear geometry, three cubes sitting on a plinth – though not aligned, they each have different orientations.
The story then starts to become apparent through the power of the silhouette, unified with commonality and the articulation of the three forms.
These structures represent a safe space, each volume illustrated with colonnades, screens and vaults to represent the sacred nature.
The discovery continues with the common ground, the public space in-between, where the difference connects.
The garden is used as a powerful metaphor, a safe space where community, connection, and civility combine – this space exists between the three chambers, the three faiths.
The podium allows for interaction with each space with no preventative threshold, dissolving the perceptions of not being included, and encouraging the celebration of this collective history and collective identity.
Project: Abrahamic Family House
Architects: Adjaye Associates
Lead Architect: David Adjaye
Contractor: Zublin Construction
Client: Brunswick Group
Photographers: Dror Baldinger
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