Islam in Iberia.

In creating a building for Muslims in Portugal, Raj Rewal has drawn upon traditions both of the nation and of traditional Islamic countries. Martin Meade reports on the Ismaili Centre.

The past 15 years have seen the environs of Lisbon succumb to ever denser urban sprawl. Oblivious to the erstwhile picturesque charms of the pine, cork-oak and olive grove-studded landscape which so captivated William Beckford's romantic sensibilities in the 780s, unfettered low- and high-rise development strides relentlessly over hill and dale. This has occurred most noticeably north-west of the city where it has not only crushed the once bucolic horizons of Queluz (the exquisite Rococo summer palace of the Portuguese court), but now encroaches on the Sierra de Sintra itself. Left in the wake of this proliferation. Benfica (its eponymous football stadium apart) has been swamped by a sea of amorphous new 'districts', ring-roads and expressways, what otherwise remained of its identity superseded by the overweening presence of the Colombo Shopping Centre. It is in these uninviting environs surrounded by high-rise apartments. the Avenida Lusiada and the north-south expressway, that one discovers the peaceful hav en of the Lisbon Ismaili Centre, recently completed to designs by Raj Rewal.

Ismaili Muslims, whose hereditary spiritual leader is the Aga Khan, have long-established roots in Europe and the new Centre in Lisbon manifests the cultural self-confidence of a well integrated, prospering immigrant community. The London Ismaili Centre (by architects Casson-Conder) opened in 1983 and, by the 1990s, there were demands for a similar religious and socio-cultural centre on the continent. Sizable Ismaili communities have settled in Spain and, notably, in Portugal which has had an Ismaili national council since 1979 and a branch of the Aga Khan Foundation's Development Network since 1983, both located in Lisbon.

As the Portuguese national council already had plans to acquire the Lisbon site for a permanent place of worship, it was decided the project could be developed effectively for the benefit of the greater Ismaili community in and beyond the Iberian peninsula. Acting on their behalf, the Aga Khan Foundation then invited five architects from different countries and backgrounds to submit designs for the new Centre, among them Raj Rewal's Delhi based practice.

In conjunction with the spiritual core of the Jamatkhana (Prayer Hall), the brief required a social hall, community and multi-purpose areas, suitable premises for the Aga Khan Foundation and the Ismaili Institutional Council, as well as teaching facilities for the Centre's extensive educational, cultural and economic programmes. Moreover, it was stipulated that the Ismaili community should be provided with an architecture that would not only be distinctive but would also merge into and reflect Portuguese urban values, conferring an appropriate sense of place -- something of a tall order given the harsh environment of the site in this new part of Lisbon.

Rewal's concept--using modern technology and functional analysis to devise a novel, composite stone-and-steel lattice framework for his complex of buildings ranged around cloistered courts or patios -- sought to express the link between tradition and modernity, between the Ismaili community and its host country, by fusing Iberian architectural traditions with the iconic geometrical designs that embody the cultural and spiritual canons of Islam. Deemed the most appropriate response to the brief, Rewal's proposal was selected from the five contenders and it has since been refined in detailed discussions with the community's leaders.

Allusions to the morphologies of northern India's rich sedimentation of past civilizations and to resonances encountered elsewhere, around the Mediterranean seaboard for example, have distinguished Raj Rewal's work since the late 1970s (AR August 1987 and October 2002). Exploiting the thematic geometries of urban vernacular traditions as much as temple and later Indo-Moghul architecture, he has developed analogous concepts both in institutional and housing schemes. Devised in rational terms, on the principle of 'change within continuity', they combine new and old techniques and materials to meet functional needs.

The intrinsic merits of local materials -- brick apart, long despised in India on ideological modernist, post-colonial and social grounds -- have undergone a similar, if more cautious reappraisal. Rewal has taken progressive advantage of local red and buff sandstone for his buildings in New Delhi, whether in the form of cladding panels, chip-faced render or, increasingly, as an integral structural component. By comparison with concrete, he says, ancient Indian temples, Fatehpur Sikri (the Emperor Akbar's Palace near Agra) and Lutyens's New Delhi complex all testify to this magificent stone's exceptional weathering and insulation properties. And, what is more, 'it happens that sandstone in India is also the cheapest building material'.

Rewal's first experiment with computerized precision stone cutting and new jointing techniques was for the World Bank building in New Delhi; they have been fully implemented, too, in his recently completed Parliamentary Library in the same city (AR October 2002)--fruit of a competition he won in 1991, shortly before his successful proposal for the Lisbon Ismaili Centre. Given their closeness in time, it comes as no surprise to find these two buildings have certain features in common. For instance, the domes over the main spaces of the New Delhi Library, with the compression of their cellular shells supported by the tension members of steel trusses, anticipate the concept of the domical vaulting adopted for the Lisbon Ismaili Centre.

In the wake of the New Delhi Library, the Ismaili Centre has provided Rewal with an opportunity further to develop his ideas for a contemporary stone idiom. The Portuguese quarrying industry, perpetuating the country's great tradition of building in granite or limestone, has computerized machinery capable of tailoring its mass-produced slabs to meet the most exacting specifications. Having visited the granite stoneyards at Sintra and seen how they could produce and assemble repetitive components, Rewal decided on a structural system for the Ismaili Centre which, informed by the latest engineering software, would effectively flitch the compressive strength of stone with the tensile strength of steel. The late Peter Rice, who had devised a structure of stone arches and steel tension rods for a pavilion at the Seville Exhibition, was consulted early in the design stage. Then, as Lisbon is within an earthquake zone, the local firm Julio Appleton A2P was appointed for the detailed structural design. The walls of t he Lisbon Ismaili Centre take the form of a composite lattice of granite members and steel tubes: for the large volume of the Prayer Hall, the lattice is doubled and braced by stainless-steel tie rods, while the limestone domical vaults of its roof are supported on similar tubular trusses. Lioz limestone is extensively used for cladding, its contrast with the granite lattice denoting the structural and non-structural use of stone. These materials are woven together to form geometrical patterns with glass or ceramic tiles, to enlarge or enclose spaces.

However, Islamic sources and the Iberian Peninsula's own heritage of Moorish and Gothic monuments (notably the exceptional late Gothic and Manueline ribbed vaults and cloisters of the monastery of Batalha or the Jeronimos in Lisbon) have furnished Rewal with equally significant and appropriate design precedents. The intricate geometries of stone jalis (lattices) found in the Islamic architecture of Fatehpur Sikri and Agra in India, or in Spain the Alhambra, provided a direct inspiration for the structural concept.

The same historical morphologies have been assimilated for the functional layout of the Centre. In orienting the Prayer Hall towards Mecca at the higher, north-east end of the sloping site, Rewal has referred to Fatehpur Sikri where the Great Mosque commands the highest point of the ridge and the complex of palace courtyards stretches out in echelon below. Combined with the concept of the Paradise Garden and the Gothic cloister, the Fatehpur Sikri plan has served to group the public spaces in the design (the Jamatkhana, Social Hall and Community facilities) around enclosed but interconnected courtyards on the ground floor.

The first floor is reserved for educational, institutional and Aga Khan Foundation services, disposed round smaller patios. The imposing entrance hall gives onto the central court laid out as a Char Bagh or garden-of-four-parts, replete with fountain, stone water-channels and flowering plants -- a soothing, peaceful buffer zone after the stress of the urban environment. Contained between the Social Hall and multi-purpose hall, the community courtyard can function as over-spill space for cultural and community activities. At the head of the complex, approached by a flight of steps divided by a chadar or water-chute (a digital ceramic mural by Raoul Rewal covers the east wall), the Jamatkhana courtyard extends the Prayer Hall in the traditional manner. Surrounded by a cloister, this contemplative space is isolated from the rest of the Centre by the change in level; an axial western gateway gives occasional ceremonial access from the grounds.

This inward-looking courtyard layout has been logically adapted to ensure privacy from surrounding high-rise housing and, in conjunction with the landscaped grounds and their protective fringe of trees, acts as a baffle against the busy avenue and expressway. At the same time, it reflects Rewal's overall aim for the Lisbon Ismaili Centre: to provide the community with a distinctive contemporary building 'evocative without mimicry' both of Iberian architectural traditions and the doctrine of cosmic unity 'where one is part of the whole' central to Islamic philosophy and art.

Certainly within the grotesque urban proliferation in this part of town, he has provided a welcome oasis in response to the spiritual and social requirements of the brief. One can only regret that some finer flights of the concept have been translated somewhat ponderously into built form. Rather like Viollet-le-Duc, whose designs for iron tension-strutted masonry domes share an unexpected similarity with the domical vaults in the Lisbon Ismaili Centre and the New Delhi Parliamentary Library (as pointed out by Peter Davey in AR October 2002), Rewal's passage a l'acte sometimes lacks a certain lightness of touch.

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