Community centers of Muslims of Turkish origin as architectural testimonies to German migration history

Project description

Community centers for Muslims of "Turkish" origin are an integral part of German immigration society and building culture. The perspective on this topic is usually narrowed down to conflicts in the context of representative new mosque buildings. However, the vast majority of Muslim community centers consist of structural conversions, which are often devalued as "backyard mosques". However, their structural location in the second row enables a community life close to the center and thus often also lively, while the few representative buildings tend to be in peripheral locations.

The aim of the research project is to record the often forty-year structural development as well as the social significance of the community centers on the basis of 18 contrastingly selected case studies. The interdisciplinary collaboration between architecture and the social sciences is helping to challenge entrenched and reductionist views of the communities. The structural substance and urban embedding are explored by means of graphic approaches, measurements and photographs. Narrative interviews and ethnographic observations are used to reconstruct the social meanings and appropriation processes of the social spaces. In contrast to the often one-dimensional image of mosques, this analysis shows a variety of structural forms and social processes. These are analyzed in the context of the immigration society and from the perspective of the community members.