What's in a Name?

image courtesy wikipedia.org

How should we name an important temple after it undergoes a complete religious change of use, but only a partial architectural transformation? And what if that temple is, moreover, known around the world because of its original use? Cordova's cathedral was built, after the Christian 'Reconquista' of Al Andalus, in the very middle of that city's sprawling mosque, leaving a significant part of the Moorish monument intact. Yet very few people today refer to it as "la Catedral de Córdoba". Colloquially, it is called "la Mezquita".

Indeed, when I first saw a current change.org petition titled "Save the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordova", I briefly thought for a split second that the building was being threatened with demolition. It turns out, in fact, that the petition is against the official re-naming of the building solely as "Cathedral" some years ago, before which is was referred to as The Mosque-Cathedral of Cordova. What needs to be saved, then, is the historical memory of the building.

Nobody doubts that the building is a cathedral. But for many centuries before that it was a mosque, a fact that cannot be ignored. Today, the vast majority of tourists lining up to visit it do so in order to see its impressive forest of columns supporting horseshoe arches and its mihrab. The Christian interventions, though very impressive, are less interesting. Though ironically, the Christian appropriation of the mosque as the site for a cathedral in its day may have actually been the very thing that saved the mosque from total demolition, as some historians have argued.

So what, then, should this building be named? To refer to it exclusively as the Cathedral, as the Diocese of Cordova is doing, may be technically correct, but that only speaks to a dwindling minority of practicing Christians in this country, while ignoring the very element that makes the building unique in the world. To refer to the structure exclusively as a mosque would also be misleading, since Muslim orations have not occurred there for centuries (though there have been two notable exceptions, in 1974 and 1977, when the first and second international conferences of the Amistad Islamo-Cristiana were held in Cordova).

Perhaps, taking a cue from a certain rock star, the place could be officially named: "The Building Formerly Known As The Great Mosque That Is Today A Cathedral". For short, the authorities could also revert, once again, to simply naming it Cordova's "Mosque-Cathedral". Much more unique-sounding than just another cathedral, which it is not.

Reflected ceiling plan of actual Mosque-Cathedral of Cordova, courtesy otraarquitecturaesposible.blogspot.com

The Forest Metaphor

The Drassanes Reials (royal shipyard) of Barcelona has recently reopened after a lengthy renovation (by architects Robert and Esteve Terradas). The largest work of Catalan Civil Gothic architecture, it is an example of a space that (at a time when architects like to employ nature metaphors in their work) could be likened to a forest. Hundreds of diaphragm arches of subtly different spans rest on a nearly uniform grid of square stone columns.  Scandalously simple, yet powerful.

Mid 18th century map of Barcelona's shipyard

But this shipyard can also be seen to bear some similarity to an another important building: the Great Mosque of Córdoba. Both of these works repetitively and relentlessly employ a single structural system over an expansive area. The beauty of both of these spaces comes precisely from the repetition of similar structural elements at a scale so vast that exterior walls become almost imperceptible from deep within, creating the impression of an infinite space. Indeed, this mosque was described by Muhammad Iqbal as having "countless pillars like rows of palm trees in the oases of Syria".  

Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba

Plan of the Mosque of Córdoba (before Christian intervention)

The architectural uniformity of the Great Mosque is especially noteworthy when we consider the fact that the original mosque was built in four stages, each by different architects. In this day and age, such "cloning" is considered to be unacceptable: when Romaldo Giurgula proposed expanding Louis Kahn's Kimbell Art Museum--another example of beauty (I know, sounds corny) through architectural repetition--by simply adding on more of the same, he was vilified by the North American architectural establishment. Had each of the successive architects of the mosque tried to outdo each other in cleverness, originality and creativity, the resultant space would never have achieved the same quality. The mosque's conversion into a Christian temple and the building of a cathedral as an "intervention" in the very centre of the structure became perceived as a disruption. Charles V himself famously regretted permitting the cathedral's construction before having visited the site himself: "something unique in all the world [was] destroyed...to build something you can find in any city."