A City Follows in the Footsteps of an Honored Tradition
Winning entry by Luca Poian Forms Image ©Filippo Bolognese images
Good design seldom happens in a vacuum. And so it was with an international competition for a new mosque in Preston, U.K. A mid-sized city of 95,000, and located in Lancashire near the west coast and almost equally distant from London and Glasgow, Preston has a storied past, going all the way back to the Romans and the late Middle Ages, where it was the site of significant battles. During the Industrial Revolution, the city prospered, and it was not until after World War II that Preston experienced the British version of the U.S. Rust Belt. In the meantime, the city has experienced an upswing in economic activity, with an unemployment rate of only 3%. Aside from the appearance of new industries, the city has benefitted from the establishment of Central Lancashire University (CLU), which employs over 3,000 faculty and staff, and, as such, is one of the regions major employers. Any new university requires new facilities, and one of the most outstanding examples of this at CLU was the new Student Centre and Plaza, a result of a 2016 RIBA-sponsored competition won by Hawkins/Brown (below).
Hawkins/Brown’s winning design for the CLU Student Centre and Plaza (competition (2016)
The Preston Bus Station
In 1969 a new city bus station was built, cited by many as a prime example of the brutalism style. By the early 21st century, the city began to include its demolition as part of a new city plan. Opposition to the demolition plan initially led to several failed attempts to save the building by having it listed as a “Grade II” structure. However, a 2013 filing was successful, causing the city to plan for the refurbishment of the building at a £25M price tag. For the choice of an architect, an international competition, also sponsored by the RIBA, was staged and drew 90 entries from around the world. After being won by a British firm, John Puttick Associates, with a close second place by another U.K. firm, Cassidy + Ashton, the client decided to hire both firms as a team. The resulting refurbishment in 2018 by the two partners won wide acclaim, and even was a candidate for the Stirling Prize. So from this competition, and the one for CLU, one can well assume that a competition style process was not only familiar to the Preston community, but also was well received.
Preston Bus Station (2015 Competition) Photo: courtesy City of Preston
The Preston Mosque Competition
Why a competition for another mosque in Preston when twelve mosques were already in existence? After the dissolution of the British Empire and the resulting arrival of a large number of immigrants from the former colonies, Muslims now make up 20% of the city’s population, and probably increasing. Judging by the vote on the Brexit referendum in 2016, Preston displayed a higher degree of tolerance toward immigrants than its neighbours, most of which voted in large numbers to leave the EU.
The two-stage competition for the new mosque was launched in the spring of 2021 and concluded with a second stage in June of the same year. The competition brief was clear in asking for a design that was not simply a replication of traditional mosque design:
“The intention is to produce a strong and bold design that is clearly identifiable as a place of worship but not necessarily to the extent that it is dominated by the traditional Islamic designs. Similarly, it is acceptable to have an element of Islamic flair or features but this is not paramount and if the building has minarets they should be subtle and modern in appearance. The building should have a clear focal point or strong design features which gives character and visibility at some distance. It should not be so institutionalised as to simply have the look of a contemporary office building.”
As for the area surrounding the main building, it was more specific:
“Consideration should be given to the potential for the creation of an external courtyard area or sahn,* which would be part of the public realm and available for informal meetings or relaxation.”
The guidelines foresaw a building with a maximum of four-stories, featuring a large main hall with capacity for 450 prayer mats plus circulation. As for sustainability, proposals were required to ‘seek to achieve a zero carbon development or as close to this as is reasonably possible’.
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One thing about competitions, and having the fortunate experience I’ve
had, I’ve really learned that being ambitious for your client and society
is hugely important. – James Cheng
This is Thursday, April 11, 2024, and I am in the office of emersion DESIGN with architect James Cheng and J.T. Spence, the latter the former planner of the City of Covington, Kentucky, who was responsible for initiating the Covington Gateway Competition in 1993, won by James Cheng. -Ed
Architect James Cheng (left) Prof. John T. Spence (right)
COMPETITIONS: A question I almost always start off with: At what point in your early life did you decide to become an architect?
James Cheng: It really all started when I was in junior high and high school and really loved my art classes. So I told my dad, who was a chemical engineer, that I wanted to become an artist, and he said, there is no way I’m going to pay for you to become an artist. He had just come back from New Orleans where he saw all these starving artists painting and trying to sell their paintings. So he suggested that I try architecture. We did have a family friend who was an architect. So he had me talk to him, and my dad then found a program for rising high school seniors at Cornell—a little like a summer camp for architecture. This happened to be a wonderful fit for me; but I would not have known about it otherwise at the time. Having been involved in the Arts community, such as the Contemporary Art Center, I can see how difficult an artist’s life is. So I feel really fortunate that I ended up in the architecture profession.
COMPETITIONS: After Cornell, was the Covington competition the first one one you ever entered?
JC: No, I believe I entered a competition for Spectacle Island with some friends; and then there was a small house competition.
Model of Covington Gateway competition winner ©James Cheng
COMPETITIONS: As for the Covington competition, besides our announcement of it, it was pretty well publicized, even internationally. At that time the National Endowment for the Arts had begun to support competitions and may have provided some support for the Covington competition.
Covington Gateway competition diagrams ©James Cheng
J.T. Spence: Jeffry Ollswang (competition adviser) may have somehow been involved with that; but the City of Covington was responsible for the entire support of the competition. It was well publicized: we did posters and mailings, and we received 110 entries globally, from Australia, Japan and seven countries.
JC: I often went to the DAAP library (University of Cincinnati) and may have seen it in COMPETITIONS magazine there.
COMPETITIONS: We never met when you won the competition in Covington. But I was quite familiar with it as we had published an announcement about the competition in our magazine and I was present when the entries were set up for judging. I wondered that the Mayor of Covington never showed up for the events I attended, and thus thought this might be an unfortunate omen for the further development of the project.
JTS: That’s not as impactful as you might think, because Covington has a weak mayoral form of government. Moreover, our mayor had just returned from spending two weeks at the Mayors’ Institute of Design (in Washington) with its founder, Charleston Mayor, Joseph Riley. So he was very supportive of the idea of a competition. It was the other four elected officials that had no outward appreciation for what it meant. So I think they were less motivated to have the Mayor get credit for something in the city and (give the appearance of) diminishing their leadership role in the city.
COMPETITIONS: I was very aware of the mission of the Mayors’ Institute of Design. We were in continuous contact with the people who were running it at the time.
JTS: They gave us a very different vocabulary about what we were trying to get across to the elected officials, which was a vision of Covington’s future.
