“The Library is Open” Fall 25 Lecture Series: Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation (GSAPP)

Gave a talk  centered around the Rooted Transience project and the AlMusalla Prize at large along with Rooted Transience co-editor Faysal Tabbarah and contributor Ziad Jamaleddine. The talk was followed by discussion with respondents   Navina Najat Haidar (Metropolitan Museum of Art), Jorge Otero-Pailos and dean Andres Jaque. 

Through the Rooted Transience publication, which marks the and celebrated the inaugural edition of the AlMusalla Prize, the musalla was presented as a versatile architectural typology—one that holds immense potential to shape the contemporary architectural discourse at large. Rooted Transience  explores the form and philosophy of a musalla as a temporary prayer space within Islamic cultures. Arising wherever and whenever the need for prayer emerges, a musalla reimagines fixed spatial practices by fluidly adapting to its immediate environment. The elusive typology of a musalla embodies design principles that are deeply rooted both in transience and adaptability. Rooted Transience is an effort to highlight the multivalent natures of musalla spaces by exploring the entangled relationships between the historical, material, and contemporary registers within which they emerge. It brings together essays, reflections, and intimate transcribed conversations between creatives who together try to reveal the multilayered potential meanings behind this transient form.