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This is a museum model of one of the first
mosques in the world. It was established and
built by the Islamic Prophet Muhammad upon his
arrival to Medina in 622 AD. The mosque itself
was built as an open air building also serving
as a community center, a shelter and a religious
school. After erection of the mosque itself the
following step was building houses for the new
migrants.
The reference material is scarce, and therefore
the research was a challenging and exciting
journey that we took along with the client's
researchers. The research was set not only to
determine the look and feel of the mosque and
surrounding buildings, but also the construction
techniques (mud brick construction in
particular), the utility items and proper
vegetation that was typical for the era and the
place. We would like to think this journey
resulted in establishing a quite accurate look
of the Prophet's Mosque and the surrounding
area.
We created a model where every element is
telling a part of a story. The mosque building
represents how it looked at the early stage -
right after it was built. In a close proximity
to the Mosque there are a few finished houses of
the residents of Medina. Also there are a few
houses under construction representing an
ongoing process of building the houses for the
migrants settling in Medina. There are utility
items - tools, pots, cads, plates, baskets,
hides and oil lamps arranged in the courtyards
and mosque's shelter area - all carefully
crafted according to the reference materials.
Typical oriental clay ovens are placed in the
houses' courtyards. The construction sites
display arrangements demonstrate the process of
making mud bricks, along with appropriate tools
and molds. The model also featuring proper
vegetation, including date palms and Calligonum
- a shrub native to Medina.
The model was designed using our 3D
capabilities. We built it by traditional
machining and manual fabrication, using
structural composites and other modern museum
grade materials. For vegetation we used only the
highest quality model palm trees, bushes and
shrubs. For the roofs we used several hundreds
of single model palm leaves which we ordered
from Europe, from the only provider. These palm
leaves took the model to the next level of
quality - none of the very few existing models
of the Prophet's Mosque featuring such realistic
palm leaf roofs.
This model is illuminated. We hired a team of
engineers, which put together a system of
various amber lights, designed differently for
each object - houses, ovens, lamps in the
shelter and torches at the construction sites.
The electrical scheme includes a circuitry which
cause the lights to flicker and for the lights
in the ovens to flicker and float to simulate
the burning coals.
This model earned the client's recognition for
the high quality, rich content, and its
educational and cultural value. |
