Masjid and Mezquita: Translating the Mosque in Contemporary Chile

This paper presents three iterations of mosque architecture in Chile: As-Salam Mosque in Santiago (1989), Bilal Mosque in Iquique (2004), and the Mohammed VI Center for Civilizational Dialogue in Coquimbo (2006). When considered together, these structures—each the product of very different forces—complicate current understandings of the “transnational mosque” paradigm and serve to demonstrate Chile’s particular position within in the broad network of global Islam. In different decades and in different cities, Muslim communities in Chile have received varying degrees of state-sponsored patronage from countries like Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Morocco. It can also be said that during certain periods of time—especially in the 1980s and 1990s—Islam in Chile was afforded a degree of independence from said countries and their influences. This independence, I argue, allowed Islamic architecture in Chile to develop on its own terms and to acquire unique valences within Chilean society. Operating in architectural conversation with one another, and in relative isolation from direct external patronage, the As-Salam Mosque and the Bilal Mosque articulate a new syntax for Islamic architecture that can only be explained as Chilean in form. The Mohamad VI Center, on the other hand, offers us an example of a mosque built and intended specifically for the visual and spatial consumption of non-Muslims in Chile. This paper is at its core an architectural investigation of the practice and reception of Islam in contemporary Chile.