Notice Board

Architecture & Design NOW series presents: Tammy Gaber
Beyond the Divide: A Century of Canadian Mosque Design
6 p.m. | March 11, 2024
Room L1060, ULethbridge Library building

In this talk, Dr. Tammy Gaber discusses her research and book, Beyond the Divide: A Century of Canadian Mosque Design, which explores the mosques of Canada in their diversity, beauty, practicality, and versatility. From east to west and to the north, Tammy Gaber visits ninety mosques in more than fifty cities, including Canada’s most northern places of worship in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories. For nearly a century Muslims have made mosques in a variety of spaces, from converted shops and vacated churches to large, purpose-built complexes. Drawing on site photographs, architectural drawings, and interviews, Gaber explores the extraordinary diversity in how these spaces have been designed, built, and used - as places not only of worship, but of community gathering, education, charitable work, and civic engagement. Throughout, Beyond the Divide provides a groundbreaking analysis of gendered space in Canadian mosques, how these spaces are designed and reinforced, and how these divides shape community experience.

Interested in this book? Order a copy in advance from the ULethbridge Bookstore here and have it signed by Tammy at the talk!

Dr. Tammy Gaber is Director and Associate Professor at the McEwen School of Architecture, Laurentian University, which she joined as Founding Faculty in 2013. Dr.Gaber has won won several federally funded grants, and has published extensively and taught in architecture programs for the past two decades. Dr.Gaber’s research and book, Beyond the Divide: A Century of Canadian Mosque Design (McGill-Queen’s Press, 2022) was profiled in the Globe and Mail and various journals, periodicals and television.

In 2019, Dr.Gaber won the Women Who Inspire Award from the Canadian Council of Muslim Women and in 2020 she was awarded Laurentian University’s Teaching Excellence Award for a full-time professor. Dr. Gaber is currently consulting on the design of a large school and mosque in Edmonton. In 2022, Dr.Gaber was awarded SSHRC funding for her research on the sacred spaces designed by the Modernist architects Alvar, Aino and Elissa Aalto and is currently working in collaboration with the Alvar Aalto Foundation in Finland.

Image: Ismaili Centre, Toronto. Photo courtesy Tammy Gaber.