Project: Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan ... - Speirs + Major

Project: Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan Mosque, 

Abu Dhabi, UAE 

Client: Department of Municipalities and Agriculture, Abu Dhabi 

Architect: Spatuim Architects 

Interior Architect: Spatium Architects 

Executive Architect: Halcrow 

Photographer: Allan Toft 

Completion Date: 2009 

Discipline: Architecture + Environment 

Awards (Exterior): Award of Excellence, IALD Awards, 2010 

Radiance Award, IALD Awards, 2010 

The Paul Waterbury Award for Interior Lighting Design, Award of 

Distinction, IES Awards, 2010 

(Interior): Public Building Category Winner, MELDA, 2008 

Middle East Project of the Year, MELDA, 2008 

Commended, The Lighting Design Awards, 2009 

Award of Merit, IALD, 2009 

Award of Excellence, IES Illumination Awards, 2009 

Project of the Year, PLDR, 2009 

Designers working with light 

www.speirsandmajor.com 

© 2010 Speirs and Major Associates.

Project: Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan Mosque, 

Abu Dhabi, UAE 








Awards (Exterior): Award of Excellence, IALD Awards, 2010 




(Interior): Public Building Category Winner, MELDA, 2008 









Project: The Exterior of Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan 

Mosque, Abu Dhabi, UAE 








Awards: Award of Excellence, IALD Awards, 2010 






The Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al Nahyan Mosque, commonly 

known as the Grand Mosque of Abu Dhabi, is an extraordinary 

building that attaches special symbolic importance to light. 

About the mosque 

Clad in marble and gold with minarets rising to a height of 107 

metres, the building is the third largest mosque in the world and 

already one of the world’s major religious landmarks, 

accommodating over 30,000 worshippers. 

Construction started in 1997 with the monolithic, concrete 

structure completed in 2000. The building lay dormant until 2003 

when a new design team was appointed. Speirs + Major was 

approached to produce concepts for the entire project, inside and 

out including all public and VIP areas. 

The exterior lighting concept 

The overall concept was designed to ensure the building had a 

landmark impact in the city and provide breathtaking internal 

spaces. As the Islamic religious calendar is based on the lunar 

cycle, the moon became a source of inspiration and a unifying 

element of the design. 

A poetic look was created for the mosque, based on the image of 

a full moon with wisps of cloud moving across its face. The 

building changes subtly as the lunar cycle progresses, bathed in 

cool white light at the full moon, but shifting colour every two 

evenings to a dark blue that signifies no moon. The viewer is never 

able to perceive the building changing from one colour to the next. 

Jonathan Speirs explained: 

“In the same way as the moon has an impact on the tides, 

we wanted the moon to have an impact on the building. The 

idea was to have a building that, by full moon, is lit pristinely 

with white light, but with a textural quality evocative of 

clouds slowly drifting in front of a full white moon. As the 

moon wanes over its 28-day cycle, the lighting grows 

gradually bluer to signify darkness. On the fourteenth 

evening the mosque is lit in deepest blue.” 

Technically complex, the scheme involves hidden projectors which 

create the impression of clouds drifting from the direction of 

Mecca, slowly wrapping around the minarets and domes and 

across the surface of the mosque. 

Maintainability was a crucial issue. In all, some 19,000 luminaires 

were used across the project, yet only six lamp types were used. 


Project: The interior of Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan 

Mosque, Abu Dhabi, UAE 








Awards: Public Building Category Winner, MELDA, 2008 








The interior lighting concept 

Indoors, the lighting design needed to provide coherence to the 

complex architecture and interior design, while being sensitive to 

the individual materials used. There were numerous challenges. 

We had to provide well-lit spaces for various purposes including 

for TV events; architectural details had to be carefully revealed; 

and yet, it was essential to conceal as much equipment from view 

as possible. 

Light sources were integrated into coves, niches, ledges and 

behind the carved wood latticework known as Mashrabiya. The 

aim was to achieve as much of the light appearance and requisite 

levels using indirect wallwashing. 

The result is that the building appears to glow with a natural 

luminance despite the predominance of artificial light sources. The 

designers highlighted special features of the building: marble 

panels, glass mosaics, carved gypsum panels and calligraphy. 

Each material is lit with an appropriate technique revealing its 

texture and natural veining. The Qibla prayer wall, pointing to 

Mecca, has become a unique art piece integrating light and 

material into a symbolic luminous panel. End-emitting fibre 

illuminates a gold-mesh curtain concealed behind the 99 inscribed 

names of Allah, while side glow fibres reveal the organic forms of 

vine fronds. 

Essential to the success of the scheme was a constant process of 

testing and trialling. Concept design workshops and mock-ups 

were required to ensure that the many layered lighting effects 

created a single lit composition.

Project: Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan ... - Speirs + Major

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