GFA 6500 m², 4.55 millions USD, 2 storeys
Design: Mattia Malavenda in collaboration with Consulting Engineering Group
Client: Ministry of Religious Affairs

The project of King Abdullah Mosque is located in Oniyza. a town 300 Km north-west from Riyadh, with a population of 160,000, mostly rural and conservative.

The Client, the Ministry of Religious Affairs, commissioned a Juma'ah (Friday) mosque accomodating 3000 prayer spaces, having a non-traditional architectural design style.

The new religious building has a square 50x50 metres plan and reach at the top of the highest couple of minarets 33,5 metres.

The leading idea of the concept is about the most simple man-made construction ever made and still used in desertic and rural areas, to protect from the sun and allow assembly of gathering: the tent.

The roof of the mosque became in this project the most highlighted element of the architecture, that seems like a linen or canopy softly and gently blown by the wind .

At each corner of the four minarets - two towards Mecca are higher than the other two -  a thick structural wall is erected for the entire height and symbolize the four wooden posts antically and still used to support a desertic or nomadic canopy.