https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/news/2019/02/07/design-team-selected-for-houston-ismaili-center-in.htmlQuote:
An Ismaili Muslim cultural center is slated for a long-vacant parcel of land in the Montrose area, and the project's design team has now been chosen, according to a Feb. 7 press release from DLR Group|Westlake Reed Leskosky.
The Ismaili Council for the USA selected DLR Group|Westlake Reed Leskosky to lead the project's design alongside London-based design architect Farshid Moussavi and Virginia-based landscape architecture firm Nelson Byrd Woltz, which has a Houston office. DLR Group|WRL was formed in 2016 when the Cleveland-based firm joined DLR Group, which has an office in Houston. DLR Group|WRL and Farshid Moussavi Architecture previously collaborated on the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland.
The new Ismaili Center in Houston will be at the southeast corner of Allen Parkway and Montrose Boulevard, per the release. It's intended to "serve as a national hub for the social, cultural and intellectual activities of the Ismaili Muslim community," the release states. It will feature a Jamatkhana or prayer hall educational spaces, a social hall and several multipurpose meeting and conference spaces, per the release.
There are already six Ismaili Jamatkhanas (mosques) in Houston serving about 40,000 people, but this one fills a hole by serving all the yuppies and people who live in the city rather than Sugarland, Richmond, Pearland, or Cypress. Centers are different from Jamatkhanas in that they are much more multipurpose and community oriented rather than just being a prayer house, and they're far more open to the public because they're built with the purpose of being community and outreach centers.
This is what the Toronto center looks like, built recently:
inside the glass dome:
This is the recently built Tajikistan one:
inside:
This is the older one in Canada, in Burnaby (near Vancouver)
Inside:
