Minaret Ban - Icon Magazine - (2010)

A Collaboration with Bernard Khoury / DW5.

15 March, 2012, more than two years after the majority of Swiss voters passed a referendum that banned the construction of minarets in the Swiss territory; the Imams of the four remaining Swiss mosques announce the construction of a demolition device around each mosque that mirrors the vertical architecture of their respective minarets. An open invitation is released to all Swiss citizens to participate in the annihilation of the remaining minarets. The device is aimed to translate this violence into an architectural act. This gesture emphasises the disappearance of matter in opposition to the tradition of erecting structures or monuments as a material manifestation of a political act. As such, the Imams are taking it upon themselves to write their own history by denouncing and physically translating the fears disseminated by the governing party. Celebrations, described by the international press as being an architectural “Ashura”, are taking place in Geneva, Zurich, Winterthur and Wangen bei Olten, where the four minarets in question are razed by the apparatus’ ferocious claws.