台北清真寺

Taipei Grand Mosque

Engineering Graphics Project 1

Group Members:

B03204028 王雪川

B04501122 葛愛娜

Professor:陳柏華

Introduction: The Taipei Grand Mosque is the largest and most famous mosque in Taiwan with a

total area of 2,747 square meters. Located in the Da'an district of Taipei City, it is

Taiwan's most important Islamic structure and was registered as a historic landmark

on 29 June 1999 by the Taipei City Government.

Architectural description

Architect Yang Cho-cheng

Architectural type Mosque

General contractor Continental Engineering Corporation

Completed 1947 (original building)

13 April 1960 (current building)

Construction cost US$250,000

Capacity 1,000 worshipers

Dome(s) 1

Dome height (outer) 15 meters

Dome dia. (outer) 15 meters

Minaret(s) 2

Minaret height 20 meters

N Taipei Grand Mosque was built according to Islamic religion and Arabic

architecture. It was design by architect Yang Cho-cheng, the same architect that

designed the Taipei Grand Hotel, Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, National Theater

and Concert Hall and many other landmark buildings in Taiwan. The main structure

was built using reinforced concrete.

The mosque has an enormous greenish-bronze domed roof at a 15 meters

height and 15 meters of diameter, and is supported entirely without beams. It is

wrapped by brass sheets.

Due to oxidation with air has turned the dome from spangle to verdigris. The

dome has two Byzantium style onion-shaped-spires. Crescent decorations sit at the

tip of the spires and at the iron railings. The mosque also has two minarets with a

height of 20 meters each located at both ends of the building. The minarets are grey

in color with a red-colored neck and an onion-shaped spire on top.

Surrounding the main prayer hall is the Roman-style colonnade and Byzantium

architectural style. The mosque corridors are filled with corbel arches that extend to

both ends.

Other facilities include a reception hall, prayer hall, side arcades, administrative

offices, library, reposing room, ablution rooms.

Measurement Method

At first, we tried to take two points from a base line perpendicular to the

mosque, then measure their angles and calculate the height. We soon found out that

this method requires incredibly precise equipment, which we don’t have. So we

combined other methods:

Roller tape: this is the most accurate measurement we have, though it is only

ideal for short to moderate length. Luckily, Islamic architecture puts great emphasis

on symmetry and geometry (some of their architecture are even built according to

their sacred ratio or number), this means we don’t have to measure every detail to

get the result.

Bricks: The Mosque construction material is mostly concrete bricks (blocks),

large enough for rough measurements. We first record the width, height, and

thickness of a single brick, then counted them on the facade. Other repetitive

patterns, like window tiles, were also measured and counted. We have to recheck its

accuracy while drawing the model.

Fig2.1 roller tape

Fig 2.2 Data concerning block, window tile, and other patterns

Hand-drawn plan: Before Autocad, we did a hand drawn plan for the front view,

side views. The structure is symmetric, so the front has only one side. Unfortunately,

not much information of the back view can be obtained, since it’s blocked by

apartments and without any alleyway.

Fig 2.3 Half of a Front View

SketchUp Model: There is a SketchUp model from 3D warehouse. To verify its

precision, we compared the model’s first level of the left tower’s height to our

calculation.

13 blocks=63.4cm (1cm of spacing included)*13=8.242m

SketchUp: 8.23m

The deviation is 1cm, which is quite acceptable.

(Though closer to the side wings, the deviation also becomes greater.)

Fig 2.5 SketchUp Model

Online Research: For multiple reference (in case the model is faulty), we

checked some significant height data. On Wikipedia, the recorded dome height

is 15 m, and the two minarets (叫拜塔) are 20 m.

Photo: If all else fails, take a picture and relate the desired length to other

known measurements on the same photo.

Fig 2.6 Various views

(a) Front Side

(b) End of the Wing

(c) Tower Close-up

(d) Left Side view

(e) (Top) Right Side View

(f) (Right) Corridors

Problems:

1. Lack of details of the back view

2. Dome measurement and reconstruction is really difficult

3. Bricks may vary on different walls

4. The surrounding fence creates visual barrier, and streets are not wide

enough to take a panoramic photo.

AutoCAD Reconstruction Front View

Close-ups:

Window Tiles

The following

snapshots

shows some

basic geometry.

The basic

modifying

tools, like

MOVE, COPY, LINE,

PLINE, CIRCLE, TRIM

were frequently used in

every section and will

not be specified. For

duplicating the tiles, we

used ARRAY to create

rows and columns. Then

MIRROR the stripes and

composed the entire window into a BLOCK.

Arch

Here comes a technical issue: we can’t measure

where the arch starts to curve, but we know the

height of the arch, and the distance between the

two pillars. So we use 3 lines tangent to the

CIRCLE (三切線做圓).

Façade

OFFSET for the equally-spaced blocks.

Columns

Since we keep recalibrating the total length by

comparing SketchUp model with measured or

calculated width, the columns are always

shifting. So apart from FILLET, ARRAY to get the

shape and numbers correct, we have to use a lot of EXTEND, OFFSET to re-adjust.

Corridor

The disadvantage of ARRAY, BLOCK is that one component cannot be freely edited,

but EXPLODE can separate the object back to their many segments.

Minaret

Create a Layer and marked them as another color to

distinguish. For the top part we used ELLIPSE,

SPLINE, FILLET to draw the onion domes. The red

lines are for assistance.

Umbrella Dome

The height is 15 m and not exactly a hemisphere. So

we use 3 points of a CIRCLE. ROTATE, SCALE, FILLET,

ELLIPSE were also used to fix the dome’s decoration.

The Tip of the Tower

Same as building the minaret, we construct red lines to make an egg-shaped dome.

The technique is same as the domes.

Right Side View

We used BLOCK to compose the window into objects, then copy the domes and

minarets from the front view. Some symmetric elements were copied to the other

side view, such as the tower.

Left SideView

Back View

This was actually the front view with the windows removed. Some extra lines

were added with reference to the SketchUp model.

Plan View

Copied the lines from the four views and with additional reference to the 3d model.

Reference:

Wikipedia

Site analysis

SketchUp Model