Architect Angelo Candalepas and designer Peter Gould co-host a tour and talk of the award-winning Punchbowl Mosque, highlighting its importance as a place of worship for the communities it serves and exploring its award-winning design.
Located in one of Sydney's largest Muslim communities, Punchbowl Mosque unites concepts of religion, history and faith while elevating ‘cultural meaning’ to a contemporary context. This union is most evident in the main prayer space and the mosque’s extraordinary design.
Adorned with 102 exposed concrete domes, cast in-situ, the volume references the ornamental vaulting of muqarnas of a more traditional Islamic architecture. The architects’ design notes explain the 30mm opening at the centre of each muqarna directs rays of sunlight to illuminate the main prayer space as the sun moves around from dawn prayer through midday and mid-afternoon prayer, prior to sunset and evening prayers.
Built after 23 years of planning and advocacy by the local community, the mosque embodies a progressive Australian cultural identity and demonstrates how contemporary religious architecture when executed with a deeper understanding has the power to restore our commitment to individual and collective spirituality.
Candalepas Associates’ design was lauded as a ‘modern architectural masterpiece’ by Timothy Horton, director of the Sydney Architecture Festival, when it was awarded the Sulman Medal for Public Architecture in the 2018 Australian Institute of Architecture Awards.
Angelo Candalepas is the founder of Candalepas Associates and a multi-award-winning architect. Since 1999,the office has won and been shortlisted in several international and national design competitions including most recently The Fox: NGV Contemporary. The firm hasgained accolades locally and internationally including the Australian Institute of Architects (AIA) Sulman Medal for Public Architecture in 2009 and 2018, the Frederick Romberg National Architecture Award in 2011, the Seidler Award for Commercial Architecture in 2016 and the Aaron M Bolot Award for Residential Architecturein 2011, 2013, 2017 and 2019. In 2016 he was also awarded the Premier’s Award for Architecture in NSW.Angelo was made a Life Fellow of the Australian Institute of Architects in 2019 and in 2020 was presented with the University of Technology Alumni Award for Design, Architecture and Building, in recognition of his commitment to the profession.
Peter Gould leads a strategic design consulting firm based in Sydney, Dubaiand Jakarta. Gould Studio advocates for heart-centred design to create meaningful brands, cross-cultural understandingand transformative change.
His engagements across the last 20 years have included Apple, Google, United Nations, Greenpeace, Dubai Culture and a diverse portfolio from senior government projects to Web3 startups.Peter is a recipient of the Stanford Certificate of Innovation & Entrepreneurship and has lectured indesign thinking at the University of Technology Sydney.
He has gained international acclaim for his design expertise, including a major award from the UAE Vice-President. In 2020, Peter was appointed as an UNHCR Ambassador for Australia in recognition of his efforts supporting refugees.
‘There is a present trepidation about entering into the realm of the spiritual. A realm that has a transcending power over us, if fully comprehended. Architecture is one of the arts that can allow a "universal’ understanding of emotional experience to form an epiphany.’
On Bidjigal land
Punchbowl Mosque
25–27 Matthews St
Punchbowl NSW 2196
Modest dress code applies for all visitors. All females entering the mosque will also be required to wear a headscarf to cover their hair.
