TAJ MAHAL IN LONDON

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22070, 28 September 1933, Page 16

TAJ MAHAL IN LONDON

4-7——'. ' PLANS FOR MOSLEM CENTRE SITE NEAR PICCADILLY. A Tai Mahal on Carlton House terrace —the liaU glittering with a £171.000 Moslem mosque, with copper green dome* Eastern garden and minaret from which the call of the faithful to prayer will echo across St. James Park . dilly. This is the fantastic possibility of a gigantic scheme organised by the Nation League to build a Moslem centre in the heart of London. . The National League is one of the most nowerful English-Eastern movements. Its members include British peers and member of Parliament and the richest Asiastic Pr ßk 1D A t bdur°H2mid, the 32-year-old son of the leader of an Indian tribe, and the only Indian member of the Royal Institute of British Architects, has already designed the mosque as well as a Moslem centre and Anglo-Saxon-Moslem club to be included in the same architectural group. The building will be in Indo-oara-cenic style, similar to the Tai Mahal and the romantic Moorish architecture of Southern Spain. Details of the proposed building were given recently by the brilliant young Indian architect who is already responsible for magnificent palaces and buildings the difficulty of obtaining a site on the terrace,” he said, “ but we think it may be managed, the building will comprise pure white stone and marble, probably with copper green domes. At one end will rise the great dome of the Moslem centre, and at the other the smaller dome of the mosque and a tall minaret. Between these will be the connecting win* of the club. In the centre will be an Eastern garden surrounded by arcades with a fountain and pools.” The building as a whole will be a memorial to Mary Broadhurst who, with Miss Margaret Farquharson, founded the league in 1922. Many of the rooms of the centre will be memorials to the great leaders of Islam. A site is to be obtained and the building begun before the end of thia year.