Mosque Typo-Morphological Classification for Pattern Recognition Using Shape Grammar Theory and Graph-Based Techniques

Abstract

The prayer hall is the main space in mosques where prayer and worship take place. It is normally open with a large area where Muslims can pray together. The identification and assignment of organizational forms to formally defined classes are referred to as classification. The term typo-morphology refers to the merging of two ideas: typology, which focuses on syntactic and spatial analysis, and morphology, which focuses on form analysis. This research aims to create a typo-morphological classification of mosques by using shape grammar analysis to obtain the key prototypes that cover both traditional and modern mosque styles. Hence, the proposed mosque sample was grouped according to the extracted prototypes through graph-technique pattern recognition. The study resulted in extracting twenty different typo-morphological prototypes. The current study contributes to discovering the syntactical and formal configuration of mosque buildings, which establishes a distinct and reliable reference in mosque architecture.