Gaziantep Zahide Mosque — Twin Minaret Project

With its octagonal drum dome and two minarets, Zahide Mosque builds a strong silhouette at neighbourhood scale. Because the minarets were designed with a polygonal section, the shaft required a different formwork arrangement from a cylindrical one: each face is cast as a plane and the corners are softened with chamfers.

The advantage of a polygonal section is that it catches the light differently on each face, giving the minaret a shadow texture that changes through the day. Its difficulty is that the corner alignments tolerate no drift as the shaft rises.

Formwork arrangement on a polygonal shaft

On a polygonal section the corner alignment is checked at every module. A few millimetres of rotation at one module becomes a visible twist ten metres higher up. The corner lines were therefore carried upwards with a plumb line at each stage and the formwork locked to them.

Şerefe and cap

The şerefe ring was resolved with two rows of muqarnas and a pierced balustrade above. The cap was finished in dark metal cladding that gives the classic lead appearance, and the finial was fitted before the scaffold came down.

• Muqarnas ring — the rows of pendants beneath the balcony overhang
• Pierced balustrade — the open parapet around the şerefe floor
• Upper shaft — the tapering section between şerefe and cap
• Cap and finial — dark metal cladding and crescent