Taipei Grand Mosque

Engineering Graphics Project 1

Group Members:
B03204028
B04501122
Professor:

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)

Dome height (outer)

15 meters

Dome dia. (outer)

15 meters

Minaret(s)

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 dont 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 dont 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 its 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 models first level of the left towers 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 () 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

(d)

Left Side view

(c) Tower Close-up

(e) (Top) Right Side View

(f) (Right) Corridors

Problems:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Lack of details of the back view

Dome measurement and reconstruction is really difficult
Bricks may vary on different walls
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 cant 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 ().
Faade
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 domes 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