The MAK Center for Art and Architecture is pleased to present a book launch celebrating At the Edge of Where God Built, with Ziad Jamaleddine of L.E.FT Architects in conversation with Maryam Eskandari.
At the Edge of Where God Built: Language. Concepts. Islamic Architecture. undertakes a critical examination of L.E.FT Architects’ diverse body of work from the past decade, reorganizing their designs, research, and pedagogy around five key Arabic spatial terms: mataf (circumambulation space), jami (mosque space), riwaq (a courtyard’s colonnade), dar (domestic space), and khirba (a ruin). Rooted in the Arab-speaking, Islamic geographies of the Middle East and North Africa, these terms illuminate and conceptualize L.E.FT’s investigations into forms of contemporary religious and non-religious architecture. By reframing Islamic architecture beyond the fixed typologies that have historically defined it, the book proposes a fluid, multifaceted approach to understanding its contemporary manifestations.
L.E.FT
L.E.FT was established in 2004 and is co-founded by Ziad Jamaleddine and Makram el Kadi. The office was a member of Architectural Record’s 2010 Design Vanguard for top firms in the United States. It was selected to the AD100, The Best Designers in the Middle East and North Africa (2025), and received an Honorable Mention in Architect’s Newspaper’s Best of Practice Awards in the Architect (Small Firm)—Northeast category (2026). L.E.FT’s work includes Shakib Arslan Mosque, Lebanon (2017), winner of the Interfaith Design (AIA) & Partners of Sacred Places Award in Religious Architecture (2018), and the Al Fozan Award for Mosque Architecture (2022). L.E.FT recently completed the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life and Contemplative Practices, Vassar College (2023), winner of the Interfaith Design (AIA) & Partners of Sacred Places Award in Religious Architecture: Adaptive Re-Use (2024), and LOOP Design Awards: Religious Spiritual (2024). The office’s research and design work has been exhibited at several cultural venues, including Oslo Architecture Triennale (2016), Milan Triennale (2019), Sharjah Architecture Triennale (2019), and most recently Jeddah Islamic Arts Biennale (2023).
ZIAD JAMALEDDINE
Ziad Jamaleddine is a co-founder of L.E.FT Architects (New York/Beirut) and an assistant professor at Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation. He is a practitioner and scholar with a research focus on mosque architecture. He has taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as the Aga Khan visiting lecturer in 2012, and at Yale University as the Louis Kahn Visiting Assistant Professor of Architecture in 2011. His writings have been published in the Journal of Material Cultures in the Muslim World (2024), International Journal of Islamic Architecture (2025), and Thresholds (2026). Jamaleddine is the recipient of the Emerging Voices Award from the Architectural League of New York (2010). In 2024, he was selected as one of the Nine Arab American Architects You Should Know by the AIA. His research and design work has been exhibited at multiple venues including Jeddah Islamic Art Biennale (2023).
MARYAM ESKANDARI
Maryam Eskandari is an architect, urban designer, educator, and founder of MIIM Designs, an interdisciplinary architecture and urban design practice based in Los Angeles, CA. Her work explores the intersections of architecture, culture, ecology, and public life through projects spanning the built environment, exhibitions, museums, and civic and faith-based institutions. A former Research Fellow in the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at MIT, her research focuses on contemporary Islamic architecture and material culture. She has taught at Harvard University and the Boston Architectural College, and her work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Doris Duke Foundation.