The twin minarets
About eighty-one metres.
Rhmtdns — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Nuroni — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Rhmtdns — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Nuroni — CC BY-SA 4.0
The main congregational mosque of Bandung and West Java, facing the city's main square. It grew from a small nineteenth-century mosque, rebuilt and enlarged several times, most recently in the early 2000s, into a broad building with a large dome and twin minarets some eighty-one metres tall. Two things draw visitors: the forecourt covered in green artificial turf, where people sit and children play barefoot in a family atmosphere, and the lift in one of the minarets that carries visitors to a gallery at the top overlooking all of Bandung and the mountains around it. Entry to the mosque is free, and it is open for prayer at prayer times; going up the minaret costs a token fee at set times. Non-Muslims visit the square and mosque outside prayer times in modest dress. It is the handiest mosque for Friday prayer for visitors in central Bandung, close to the Asian-African Conference Museum and Braga Street. The square gets busy in the evenings and at weekends.
About eighty-one metres.
Bandung and mountains from above.
A family scene on the turf.
The main square (alun-alun), central Bandung
The Grand Mosque on the main square is the handiest for visitors in the centre, and Bandung, a mostly Muslim city, has mosques everywhere.
