Candalepas Associates

Buildings are simple: a budget, a brief, a roof over your head, and walls to keep the wind out. But of course, our hopes for architecture are like the hopes we have for our children – that they will be better than us, more than us, and, if nothing else, we pray they outlive us. They will take on the world’s joys and cares, and will be called upon to respond, architecture and children alike.

So, it’s not surprising that Angelo Candalepas felt some trepidation in taking on the commission of a new mosque in the western Sydney suburb of Punchbowl. As an architect, he has spoken about the weight of history in religious architecture and, as a practising Greek Orthodox Christian, he does seem an unlikely choice for this commission, at least on the surface. When Candalepas spoke to his then mentor Col Madigan, the older man said, “You wouldn’t give that sort of opportunity up.” Candalepas says, “It was an awakening.”

“There is a present trepidation about entering into the realm of the spiritual. A realm that