I originally thought I would be writing this post from Casablanca comparing the Sacre Coeur, a former French Cathedral built in the Art Deco style with clean lines and a simple style with the Hassan II Grand Mosque, which I could best describe as Islamic Rococo.

But in Dakar two different houses of worship, both serving the God of Abraham, stole the show.

Construction of Our Lady of Victories Roman Catholic Cathedral was started in the 1920s and the cathedral dedicated in 1936. It began as a memorial to Senegalese troops who died fighting for France in World War I. Its bones are Byzantine with a dome and spires but the lines, decoration, and stained glass are art deco. Byzantine buildings look cluttered to me but the lines of this church are clean.

The Massalikoul Djinane Mosque, like Our Lady of Victories also has a dome and spires. Like the cathedral it took about 15 years to complete. But the impression and feel are completely different. The mosque is huge. It can hold 10,000 worshipers inside and another 20,000 outside in the plaza. It was named for a poem by Sheikh Amadou Bamba Mbacke. Mbacke is the founder of the Mouride Brotherhood, a Sufi movement. The movement emphasizes learning, service and spiritual discipline.

The guide told us it was built completely from local donations, but the mosque’s website tells us that the worldwide community raised about $33 million U.S. dollars. The government kicked in another $11 and a half million for essential infrastructure. The land was also donated by the government. The Chinese contributed the lighting and the clock on the main minaret.

The buildings are different from each other in tone and feel, but I found both appealed to different sides of my aesthetic and architectural sense.