Two Albanian Mosques: The acoustics discovery inside prayer rooms

The first mosque was built by Prophet Mohammad in 7th century. In Muslim society, mosques are important buildings erected with regular plants. The walls are plastered or finished with mosaics, the floor is carpeted; often, they are provided with a dome and side niches. The main activities are praying and listening to speech and, for these reasons, speech understanding is of paramount importance. This paper deals with the acoustic characteristics of two mosques in Albania. These buildings have a squared plan layout surmounted by a dome at the center of the space. Acoustic measurements were undertaken in line with the methodology explained by ISO 3382-1 standard. The monaural parameters T30, EDT, $C_{80}, D_{50}$, and STI were analyzed accordingly. One of the mosques is located in Tirana and was built in 1550; it has a volume of 1000 m3. This mosque showed a T30 of 2.0 s and an STI of 0.5. The other mosque is located in Shkoder; it was built in 1750 and has a volume of 1300 m3. This latest mosque showed a T30 of 2.3 s and a STI of 0.5. After comparing the acoustics of these two mosques, some solutions to improve their acoustics are suggested.