German Airport Installs Prayer Booth
A multi-faith prayer booth has been installed at an airport in Germany to calm the nerves of fearful flyers. Called "Gebetomat" or "Pray-o-Mat," the facility can be found at Stuttgart Airport's departure terminal. It features 300 pre-recorded prayers from various religions in 65 languages.
Designed by Berlin artist Oliver Sturm, the booth offers passengers solace before their flight. "Often, passengers still have a bit of time before their departure at the gate," said airport spokesman Johannes Schumm. "The prayer booth is an offer by the airport's chaplains to provide a moment of contemplation," Schumm added.
The bright red cubicle, which is a reconfigured photo booth, was installed with a gray curtain and a swivel chair. It has a touch screen display wherein users can select a prayer of their choice, including the Lord's Prayer, the Jewish Shema Yisrael, and the Islamic muezzin's call to prayer. It will be available for three months at the airport's boarding area and can be used free of charge.
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The Pray-o-Mat first appeared at Manchester University in 2012 as part of a £500,000 three-year research project into prayer rooms and multi-faith spaces. Many of the prayers that came from monotheistic and polytheistic religions were collected by Sturm himself, while some were taken from radio archives.
As part of their research, the team visited almost 250 faith spaces to improve the quality and provision of multi-faith spaces around the world. They learned that finding large spaces for religious practice is still an issue at many universities especially for Muslim students who had to say their Friday prayers.
But it turned out that the prayer cubicle could also be used in other public places. "It could be the answer in places that require temporary prayer space, such as airports or train stations," said Dr. Andrew Crompton, senior lecturer in architecture at Liverpool University who also worked on the project.
