Jami Ul-Alfar Mosque (Red Mosque)

When South Indian Muslim traders needed a mosque in 1908, they hired Habibu Lebbe Saibu Lebbe, a man with no architectural credentials whatsoever. Armed only with pictures of Indo-Saracenic buildings, he designed a candy-striped masterpiece with pomegranate-shaped domes that sailors approaching Colombo’s port used as a landmark. The unlettered architect’s red-and-white brickwork creation now towers over Pettah’s chaotic streets, originally built for 1,500 worshippers when only 500 showed up. Today it holds 10,000.

The gap between 500 and 10,000 says something about patience, or about the traders’ faith in a neighborhood they hadn’t finished building yet. Either way, the man with no training got the proportions right the first time. It just took Pettah 67 years to grow into them.