Aga Khan Trust for Culture

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 An alumnus of Ecole Normale Sup&eacute;rieure with an agr&eacute;gation and a PhD in Philosophy from the Sorbonne, Souleymane Bachir Diagne is a professor of Philosophy and Francophone Studies at Columbia University and a Director of the Institute of African Studies until 2024. Prior to his appointment at Columbia, Professor Diagne taught philosophy at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, Senegal, for 20 years before joining Northwestern University in 2002 as a professor in the departments of Philosophy and Religion, with an affiliation to the Program of African Studies.
 He is the author of numerous works in the fields of the history of algebraic logic, Islamic philosophy and philosophy in Africa. His research focuses on the history of philosophy and algebraic logic, the history of Islamic philosophy and African philosophy. At the heart of his philosophical work is a reflection on . His most recent publications in English are: The Ink of the Scholars. Reflections on Philosophy in Africa, Dakar, Codesria, 2016; Open to Reason: Muslim Philosophers in Conversation with the Western Tradition, New York, Columbia University Press, 2018; Postcolonial Bergson, New York, Fordham University Press, 2019; In Search of Africa(s). Universalism and Decolonial Thought (co-author: Jean-Loup Amselle), Cambridge, UK &amp; Medford, MA, Polity Press, 2020; African Art as Philosophy: Senghor, Bergson and the Idea of Negritude, New York, The Other Press, 2023.
 An Officer of the National Order of Arts and Letters from the French government, Professor Diagne is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Senegalese Academy of Sciences and techniques. He is also an associate member of the Royal Academy of Belgium and of the Royal Academy of Morocco.
 Professor Diagne served on the Steering Committee for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2022 and was a member of the Award Master Jury in 2010.
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Souleymane Bachir Diagne is a professor of Philosophy and Francophone Studies at Columbia University.

Souleymane Bachir Diagne

Omar Abdulaziz Hallaj is a Syrian architect and Chief Executive Officer of The Syria Trust for Development, a non-governmental organisation active in the fields of rural development, education, culture and heritage.&nbsp;From 2004 to 2009, Mr. Hallaj was team leader of the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) projects in Yemen, first for the Shibam Urban Development Project, and subsequently for the Project for the Development of Historic Cities in Yemen, which provided technical support to the Yemeni authorities to manage and develop Shibam and Zabid and several other historic cities in the country. He was a recipient of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2007 for the Rehabilitation of the City of Shibam. Mr. Hallaj attended the University of Texas at Austin, where he received both his bachelor's and master's degrees in Architecture. He returned to Syria and joined the architectural practice F.H. Jaberi Architects, and then became a partner in the firm Suradec (Sustainable Urban Rehabilitation, Architectural Design, and Engineering Consortium). He also served as chair of the technical committee responsible for the preservation of the Old City of Aleppo, supervising implementation of rehabilitation measures and coordinating integrated interventions for the preservation of the city&rsquo;s historic neighbourhoods. Mr. Hallaj&rsquo;s research interests include the development of architecture and urban theory in the context of historic and contemporary Muslim societies, particularly community-oriented planning and urban management. Mr. Hallaj served as an on-site project reviewer for the 1998, 2001 and 2004 cycles of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, and was Chair of the 2010 Award Master Jury.

Omar Abdulaziz Hallaj is a Syrian architect and Chief Executive Officer of The Syria Trust for Development

 Omar Abdulaziz Hallaj

Salah M. Hassan is Goldwin Smith Professor and Director of the Africana Studies and Research Center, and professor of African and African diaspora art history and visual culture in the History of Art and Visual Studies department at Cornell University. He is also the director of the university&rsquo;s Institute for Comparative Modernities and served as chair of History of Art between 2000 and 2005. Prior to joining Cornell, Professor Hassan taught at the State University of New York at Buffalo, the University of Pennsylvania and the College of Fine and Applied Art in Khartoum.&nbsp;Professor Hassan is editor of&nbsp;NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art and consulting editor for African Arts and Atlantica. He has written, edited and co-edited several books including&nbsp;Darfur and the Crisis of Governance in Sudan&nbsp;(2009);&nbsp;Diaspora, Memory, Place&nbsp;(2008);&nbsp;Unpacking Europe&nbsp;(2001);&nbsp;Authentic/Ex-Centric&nbsp;(2001);&nbsp;Gendered Vision&nbsp;(1997); and Art and Islamic Literacy among the Hausa of Northern Nigeria&nbsp;(1992). He has contributed essays to journals, anthologies and exhibition catalogues of contemporary art. Professor Hassan has curated several international exhibitions including at the 49th Venice Biennale, the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam and the Dakar Biennale. His numerous awards and grants include a J. Paul Getty Postdoctoral Fellowship (1992-1993), the Toyota Foundation Award (1995), and several grants from the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation and the Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development. Professor Hassan is currently writing a book entitled&nbsp;The Khartoum School: The Making of the Modern Art Movement in Sudan, and is in the process of curating a major retrospective of the Sudanese Modernist Ibrahim El Salahi at the Museum for African Art in New York, scheduled to open in 2011.

Salah M. Hassan is Goldwin Smith Professor and Director of the Africana Studies and Research Center, and professor of African 

 Salah M. Hassan

Faryar Javaherian is an Iranian architect and curator, born in Mashhad, Khorassan, raised in France, and educated in the United States. She studied at the University of Texas at Austin, MIT and Harvard and is the founder of Gamma Consultants, recognised as the leading office in museum and Persian garden design in Iran. Her buildings have been widely published in Iranian architectural magazines and her work is established as having a recognisable Iranian-Modern style.&nbsp;Her major built works include the Iranian Calligraphers Society Complex and Gardens (1995 - 1997), the Venus Glass Office Building (2005 - 2006), and the Aghdassieh Apartment Complex (2007) among many others. Most recently, Ms. Javaherian has won a competition to build the new French School in Tehran; she is also working on five museum projects. In addition to her built work, Ms. Javaherian has curated numerous exhibitions that cover the fields of architecture, landscape, photography and cinema. She has worked as an art director and set decorator for ten films including&nbsp;Hamoon&nbsp;and&nbsp;The Pear Tree, which are cult films in Iranian cinema. Ms. Javaherian is the author of&nbsp;Gardens of Iran: Ancient Wisdom, New Visions&nbsp;(2004),&nbsp;Thirty Years of Solitude&nbsp;(2007), and numerous articles in the journal&nbsp;Memar, to which she contributes as an editor. Ms. Javaherian has lectured extensively in Iran and at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and was a participant in the Aga Khan Award for Architecture&rsquo;s international seminar on industrial architecture held in Istanbul in 2009. She has served as jury member for the Memar Grand Prize and other international competitions.

Faryar Javaherian is an Iranian architect and curator, born in Mashhad, Khorassan, raised in France, and educated in the United States. 

 Faryar Javaherian

Anish Kapoor was born in Bombay and has lived in London since the early 1970s when he moved there to study at the Hornsey College of Art and the Chelsea School of Art Design. Mr. Kapoor is one of the most influential sculptors of his generation and has exhibited extensively in London and all over the world.&nbsp;His solo shows have included venues such as the Kunsthalle Basel, the Tate Gallery and Hayward Gallery in London, the Reina Sofia in Madrid, CAPC in Bordeaux, Haus der Kunst in Munich and the ICA Boston and MAK Vienna; and the Royal Academy of Arts in London hosted a major survey of Mr. Kapoor&rsquo;s works to date in 2009. Mr. Kapoor has participated in many group shows including at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, the Royal Academy and Serpentine Gallery in London, Documenta IX in Kassel, Moderna Museet in Stockholm and Jeu de Paume and Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. He has collaborated with musicians and theatre directors as well as with architects and engineers on a number of major works. Among his public commissions are&nbsp;Sky Mirror&nbsp;(2001) on a site outside the Nottingham Playhouse;&nbsp;Cloud Gate&nbsp;(2004) in the Millennium Park in Chicago; and&nbsp;Untitled 2007&nbsp;at the Queensland Art Gallery in Australia. His design of two subway station entrances in Naples is currently under construction. Mr. Kapoor is a Royal Academician. He was awarded the "Premio Duemila" at the Venice Biennale in 1990; the Turner Prize Award in 1991; an Honorary Fellowship at the London Institute in 1997; an Honorary Fellowship at the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2001; and a CBE in 2003.

Anish Kapoor was born in Bombay and has lived in London since the early 1970s when he moved there to study 

Anish Kapoor

Jean Nouvel is a French architect and planner. He trained at the &Eacute;cole Nationale Sup&eacute;rieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and has headed his own architectural practice since 1970. His current firm, Ateliers Jean Nouvel, is one of the largest architectural practices in France, active in the fields of architecture, urban design, landscape design as well as industrial design and interior design.&nbsp;Among Mr. Nouvel&rsquo;s principal completed buildings are the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, the Lyon Opera House, the Cartier Foundation in Paris, the Galeries Lafayette in Berlin, the Dentsu Tower in Tokyo, the museum of archaeology in P&eacute;rigueux, the Quai Branly museum in Paris, the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, the Richemont Corporation headquarters in Geneva, the Symphonic House in Copenhagen and an apartment building 40 Mercer Street in New York. Projects currently under study or construction at Ateliers Jean Nouvel include the city hall in Montpellier, a office building in the City of London, an office tower in Doha, the Louvre Museum in Abu Dhabi, the Philharmonic Hall in Paris and the Tour de Verre in New York. Mr. Nouvel&rsquo;s work has been widely published and exhibited, and his many honours and awards include the Pritzker Prize in 2008, the Gold Medal of the French Academy of Architecture, the Royal Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, honorary fellowships in the AIA, France&rsquo;s National Grand Prize for Architecture, Italy&rsquo;s Borromini Prize for the Lucerne Culture and Congress Center, Japan&rsquo;s Praemium Imperial Career Prize, the Wolf Prize and the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize in architecture. Mr. Nouvel was the recipient of the&nbsp;Aga&nbsp;Khan Award for Architecture in 1989&nbsp;for the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.akdn.org/architecture/project/institut-du-monde-arabe">Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris</a>.

Jean Nouvel is a French architect and planner.

Jean Nouvel

Alice Rawsthorn is the design critic of the International Herald Tribune, writing a weekly column published every Monday. She also writes the "Object Lesson" column for the New York Times Magazine. Ms. Rawsthorn&rsquo;s columns are syndicated to newspapers and magazines all over the world. A prominent broadcaster, Ms. Rawsthorn often speaks on design and creativity at international events, including the World Economic Forum&rsquo;s annual meetings in Davos.&nbsp;She is a trustee of the Whitechapel Gallery in London, as well as a board member of Arts Council England and of the World Economic Forum&rsquo;s Global Agenda Council for Design. Ms. Rawsthorn graduated in art and architectural history from Cambridge University in 1980. She joined the Financial Times as a foreign correspondent in Paris and pioneered the newspaper&rsquo;s coverage of the creative industries. From 2001 to 2006 Ms. Rawsthorn was director of the Design Museum in London. She is an honorary senior fellow of the Royal College of Art and has served on numerous arts juries including the Turner Prize for contemporary art, the Stirling Prize for architecture, and the British Council&rsquo;s selection panel for the Venice Architecture Biennale. Ms. Rawsthorn was chair of the British Council&rsquo;s Design Advisory Group; a member of the Design Council and of the government&rsquo;s advisory panel on the BBC Charter Review; and chair of the Arts Council&rsquo;s Turning Point review of the contemporary visual arts. She has contributed essays to a number of books on design and contemporary culture and has published a critically acclaimed biography of the fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, and a monograph on the work of the industrial designer Marc Newson.

Alice Rawsthorn is the design critic of the International Herald Tribune, writing a weekly column published every Monday.

 Alice Rawsthorn

Basem Al Shihabi is the managing partner of Omrania &amp; Associates and one of its founders. Mr. Al Shihabi received his architectural education at the School of Fine Arts in Cairo, graduating in 1967, and completed his postgraduate studies in Landscape Planning at the University of Edinburgh in 1970. Returning to Saudi Arabia, Mr. Al Shihabi joined the firm of Doxiadis Associates where he worked on regional plans for five central region towns in Saudi Arabia, and a kingdom-wide schooling programme for the Ministry of Education.&nbsp;He moved on to establish the Omrania &amp; Associates after jointly winning an international competition to design the headquarters of the General Organisation of Social Insurance in Riyadh 1973. Over the years, Mr. Al Shihabi was instrumental in taking Omrania &amp; Associates to a leading position in the region within the fields of architecture, engineering and planning, with offices in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Bahrain. The firm has over the years received numerous awards for its work and has a growing partnership base. Its projects range from private residences to high rise office towers, airports and large public commissions, among them the King Abdul Aziz Library and Auditorium, the Kingdom Centre and the Al Rashid Tower and Complex, the Kingdom Hospital, the Prince Salman Transplant and Dialysis Centre, and the Salam Park, all in Riyadh. Current projects at Omrania &amp; Associates include the King Abdullah International Gardens in Riyadh and the Taibah University in Al Madinah. Mr. Al Shihabi was a recipient of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1998 for the Tuwaiq Palace project in Riyadh.

Basem Al Shihabi is the managing partner of Omrania & Associates and one of its founders.

 Basem Al Shihabi

Yu Kongjian is founder and dean of the College of Architecture and Landscape and the Changjiang Chair Professor of Design, at Peking University. He received a Doctor of Design from the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1995, and taught there from 2009 to 2014. Professor Yu is the founder, president and principal designer of Turenscape, an internationally recognized firm of landscape architecture and urbanism practices worldwide.&nbsp;His projects have received numerous international awards for their ecologically sound and culturally sensitive design, including the 2009 ULI Global Award for Excellence, the 2015 national Energy Globe Award (Energy Globe Foundation) and 12 ASLA (American Society of Landscape Architects) Awards. He is a three-time winner of the World Landscape Award at the World Architectural Festival, and was awarded the National Gold Medal of Fine Arts by the Cultural Ministry of China in 2004. The most recent monograph on Professor Yu&rsquo;s work is&nbsp;Designed Ecologies: The Landscape Architecture of Kongjian Yu&nbsp;(William Saunders ed., 2012). His projects have been reviewed and featured in hundreds of magazine and journal articles worldwide, including comprehensive coverage in ASLA Landscape Architecture Magazine in 2012. More than ten of his projects have been included in the textbook Landscape Architecture, Fifth Edition (2013) by Stark and Simonds. Professor Yu is a global lecturer and prolific publisher who founded the magazine: Landscape Architecture Frontier (and Landscape Architecture China). He has written 25 books and over 300 papers. His current publications include&nbsp;The Beautiful Big Foot, Landscape as Ecological Infrastructure and The Art of Survival. He has lectured worldwide and was keynote speaker for the 40th, 43rd, 46th, 48th and 52nd IFLA World Congress, and the 2006 and 2008 annual conferences of ASLA. Professor Yu was a member of the 2010 Master Jury for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture.

Yu Kongjian is founder and dean of the College of Architecture and Landscape and the Changjiang Chair Professor of Design, at Peking University. 

Yu Kongjian

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