Aga Khan Trust for Culture

<div class="pc-title">His Highness the Aga Khan</div>

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 His Highness the Aga Khan, the founder and chairman of the Aga Khan Development Network, is the 49th hereditary Imam (Spiritual Leader) of the Shia Ismaili Muslims. In Islam&rsquo;s ethical tradition, religious leaders not only interpret the faith but also have a responsibility to help improve the quality of life in their community and in the societies amongst which they live. For His Highness the Aga Khan, this has meant a deep engagement with development for over 60 years through the agencies of the AKDN.
 His Highness the Aga Khan established the Aga Khan Award for Architecture and became Chairman of its Steering Committee in 1977. Subsequently, he founded the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard and MIT (1979) and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (1988), which now includes the Aga Khan Historic Cities Programme, Aga Khan Music Programme, Aga Khan Museum and the Education Programme. &nbsp;Other AKDN agencies are also active in the field of the built and natural environment, such as the Aga Khan Agency for Habitat, which works to mitigate the threat posed by natural disasters and climate change.
 The Aga Khan&rsquo;s interest and patronage in architecture has been recognized by numerous professional institutions who have bestowed upon him their highest honours and medals, including the American Institute of Architects, USA (1984), the Royal Institute of British Architects (1991), International Union of Architects (2001), the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (2013) and the Architectural League of New York (2017).&nbsp; He has also been honoured for his work in preserving cultural heritage, including the Hadrian Award from the World Monuments Fund (1996), the Vincent Scully Prize from the National Building Museum&nbsp; (2005) and the Urban Land Institute&rsquo;s J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development (2011).&nbsp; In addition, he has received honorary citizenships from cities as varied as Granada, Samarkand and Timbuktu, as well as many other awards, decorations and honorary degrees.
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His Highness the Aga Khan, the founder and chairman of the Aga Khan Development Network, is the 49th hereditary Imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims.

HIS HIGHNESS THE AGA KHAN

Sir David Adjaye OBE is recognised as a leading architect of his generation. In 2000, he founded Adjaye Associates, which now has offices in London, New York and Accra working on projects in the USA, UK, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. His largest project to date, the Smithsonian Institute National Museum of African American History and Culture, opened on the National Mall in Washington DC in the autumn of 2016.

Other prominent completed projects include the Idea Stores in London, which were credited with pioneering a new approach to library services (2005); the Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO (2010); and the Sugar Hill mixed-use social housing scheme in Harlem, New York (2015). Ongoing projects include a new home for the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, the National Cathedral of Ghana in Accra, and the National Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre in London.

In 2017, Sir David was knighted by Her Majesty the Queen for services to Architecture, following the previous award of an OBE in 2007. The same year, he was recognised as one of the 100 most influential people of the year by TIME magazine. He has additionally received the Design Miami/Artist of the Year title in 2011, the Wall Street Journal Innovator Award in 2013 and the 2016 Panerai London Design Medal from the London Design Festival.

Sir David has held distinguished professorships at the Harvard, Princeton and Yale universities. He has also taught at the Royal College of Art, where he had previously studied, and at the Architectural Association School in London.

Sir David was a member of the 2013 Aga Khan Award for Architecture Master Jury and served as a member of the Award Steering Committee in 2016.

Sir David Adjaye OBE is recognised as a leading architect of his generation.

David Adjaye OBE

Mohammad al-Asad is a Jordanian architect and architectural historian. He is the founding director of the Center for the Study of the Built Environment in Amman. Dr. al-Asad studied architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and history of architecture at Harvard University, before taking post-doctoral research positions at Harvard and at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

He has taught at the University of Jordan, Princeton University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he was Alan K. and Leonarda Laing Distinguished Visiting Professor. He was also an adjunct professor at Carleton University in Ottawa.

Dr. al-Asad has published in both Arabic and English on the architecture of the Islamic world, in books and academic and professional journals. He is the author of&nbsp;Old Houses of Jordan: Amman 1920-1950&nbsp;(1997) and&nbsp;Contemporary Architecture and Urbanism in the Middle East&nbsp;(2012); and co-author, with Ghazi Bisheh and Fawzi Zayadine, of&nbsp;The Umayyads: The Rise of Islamic Art&nbsp;(2000) and, with Sahel Al Hiyari and &Aacute;lvaro Siza, of&nbsp;Sahel Al Hiyari Projects&nbsp;(2005). He has also edited the proceedings of three Aga Khan Award for Architecture seminars:&nbsp;Shaping Cities: Emerging Models of Planning Practices&nbsp;(2016),&nbsp;Workplaces: The Transformation of Places of Production: Industrialization and the Built Environment in the Islamic World&nbsp;(2010) and (co-edited with Majd Musa)&nbsp;Architectural Journalism and Criticism: Global Perspectives&nbsp;(2007).

Dr. al-Asad has been a member of the board of directors of the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, part of the Royal Society for Fine Arts. He served as a project reviewer for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture during the 1989, 1995, 1998, 2004 and 2007 Award cycles, and was a member of the Steering Committee in 2010, 2013 and 2016.

Mohammad al-Asad is a Jordanian architect and architectural historian. 

Mohammad al-Asad

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 Emre Arolat is the design partner of EAA-Emre Arolat Architecture, founded with Gonca Paşolar in 2004 as the continuation of an architectural practice that began when he started as an associate designer at his parents&rsquo; studio, Arolat Architects, in 1987. Since that time, he has completed an extraordinary body of work. EAA is now an internationally recognised practice with offices in New York, London and Istanbul. It works on a wide range of projects, from urban master plans and airports to residential and cultural buildings and workplaces.
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 Mr Arolat teaches and lectures widely both within Turkey and internationally. In 2017 he was Norman R. Foster Visiting Professor at the Yale School of Architecture, where he taught an Advanced Studio during the fall semester. He has lectured at La Cit&eacute; de l&rsquo;Architecture et du Patrimoine in Paris (2017), at the Pratt Institute in New York (2014), and taught a studio at The Berlage Institute in Delft (2014). Mr. Arolat was the co-curator, in collaboration with the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV), of the first&nbsp;Istanbul Design Biennale&nbsp;in 2012. He was awarded a professorship by the International Academy of Architecture in 2015.
 EAA received international attention early on with the Minicity Theme Park (2004), which was selected by the&nbsp;Mies van der Rohe Award for European Architecture. Many international awards have followed, including the&nbsp;Aga&nbsp;Khan Award for Architecture&nbsp;in 2010 for the Ipekyol Textile Factory in Edirne. EAA&rsquo;s work has been published in the monograph&nbsp;Context and Plurality&nbsp;(Rizzoli), edited by Philip Jodidio and Suha &Ouml;zkan. EAA&rsquo;s projects have been shown in various exhibitions at institutions, including the Design Museum, the Royal Academy of Arts and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in London. In 2012 and 2016, they were presented at the International Architecture Biennale in Venice. Mr. Arolat served on the Aga&nbsp;Khan Award for Architecture Master Jury in 2016 and as a Steering Committee member in 2019.
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Emre Arolat is the design partner of EAA-Emre Arolat Architecture.

Emre Arolat

Francesco Bandarin is an architect and urban planner. He graduated in architecture from the Institute of Architecture of Venice (IUAV) and has a master&rsquo;s degree in City and Regional Planning from the University of California, Berkeley. From 1980 to 2016 he was Professor of Urban Planning and Conservation at IUAV.

Mr. Bandarin served as Director of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre and Secretary of the World Heritage Convention from 2000 to 2011, and as Assistant Director-General for Culture at UNESCO from 2010 until 2018. During this time he coordinated several important conservation projects in Cairo, Jerusalem, Angkor, Axum and Afghanistan, among many others, and encouraged reflection on urban conservation issues that led to the adoption of the UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape in 2011. As Assistant Director-General for Culture he was responsible for the management of six international treaties on heritage and for operational activities in the areas of tangible and intangible heritage.

Mr. Bandarin has served on numerous international juries and committees. In 2014, he was President of the Jury of the &ldquo;New Ideas&rdquo; prize of the Bordeaux Architectural Biennale, and President of the Jury of the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale. In 2015, he was appointed President of the Jury of the First Shenzen Creative Design Award (SCDA); elected President of the Italian Association of Historic Cities (ANCSA); and appointed as a member of the Visiting Committee of the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles.

His recent publications include&nbsp;The Historic Urban Landscape: Managing Heritage in an Urban Century&nbsp;(2012) and&nbsp;Reconnecting the City: The Historic Urban Landscape Approach and the Future of Urban Heritage&nbsp;(2014), both co-authored with Ron van Oers. A forthcoming book, co-authored with Ana Roders, completes this series:&nbsp;Reshaping Urban Conservation: the Historic Urban Landscape Approach&nbsp;(2018). He was a member of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture Steering Committee in 2016.

Francesco Bandarin is an architect and urban planner. 

Francesco Bandarin

Hanif Kara is a practicing structural engineer and Professor in Practice of Architectural Technology at Harvard University&rsquo;s Graduate School of Design. He is co-founder of AKT II London, where his design-led approach and interest in innovative forms, sustainable construction and complex analysis methods have allowed him to work on many pioneering projects. Under his design leadership, the practice has won over 300 design awards including the RIBA Stirling Prize for Peckham Library in 2000, and for Sainsbury Laboratory in 2012, as well as the RIBA Lubetkin Prize for the UK Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo 2010.

Professor Kara&rsquo;s career extends beyond structural engineering disciplines. In 2011 he became the first engineer to serve as a judge for the annual RIBA Stirling Prize. He is a member of the board of trustees of the Architecture Foundation in London, and currently serves on a number of infrastructure design panels for the design council CABE (Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment). From 2008 to 2011 he served as a commissioner for CABE, and as one of 15 members of the Design for London Advisory Group to the Mayor of London (2007- 2008). Professor Kara was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2007. In 2014, he was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Professor Kara has published and lectured widely on issues of design, as well as editing the volumes Design Engineering (2008), Interdisciplinary Design: New Lessons from Architecture and Engineering (2012), and most recently, Design Engineering Refocused (2017) and Architecture &amp; Waste (2017). He was a member of the Steering Committee for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2016, served on the Award Master Jury in 2004, and was a project reviewer for the Award in 2007, 2010 and 2013.

Hanif Kara is a practicing structural engineer and Professor in Practice of Architectural Technology at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.

 Hanif Kara

Azim Nanji is currently Special Advisor to the Provost of the Aga Khan University, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Global Centre for Pluralism in Ottawa, a joint partnership between His Highness the Aga Khan and the Government of Canada. He has held many prestigious academic and administrative appointments, most recently as Senior Associate Director of the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies at Stanford University, where he was also lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies.&nbsp;From 1998 to 2008, Professor Nanji served as Director of the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London. He has published numerous books and articles on religion, Islam and Ismailism.

Within the Aga Khan Development Network, he has served as a member of the task force for the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations (AKU-ISMC) and Vice Chair of the Madrasa-based Early Childhood Education Programme in East Africa. He served as a member of the Steering Committee of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1998, 2001 and 2016.

Azim Nanji is Special Advisor to the Provost of the Aga Khan University and a member of the Board of Directors of the Global Centre for Pluralism.

Professor Azim Nanji

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 Nasser Rabbat is the Aga&nbsp;Khan Professor and Director of the Aga&nbsp;Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at MIT. His interests include Islamic architecture, urban history, heritage studies, Arab history, contemporary Islamic art, and post-colonial criticism. He has published numerous articles and several books on topics ranging from Mamluk architecture to Antique Syria, 19th-century Cairo, Orientalism, and urbicide. His most recent books are&nbsp;&lsquo;Imarat al-Mudun al-Mayyita (The Architecture of the Dead Cities)&nbsp;(2018), and an online book,&nbsp;The Destruction of Cultural Heritage: From Napol&eacute;on to ISIS, co-edited with Pamela Karimi (2016). His book on the 15th-century Egyptian historian al-Maqrizi will come out in early 2022. He is currently editing a book on the cultural history of Syria (EUP, 2023), and co-editing another on heritage conservation, destruction, and reconstruction (AUC Press, 2022).
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 He has previously published:&nbsp;al-Naqd Iltizaman (Criticism as Commitment), Mamluk History Through Architecture: Building, Culture, and Politics in Mamluk Egypt and Syria, Thaqafat al Bina&rsquo; wa Bina&rsquo; al-Thaqafa (The Culture of Building and Building Culture), and&nbsp;The Citadel of Cairo: A New Interpretation of Royal Mamluk Architecture. He edited&nbsp;The Courtyard House between Cultural Reference and Universal Relevance, co-edited&nbsp;Making Cairo Medieval, and co-authored&nbsp;Interpreting the Self: Autobiography in the Arabic Literary Tradition.
 Professor Rabbat worked as an architect in Los Angeles and Damascus and held several academic and research appointments in Cambridge (Massachusetts, USA), Princeton, Los Angeles, Cairo, Granada, Rome, Paris, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Munich, and Bonn. He regularly contributes to several Arabic newspapers, serves on the boards of various cultural and educational organisations, and consults with international design firms on projects in the Islamic World. In recent years, he began researching and publishing on immigration, refugees, heritage conservation, and destruction and reconstruction. Nasser Rabbat served as a member of the 2019 Aga&nbsp;Khan Award for Architecture Steering Committee.
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Nasser Rabbat is the Aga Khan Professor and Director of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at MIT.

Nasser Rabbat

Brigitte Shim is a principal of Shim-Sutcliffe Architects and a professor at the University of Toronto&rsquo;s John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design. Professor Shim and her partner A. Howard Sutcliffe founded their design practice Shim-Sutcliffe in 1994, enabling them to explore their shared interest and passion for the interrelated scales of architecture, landscape, furniture and fittings. To date, they have received 14 Governor General&rsquo;s Medals for Architecture and an American Institute of Architects National Honor Award, along with many other professional accolades for their built work.

At the University of Toronto, Professor Shim teaches core design studios, advanced design studios, and courses in the History and Theory of Landscape Architecture. Her visiting professorships include the Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor at Yale University (2014, 2010, 2005) and (with Sutcliffe) the University of Auckland Distinguished Visitor Award from the university&rsquo;s National Institute for Creative Arts and Industries within the School of Architecture and Planning.

Professor Shim has lectured widely and participated in invited international design juries and symposia around the world. She has served on Canada&rsquo;s National Capital Commission Architectural Advisory Board for over a decade and is currently serving on Waterfront Toronto&rsquo;s Design Review Panel.

Brigitte Shim is a Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (FRAIC), an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (Hon FAIA) and an elected member of the Royal Canadian Academy (RCA). In 2013, Brigitte Shim and A. Howard Sutcliffe were awarded the Order of Canada, along with the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, &ldquo;for their contributions as architects designing sophisticated structures that represent the best of Canadian design to the world&rdquo;.

Professor Shim served on the 2007 Master Jury for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, as a project reviewer in 2010, and was a member of the Award Steering Committee in 2016.

Brigitte Shim is a principal of Shim-Sutcliffe Architects and a professor at the University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture

 Brigitte Shim

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 Marina Tabassum is the principal of Marina Tabassum Architects (MTA), founded in 2005 and based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She graduated in 1995 from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology and co-founded URBANA the same year. Notable projects from the partnership include the Independence Monument of Bangladesh and Liberation War Museum, which was completed in 2013. The project &ldquo;A5 Pavilion Apartment&rdquo; was shortlisted for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2004.
 Ms Tabassum is the Academic Director at the Bengal Institute for Architecture, Landscapes and Settlements. She received an honorary doctorate from the Technical University of Munich in 2020. She has taught advanced design studios at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, the Technical University Delft in The Netherlands, the University of Texas and at BRAC University in Bangladesh.
 Marina Tabassum was named among the top 10 thinkers of the world in 2020 by Prospect magazine, (United Kingdom), recognised for creating buildings in tune with their natural environments while embracing the design challenges posed by the environment. She founded and chaired F.A.C.E Bangladesh, a foundation dedicated to helping climate victims and ultra-low-income communities of the coastal areas of Bangladesh by providing 200 square feet (18.5 square metres) mobile modular houses designed by her office, MTA.
 <span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0px;">Ms Tabassum is a member of the Board of Directors of Prokritee, a fair-trade organisation that employs thousands of Bangladeshi women artisans through the export of hand-crafted products all over the world.
 In 2004, Ms Tabassum received the&nbsp;Ananya Awar, which recognises exceptional achievements of women in Bangladesh. She also received the&nbsp;Jameel Prize&nbsp;in 2018, which was hosted by the Victoria and Albert Museum. She is the first architect to win the Prize, which celebrates art and design from the Islamic world. She received the&nbsp;Aga&nbsp;Khan Award for Architecture&nbsp;in 2016 for the Bait ur Rouf Mosque in Dhaka. Ms Tabassum served as a member of the 2019 Aga&nbsp;Khan Award for Architecture Steering Committee.
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Marina Tabassum is the principal of Marina Tabassum Architects (MTA).

Marina Tabassum

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