Aga Khan Trust for Culture

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    <p>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.</p>
    <p>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. 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.</p>
    <p>The Aga Khan&rsquo;s interest and patronage in architecture has been recognised by numerous professional institutions, who have bestowed upon him their highest honours and medals, including:</p>
    <ul>
      <li>the American Institute of Architects, USA (1984);</li>
      <li>the Royal Institute of British Architects (1991);</li>
      <li>International Union of Architects (2001);</li>
      <li>the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (2013); and</li>
      <li>the Architectural League of New York (2017).</li>
    </ul>
    <p>He has also been honoured for his work in preserving cultural heritage, including:</p>
    <ul>
      <li>the Hadrian Award from the World Monuments Fund (1996);</li>
      <li>the Vincent Scully Prize from the National Building Museum (2005); and</li>
      <li>the Urban Land Institute&rsquo;s J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development (2011).</li>
    </ul>
    <p>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.</p>
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His Highness the Aga Khan is the founder and chairman of the Aga Khan Development Network.

HIS HIGHNESS THE AGA KHAN

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        <p><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;">Meisa Batayneh is the founder and principal architect of maisam architects &amp; engineers, which was established in 1986 with offices in Amman and Abu Dhabi. Ms Batayneh got her degree in architecture from the University of Texas at Arlington. Over her long and distinguished career, Ms Batayneh has led multidisciplinary teams on large-scale international and regional projects in the USA, Pakistan, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE. In addition to her passion for applying creativity, design and innovation to enhance the built environment, she is actively engaged in social initiatives through national and international commissions and boards.</span></p>
        <p>Ms Batayneh was selected as a member of the Amman Commission, which was entrusted with developing the greater Amman Masterplan. She is a founding member of the Jordan Green Building Council and the Middle East Leadership Association. She is also a member of the Board of Trustees at the King Abdullah II Center for Excellence. She was the first president of Jordan&rsquo;s Business and Professional Women&rsquo;s Association and served as a jury member on the Women in Business Cartier Awards. She was recognised as the Leading Arab Woman Architect by the Federation of Arab Architects and Engineers.</p>
        <p>maisam&rsquo;s work has won numerous global awards, including the&nbsp;<em>ArchitzerA+ Popular Choice Award&nbsp;</em>in 2015,&nbsp;<em>LEAF Award</em>&nbsp;in 2014 (for &ldquo;A Gateway to Petra&rdquo;) and multiple&nbsp;<em>Arabian Property Awards</em>. maisam&rsquo;s work was also shortlisted for the World Architectural Festival (WAF) for the &ldquo;Aqaba Bus Terminal&rdquo; in 2009, &ldquo;A Gateway to Petra&rdquo; in 2012 and the &ldquo;Petra Museum&rdquo; in 2015. maisam won the World Architecture Festival&rsquo;s Future Projects for &ldquo;School in a Park&rdquo; in 2019.</p>
        <p>Ms Batayneh joined the Board of the LafargeHolcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction in January 2020. She served as a member of the regional jury for Middle East Africa and is a Jury member of the Global LafargeHolcim Awards.</p>
        <p>Ms Batayneh served on the Master Jury for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2019 and was a member of the 2022 Award Steering Committee.</p>
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Meisa Batayneh is the Founder and Principal Architect of maisam architects & engineers.

Meisa Batayneh

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        <p>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.</p>
        <p>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: <em>The Ink of the Scholars. Reflections on Philosophy in Africa</em>, Dakar, Codesria, 2016; <em>Open to Reason: Muslim Philosophers in Conversation with the Western Tradition</em>, New York, Columbia University Press, 2018; <em>Postcolonial Bergson</em>, New York, Fordham University Press, 2019; <em>In Search of Africa(s). Universalism and Decolonial Thought</em> (co-author: Jean-Loup Amselle), Cambridge, UK &amp; Medford, MA, Polity Press, 2020; <em>African Art as Philosophy: Senghor, Bergson and the Idea of Negritude</em>, New York, The Other Press, 2023.</p>
        <p>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.</p>
        <p>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.</p>
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Souleymane Bachir Diagne is a professor of Philosophy and Francophone Studies at Columbia University.

Souleymane Bachir Diagne

<p>Professor Lesley Lokko OBE is the founder and director of the African Futures Institute (AFI) in Accra, Ghana. She holds a BSc(Arch), MArch and PhD in Architecture from the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. She was the founder and director of the Graduate School of Architecture, University of Johannesburg (2014-2019) and the Dean of Architecture at the Bernard &amp; Anne Spitzer School of Architecture (2019-2020). She is the editor of <em>White Papers, Black Marks: Race, Culture, Architecture</em> (University of Minnesota Press, 2000) and the editor-in-chief of <em>FOLIO: Journal of Contemporary African Architecture</em>.</p>

<p>In 2004, she made the successful transition from academic to novelist with the publication of her first novel, <em>Sundowners</em> (Orion 2004) and has since followed with 12 further bestsellers, which have been translated into 15 languages. She is a founding member of the UN-Habitat Council on Urban Initiatives; was a member of the 17<sup>th</sup> International Jury of the Venice Architecture Biennale; is a trustee of the London-based Architecture Foundation, the Clean Air Fund and the London Centre for Humanities. She has lectured and published widely on the subject of &ldquo;race&rdquo; and its relationship to architecture, particularly architectural education.</p>

<p>In 2021, Professor Lokko was awarded the RIBA Annie Spink Award for Excellence in Education and in 2021, the Ada Louise Huxtable Prize for Contributions to Architecture. She is a guest editor of the UCL Design Research in Architecture publication series and an honorary fellow of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland. She was recently awarded France&rsquo;s Grande M&eacute;daille de l&rsquo;Acad&eacute;mie d&rsquo;Architecture.</p>

<p>She is currently a visiting professor at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College Dublin and has held visiting professorships at the Cooper Union, NYC and University of Virginia. She was appointed Curator of the 18<sup>th</sup> International Architecture Biennale at La Biennale di Venezia, which opened on 20 May 2023. In January 2023, she was awarded an OBE &ldquo;for services to architecture and education&rdquo; in King Charles&rsquo; New Year&rsquo;s Honours List.</p>

<p>Professor Lokko served on the Master Jury for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2016.</p>


Lesley Lokko is an architect and academic, and the author of nine best-selling novels.

 Lesley Lokko

<p>G&uuml;lru Necipoğlu earned her doctorate from Harvard University in 1986, where she has served as the Aga Khan Professor and Director of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture since 1993. She specialises in the arts and architecture of the pre-modern Islamic lands, with a focus on the Mediterranean world and artistic exchanges between the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires. Her studies have also addressed aesthetic interconnections with Byzantium and Renaissance Europe, pre-modern architectural<strong> </strong>practice and the role of ornament. She has mentored numerous students, who continue to transform the field.</p>

<p>Since 1993, Professor Necipoğlu has served as editor of <em>Muqarnas: </em><em>An Annual on the Visual Cultures of the Islamic World</em>, the pre-eminent journal in the field, and its supplements. Her own publications include <em>Architecture, Ceremonial and Power: The Topkapı Palace</em> (1991), <em>The Topkapı Scroll&ndash;Geometry and Ornament in Islamic Architecture</em> (1995), <em>The Age of Sinan: Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire </em>(2005, 2011), <em>Treasures of Knowledge: An Inventory of the Ottoman Palace Library (1502/3-1503/4</em>) (2 vols, 2019, co-editors C. Kafadar, C.H. Fleischer), <em>The Arts of Ornamental Geometry: A Persian Compendium on Similar and Complementary Interlocking Figures</em> (2017), <em>A Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture</em>, in the Wiley-Blackwell <em>Companions to Art History</em> (co-editor F.B Flood, 2017) and <em>Histories of Ornament: From Global to Local</em> (co-editor A. Payne, 2016).</p>

<p>Professor Necipoğlu is an elected member<strong> </strong>of the British Academy, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio in Vicenza, Italy. She was appointed Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Cambridge in 2013 and Guest Faculty Scholar at the Kunsthistorisches Institut of Florence in 2014.</p>

<p>In 2023, the Smithsonian awarded her The Freer Medal National Museum of Asian Art, which honours those &ldquo;who over the course of their career have contributed in a substantial way to the understanding of the arts of Asia&rdquo;.</p>

<p>Professor Necipoğlu served on the Steering Committee for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2016.</p>


Gülru Necipoğlu has been Aga Khan Professor of Islamic Art at Harvard University since 1993.

 Gülru Necipoglu

<p>An architect, educator and scholar, Hashim Sarkis was appointed Dean of the MIT School of Architecture and Planning in 2014. He is the founding principal of Hashim Sarkis Studios (HSS), established in 1998 with offices in Boston and Beirut. He served as the curator of the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale.</p>

<p>From 1995 to 2014, Dr Sarkis was on the faculty of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD), where he taught design studios and the history and theory of architecture. Between 2002 and 2014, he was the Aga Khan Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism in Muslim Societies at the GSD, where he also directed the GSD&rsquo;s Aga Khan Program.</p>

<p>The architectural and urban projects of HSS include affordable housing, houses, parks, institutional buildings, urban design and town planning. HSS has received several awards for its projects, including for the Housing of the Fishermen of Tyre, Byblos Town Hall and the Courtower Houses. The firm&rsquo;s work has been exhibited around the world, for example, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and at the biennales of Venice, Rotterdam, Shenzhen/Hong Kong and Valparaiso. The work has also been published extensively, including in a monograph by Ness.docs.</p>

<p>Dr Sarkis earned a Bachelor of Architecture and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design, and a Master of Architecture and a PhD in Architecture from Harvard University. He is author, co-author and editor of several books and articles on modern architecture history and theory, including <em>The World as an Architectural Project</em>; <em>Josep Llu&iacute;s Sert: The Architect of Urban Design</em> (co-edited with Eric Mumford); <em>CASE: Le Corbusier's Venice Hospital</em>; <em>Circa 1958, Lebanon in the Pictures and Plans of Constantinos Doxiadis</em>; and <em>Projecting Beirut</em> (co-edited with Peter Rowe).</p>

<p>Dr Sarkis has served on international juries and has lectured extensively throughout the world.</p>


An architect, educator and scholar, Hashim Sarkis was appointed Dean of the MIT School of Architecture and Planning in 2014.

Hashim Sarkis

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        <p>Sarah M. Whiting has been the Dean and Josep Llu&iacute;s Sert Professor of Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design since 2019. She served as the Dean of Rice University's School of Architecture from 2010 to 2019. She is also a design principal and co-founder of WW Architecture.</p>
        <p>Professor Whiting received a Bachelor of Arts degree in architecture, urban history and theory from Yale University, a Master of Architecture from Princeton University in 1990, and a Doctor of Philosophy in the History and Theory of Architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2001. Professor Whiting worked with the Office for Metropolitan Architecture in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and with Peter Eisenman in New York. She has taught design, history, theory and criticism at additional institutions, including Princeton University, the Illinois Institute of Technology, the University of Kentucky and the University of Florida. She frequently lectures throughout the US and abroad, and regularly serves as a critic of architecture and urban design.</p>
        <p>Professor Whiting&rsquo;s research is broadly interdisciplinary, with the built environment at its core. An expert in architectural theory and urbanism, she has particular interests in modern and contemporary architecture&rsquo;s relationship with politics, economics and society, and how the built environment shapes the nature of public life. Her work has been published in leading journals and collections. She is also the founding editor of <em>Point</em>, a book series aimed at shaping contemporary discussions in architecture and urbanism.</p>
        <p>Professor Whiting&rsquo;s writings have been published in journals ranging from&nbsp;<em>ANY to Wired</em>, as well as in collections including&nbsp;<em>Shaping the City</em>,&nbsp;<em>Mies in America</em>,&nbsp;<em>Six Authors in Search of an Architect</em>, and&nbsp;<em>An Architecture for all Senses: The Work of Eileen Gray</em>. She edited&nbsp;<em>Differences</em>, a collection of essays by Ignasi de Sol&agrave;-Morales, and served as reviews editor for the journal<em>&nbsp;Assemblage</em>&nbsp;from 1996 to 2001. She currently serves on the editorial boards of the journals&nbsp;<em>LOG, The Plan</em> and&nbsp;<em>Thresholds</em>.</p>
        <p>Professor Whiting served on the Steering Committee for the Aga&nbsp;Khan Award for Architecture in 2022.</p>
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Sarah M. Whiting is the Dean and Josep Lluís Sert Professor of Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

Sarah M. Whiting

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