President of the Republic’s Representative,
Ambassadors,
Mr President,
Prime Minister,
Mayors,
Presidents and Directors,
Members of the Council,
Chancellor,
Perpetual Secretaries,
Chairmen,
Dear Fellow Members,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Alfred de Vigny wrote in his Journal of a Poet that honour is the poetry of duty.

My dear fellow members, since I now have the great pleasure of being able to address you thus, the honour you have done me in inviting me to join you in this great building gives me immense joy and indeed an important sense of duty:

duty to yourselves;
duty to Kenzō Tange;
duty to those who will succeed us.

The history of my family is the history of the uninterrupted transmission across the ages of not only religious but also cultural values, founded on an event dating back nearly fourteen centuries. Therefore you will understand that I feel intellectually and emotionally in tune with this admirable tradition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, according to which the newly appointed member helps to pass on to future generations something of the one who is no longer with us.

So it is with the greatest respect that I pay homage to Kenzō Tange whom you welcomed into your midst some years ago.

I have tried to understand what brought Kenzō Tange to stand beneath this dome. In awarding him the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1987, when he was 74 years old, the jury said of Kenzō Tange:

“In preparing a design, Tange arrives at shapes that lift our hearts because they seem to emerge from some ancient and dimly remembered past and yet are breathtakingly of today.”

Kenzō Tange wanted to master these echoes of the past so that they might inspire new forms without letting those echoes show through.

This is how he summed up his thinking on this issue:

“The role of tradition is that of a catalyst, which furthers a chemical reaction, but is no longer detectable in the end result. Tradition can, to be sure, participate in a creation, but it can no longer be creative itself.”

Every architect is obliged to consider how much the present should draw on the past in creating the future. More generally, this is a question which all those with any responsibility in the area of housing, in any society, anywhere in the word, must constantly ask themselves.

To try to understand the conditions under which Kenzō Tange made his contribution to the debate, we have to go back to the beginning of the twentieth century.

It was 1913, a year after the arrival of Emperor Yoshihito and the beginning of the Taishō era on the island of Shikoku in southern Japan. It was there that Kenzō Tange was born, in Imabari, a small coastal village overlooking the stretch of water which links the inland sea and the open sea. Hiroshima is 60 kilometres north-west of Imabari, on the opposite shore of this seaway.

The Taishō era was a time of deliberate openness towards the West. It would be in complete contrast to the immediate post-war period when American values were for the most part applied by force.

Kenzō Tange was born in a country in the process of change. This may explain why another Japanese architect, a little older than the young Kenzō, Kunio Maekawa, left for Paris in 1928 to begin his career with Le Corbusier.

At this stage a number of things come together. In fact, having gained his degree in architecture from Tokyo University in 1938, Kenzō Tange worked for Kunio Maekawa until 1941.

While training with Maekawa, Kenzō Tange returned to Tokyo University to study urban planning. It was there that he set up the Tange Laboratory where he was to mentor young architects including Sachio Otani, Takashi Asada, Taneo Oki, Kisho Kurokawa, Arata Isozaki and Fumihiko Maki. I know the last two very well. Arata Isozaki was the architect appointed by the University of Central Asia, of which I am Chancellor, to build its three campuses in Tajikistan, the Kyrgyz Republic and Kazakhstan. Meanwhile, Fumihiko Maki is the designer of the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto and the Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat in Ottawa.

Apart from his university education and his early experience with his masters, we should not neglect to mention the effect on Kenzō Tange of the debate surrounding “Japaneseness”, a word devised to describe the controversy that swept across Japan between 1920 and 1960. It was not simply about the influence of the past on the present and future, but, more generally, it questioned whether Japan should develop its own modern culture or adopt the “International Style” spreading across the world at the time, principally emanating from the United States.

But let us get back to Kenzō Tange, then about to embark on his career.

He had a degree.

He had been trained by prestigious teachers.

He had absorbed the immense Japanese tradition as well as the modernism of the west.

The outlook was very promising; the young man was ready to stand on his own two feet.

However, the war turned his life upside down.

Even so, Kenzō Tange kept his life firmly on track and was to be able to use his skills under adverse conditions. He set up his own practice and was appointed an assistant professor at Tokyo University. In 1947 he became a member of the Japanese government’s reconstruction agency.

In both capacities he participated at the highest level in the rebirth of the city of Hiroshima, designed in accordance with a modern, well-spaced plan. He was responsible for many of the monuments which surround the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, a ruined structure left standing after the bombing, which became famous worldwide and was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1996.

Kenzō Tange was to design and build the Cenotaph, the Peace Memorial Museum, the Peace Flame and, more recently, the National Peace Memorial Hall for the Victims of the Atomic Bomb.

Kenzō Tange was now an architect celebrated for his talents.

The year 1960 saw the World Design Conference in Tokyo while 1970 marked the World’s Fair in Osaka. At this time, Kenzō Tange was closely involved with the so-called Metabolist Movement, led by his former students Kurokawa and Maki. This school of thought became famous for the idea that the laws of space should take priority over the traditional laws of form and function.

During this period, Kenzō Tange was regarded as architect-in-chief of the movement which left deep traces across Japan. As such he was able to design some major projects, in particular his Tokyo Plan.

However, these activities did not prevent Kenzō Tange formulating his own ideas. He spoke of how, from a comparatively early age, he had come to a realisation which determined his way of thinking about architecture and urban planning. It involved the relationship between space and physical objects, which he analysed as follows:

“…urban and architectural space, formerly open and unconfined, actually exercised a force of attraction. I felt increasingly that space, which I had previously interpreted as being created by the separation of physical objects, actually exercised a force which held these objects together. I slowly came to consider space as a truly active binding force.”

The purity and profundity of this statement leads to a better understanding of Kenzō Tange’s work.

It is difficult to analyse his individual works. Nevertheless, I should like to single out the marvellous Museum of Asiatic Arts in Nice, four cubes devoted to Chinese, Japanese, Cambodian and Indian civilisations, a museum which the great architect himself might have described as “appropriately beautiful”, as opposed to an attempt to be innovative for innovation’s sake.

As well as being a great thinker about forms, Kenzō Tange was a businessman completely at home in the wider world. He had no fear of competition and loved to carry off deals ahead of his colleagues. His more than 20 year rivalry with I.M. Pei was well known and he is rumoured to have dissolved into gales of laughter when he learnt that his high-rise block in Singapore was taller than that designed by I. M. Pei in the same city.

Kenzō Tange was also a much-admired teacher in great demand in many countries, although, towards the end of his career, he complained of being burdened with administrative tasks which prevented him from devoting as much time as he would have wished to his students.

Kenzō Tange is then a perfect example of the accomplished man, a master of his profession and of his art.

He left an immense body of work which can be admired throughout the world.

He left some well-trained minds.

He left an understanding of the relationship between structure and space.

Above all, he identified for us the need to deal, all at once, never separately, with five central aspects – architecture, urban planning, education, cultural continuity and technology. A short list, but one whose simple terminology hides its fundamental importance.

We shall remember him.

My own journey has been very different in the sense that it has involved other cultures and other regions of the world. Even so, in many respects it has been similar.

When I succeeded my grandfather, I very soon realised the sheer scale of my responsibility for the millions of members of my community, scattered across Asia, Africa and the Middle East. I became particularly aware that improving their quality of life necessarily implied decisive progress in terms of housing.

Having watched the meteoric development across the entire world of the International Style, which I mentioned earlier with regard to Japan, I wondered whether it was desirable that the Muslim world should go down the same route.

The only clear answer was that there was no clear answer. To my knowledge, no one had ever asked the question and it was clear that I alone could not find the solution, although it was perfectly clear to me that Muslim cultural identities were at the heart of the matter.

I brought together Muslim thinkers from many different nations to find out whether they too were asking the same question and, if this was so, to discuss what action could be taken or, conversely, whether we should let well alone.

Differing opinions emerged. Some considered that religious symbolism should take pride of place in architectural expression, while others felt that architects should be able to express themselves without any obligation to refer to matters spiritual, and yet others presented a whole range of varying points of view. Nevertheless, all those present were conscious that there existed a question to which there was no answer.

By contrast, there was complete unanimity regarding the need to undertake a vast programme of study and analysis. For this second stage, I expanded the original group to include people from many disciplines: architects, art historians, sociologists, economists and philosophers representing every school of thought – believers, atheists and agnostics – and theologians of every denomination.

We considered the situation.

We have to imagine a world of one billion, four hundred million people sharing a religion which, as you well know, is a complex weave of many movements.

These peoples are distinct in both history and culture, in alphabetical order, African, Arab, Asiatic, Persian and Turkish. Moreover, they are marked by what Montesquieu called the theory of climate, some living in the most torrid deserts, others in the highest mountains. Some are beset by floods, while others must carefully conserve every drop of water. Some are rich, while others are afflicted with the most extreme poverty.

These differences explain the remarkable diversity of housing in Muslim countries.

However, they do not explain the disenchantment with the past, and the rejection and sometimes the reckless destruction in recent years of its vestiges, and of a world which has now largely disappeared.

Neither do they explain why architects in particular Muslim cultures have ignored the traditions of other Islamic countries.

Lastly, they do not explain why, until the late 1970s, no leading architect from a Muslim country was trained in our architectural traditions. Quite the opposite, Muslim student architects turned their back on these traditions, studying exclusively in the west, and because western schools of architecture did not offer any training in the architecture inspired by Islam, young graduates had no choice but to absorb, with enthusiasm, western culture, tastes, materials and forms and to adapt them to more temperate climates.

Beyond the issue of training architects, clients themselves, both private individuals and public authorities, were nearly always unaware of the architectural traditions of their respective countries. In no way was this a gesture of defiance towards cultural traditions. There is not the slightest doubt that the desire was to improve the quality of life. But, at that time, no one was aware that progress could be achieved by a return to traditional roots.

Architecture was not the only art to be affected by this phenomenon.

A chasm – not too strong a word – appeared between those who held on to the world of the past and those who looked to the future with no interest in the past. It was a tension that exerted a deep, negative influence between people, between religious factions and between nations. In a way, it was a new version of the dispute between proponents of ancient and modern which took place and was eventually settled within the Académie Française at the end of the seventeenth century.

In order to avoid this slippery slope, it seemed to us that acknowledgement of the past in every artistic domain should enable Muslim societies to perceive their pluralism in a new light as a pluralism legitimised by history and culture.

I am convinced that this proud, open acceptance of our pluralism, through education, will contribute to an easing of tension between Muslim communities and between Muslims and non-Muslims.

Political leaders with whom we discussed our beliefs were for the most part interested by the notion of a break between tradition and future. Nevertheless, some expressed a certain frustration. Indeed, they could reasonably say to us: “You have seen how the land lies, but how do you propose to break the deadlock?”

So we got back to work. For years we searched, we investigated, we pondered. Intellectuals from some twenty countries of Asia, the Americas, Europe and the Middle East brought their contributions to hundreds of meetings, seminars and conferences held in various parts of the world. Their work was the subject of reports, publications, doctoral theses and university courses. At the same time they also formed the basis of our direct involvement in the fight against poverty in ancient cities through the Aga Khan Historic Cities Programme.

We examined dozens of such fundamental topics.

To quote a few examples: the training of architects in the Muslim world, the expansion of metropolitan areas, changes in urban planning brought about by development, the evolution of rural housing, public spaces in the Muslim world, criticism in architecture, architectural symbolism and personal identity, regionalism in architecture, and heritage conservation as the key to cultural survival.

It was a process that continued uninterrupted over more than thirty years. A process that we wish to be permanent so as not to lose sight of things that were ignored in the past – simple things such as the fact that history moves on, that materials and tastes evolve and that economic and social equations are constantly changing.

The results of this analytical process were then put together.

First of all, we assumed that knowledge of the past was essential, whatever its effect on the future might be. Therefore we created a comprehensive data base about the history of architecture in Muslim societies, irrespective of their history or religious persuasion. This data base can be accessed via the ArchNet site at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

We also thought it necessary to devise methods of teaching the history of this architecture, in particular to clarify traditional symbolism, for example the symbolic meaning of water or the mystic garden. At this point, I should mention the Aga Khan Programme for Islamic Architecture offered at Harvard and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, universities where Kenzō Tange taught. Hundreds of students now hold degrees awarded within the framework of this programme.

Our work also convinced me that, as well as imparting knowledge of architectural history, it was imperative to draw attention to the works of contemporary architects so that these in turn would become something to be proud of. Perhaps even more importantly, I wanted these new works to take their place in the chain, now re-established, between past and future.

The range of these new works is vast. It embraces the restoration of ancient housing, urban extension programmes, and improvements to the quality of life in rural areas. But it also includes the design of complexes which did not even exist in our past, such as airports, office blocks, shopping centres and multidisciplinary hospitals. All of this in a world deeply affected by the computer revolution.

This is how the Aga Khan Award for Architecture came into being. In this connection, I am proud that say that Kenzō Tange was a member of the first jury. I was particularly happy that he applauded the fact the award recognised not only aesthetic but also social values.

French architects have been very much in evidence. Eight have been honoured by Award juries. They are, in chronological order, André Ravereau, Serge Santelli, Michel Eccochard, Paul Andreu, Jean Nouvel, Pierre Soria, Gilbert Lézénès and Marylène Barret.

Architects who drew on new sources of knowledge of Islamic culture began a virtuous circle and the lessons learnt from their creations in both rural and urban environments enriched our fund of information.

We learnt some important lessons from these works:

First of all, we realised that in order to have an effect on a large population, restoration and reconstruction projects must cover an entire neighbourhood and not any specific building, however great its cultural importance might be.

We were also convinced that the renovation of living accommodation is in itself insufficient and must be combined with the rehabilitation of public spaces, healthcare provision and schools, using all the modern methods of funding, including microcredit and microinsurance.

At the same time, these projects taught us that the regeneration or reconstruction of a district is in itself a starting point for economic renewal. In other words, a population whose housing is improved regenerates its economic environment of its own accord.

Finally, we came to the fundamental realisation that the regeneration of housing within the framework of an approach that involves a return to cultural roots has lasting consequences which particularly benefit the very poorest people.

You will have observed that the fundamental themes which we explored and acted upon, and which will determine our future activities, are architecture, urban planning, education, cultural continuity and technology. In other words, precisely the same issues as those identified by Kenzō Tange.

So it is, within distinct timeframes and different historical and geographic frameworks, we independently identified the same basic principles, as if they had existed for all time, quite separately from ourselves. It is to Kenzō Tange’s credit that he was the first to recognise the importance of never treating them as separate issues.

Having invited you to follow me to places far away from France, I would now like to return to this country to tell you that it was with this experience in mind that I brought up the very important question of the future of the Chantilly Estate with the French Government, the then Chancellor of the Institut de France, Mr Pierre Messmer, and his successor, Prince Gabriel de Broglie, Mr Eric Woerth, government minister and Mayor of Chantilly and Jean-Luc Lagardère, President of France Galop at the time. It was a very different project to those I had previously been involved with, since it was based here in France, one of the world’s most highly developed countries, the same France that for centuries had taken account of the relationship between past and present, specifically in the field of architecture and urban planning.

Clearly, it was essential to respect the French environment, but it was my belief that the project should embrace the two dimensions whose importance I had grasped in other parts of the world:

The Estate had to been seen as a whole. In my opinion, saving the race course alone would never have the scope needed to breathe new life into the Musée Condé, the Le Nôtre Park and the Great Stables.

It was also necessary to take the time to enable each interested party to find financial solutions that would avoid the efforts made being called into question at some point in the future.

My dearest wish is that a few years from now this experience will have proved useful.

Our initiatives to regenerate historic sites in the developing world have shown us that a key element of their success is the same level of commitment from all partners, whether public or private, social or cultural, to a shared project. The Chantilly site is unique, but without the support of everyone involved, nothing could have been done. France has once more demonstrated that in French there is no such word as ‘impossible’.

That, my dear fellow members, is what I wanted to say to you about the work of Kenzō Tange and my own experience.

I hope that these reflections on the past, present and future, each with its responsibilities, each with its history, will have been useful to those we wished to serve.

Thank you.