Aga Khan Documentation Center receives Artstor grant

Mohamed MakiyaThe Aga Khan Documentation Center (AKDC) at MIT recently received a grant from Artstor to digitize and catalog selections from the 35mm slide collection of the Mohamad Makiya Archive. The archive was selected as one of four collections of unique and valuable analog material that is otherwise not broadly accessible to scholars. Through the grant, the digitized images will be made available in the Artstor Digital Library, and through Archnet, the Digital Public Library of America, and other open access platforms.

In 2012, the AKDC acquired the archive of the Iraqi architect and urban planner Mohamed Saleh Makiya. Dr. Makiya established Makiya Associates in Baghdad in 1946 and was one of the original founders of the Department of Architecture at the College of Engineering, Baghdad University in 1959. His firm opened offices in several countries and worked on residential, religious, commercial, and urban planning projects primarily in the Middle East.

The archive documents his prodigious career and includes a range of materials such as correspondence, project notes, proposals, sketches and drawings, and photo documentation. The Arstor grant will allow more than 1,000 slides to be digitized and made openly available for reference and scholarship, documenting sites and projects in areas of the world that have seen much change, destruction, and development since the time Makiya was working there.

Additional information and selected digitized content from the archive can be found on Archnet.