Sampling of African architecture from the collections of AKDC@MIT
The Aga Khan Documentation Center, MIT Libraries and A3: Archives of African Architectures have been awarded a grant from the General Seed Fund of the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI) to pursue their project “Prototypes for the Digital Documentation of Nigeria’s Build Heritage.”
The goal of the project is to document significant historical and contemporary architecture in Nigeria to be hosted simultaneously on Archnet.org and on a web site to be developed by A3. Students, researchers, practitioners, and faculty from Nigeria and MIT will participate in all aspects of the project.
The project, initiated by Nigerian architect Baba Oladeji was formalized in July, 2019 when AKDC Program Head Michael Toler was invited to facilitate an archiving workshop organized by the Revolving Art Incubator (RAI) in Lagos, Nigeria.
The first round of project development will bring a team led by Mr. Oladeji to the Aga Khan Documentation Center, MIT Libraries, for training on documenting built heritage and to begin work on developing the A3 web presence. An essay competition will be held to choose student participants. Application information is available here.
This project is made possible thanks for the support of MISTI; Nasser Rabbat, Aga Khan Professor of Islamic Architecture at MIT; and Andrew Akinnubi, of the Department of Architecture University of Lagos: Revolving Art Incubator (RAI) Lagos; and Olajide Ayeni.
