Monthly Archives: April 2020

Winners of the A3-Archnet Prize for Writing on African Architecture Announced

Following the jury’s decision to split the competition into undergraduate and graduate categories, Muhammed Gbolahan Madandola’s essay on the Great Mosque of Niono, Mali has been chosen as the winning essay in the first A3-Archnet Prize for Writing on African Architecture. Enwonwu Chiagozie, 21 is the undergraduate winner for her essay on Egedege N’Okaro, Benin Kingdom. Entrants into the contest were asked to discuss their favorite building in Africa. The competition attracted entries from throughout Nigerian, as well as some Nigerians resident abroad. In response to the number and quality of entries the jury decided to consider undergraduate and graduate […]

Rifat Chadirji, one of the “most influential shapers of modern Baghdad,” dead at 93

The staff of the Aga Khan Documentation Center, MIT Libraries (AKDC@MIT), is saddened to learn of the death of the great Iraqi architect Rifat Chadirji (December 6, 1926-April 10, 2020). Chadirji was “a thinker, author, critic, & rationalist architect with a refined aesthetic sensitivity, he devised a particular approach to architecture that he called international regionalism,” according to Nasser Rabbat, Aga Khan Professor and the Director of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at MIT Rabbat went on to characterize the deceased architect as “one of the most influential shapers of modern Baghdad and an original theorist of architecture […]

Archnet in March 2020

54,086 visitors from 187 countries and territories consulted Archnet in March, for a total of 272,731 page views. By far the most downloaded publication continues to be Charles Correa, a volume edited by Hasan-Uddin Khan, surveying the work of the great Indian architect who received his master’s degree from MIT in 1955. Other popular publications included the article “Design Guidelines for Ablution Spaces in Mosques and Islamic Praying Facilities,” a Floor plan and elevation of Bali Pasa Mosque in Istanbul, and Urban Form in the Arab World – Past and Present by Stefano Bianca. The most watched videos were this […]