Monthly Archives: December 2020

AKDC to offer Introduction to Islamic Calligraphy

In collaboration with calligrapher and graphic designer Sangeetha Kowsik, AKDC@MIT will offer an introductory workshop on “Arabic Calligraphy: An Artistic Journey from Kufic to Contemporary Design,” January 14, 2021 from 2 to 4 PM EST, during MIT’s Independent Activities Period (IAP). The workshop introduces a brief history of Arabic calligraphy, a tradition whose practice spans more than one thousand years and continues today, where it is globally recognized for its unique aesthetics of geometric proportion and sinuous curve. In the first part of this workshop, the most important of the classical Arabic scripts are introduced through famous examples of artworks, […]

IAP Presentation: Spies, Pirates, and Atlas Lions: US-Moroccan Relations through the lens of the Tangier American Legation

AKDC@MIT is organizing a presentation, “Spies, Pirates, and Atlas Lions: US-Moroccan Relations through the lens of the Tangier American Legation,” on Tuesday, January 19, 2021, 4 to 5:30 pm. The lecture is part of the Independent Activities Period (IAP) offerings of the MIT Libraries. The old American Legation in the medina (walled city) of Tangier, Morocco holds a number of distinctions. It is the first property the United States owned abroad, it is the only overseas site on the National Register of Historic Places, and it was an active diplomatic structure longer than any other diplomatic presence of the US […]

Content added to Archnet in 2020

2020 has been an unusually difficult year around the world, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As universities took courses online, Archnet.org, a joint project of the Aga Khan Documentation Center of the MIT Libraries (AKDC@MIT) and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) worked with our partners step up the pace through which we made available quality resources for studying Islamic architecture and the built environment of Muslim societies more broadly. Approximately 3,350 new records have been published on Archnet so far this year. In addition to making over 2,700 new images available for download, we have also published records […]

Where did Archnet users come from in 2020?

Between January 1 and December 7, 2020, the total number of Archnet users rose by 6.4% over the same period in 2019. These users viewed a total of nearly 3 million records, 12% more than they viewed in 2019. Use of Archnet has risen steadily since 2015, the first full year for which we have reliable statistics on our current platform. To date, visitors have come to Archnet from more than 200 countries or territories, but the largest user groups are in India (21%), the United States (14%), and Turkey (6%). Social media has become a more significant source of […]