News & Events
News + Events
MOST POPULAR ARCHNET RESOURCES THIS SUMMER
This month many students around the world will be going back to class after the break at the end of the academic year. The months of June through August are an interesting time on Archnet because far fewer users are visiting Archnet in the context of a class assignment. Researchers visit in the context of their work, but many users visit the site just to explore new things. Because of this, excepting the top two pages which are always the home page and the search, the statistics for the summer are often atypical. So, what were the most visited Archnet pages this summer? In this post, we’ll present the Top 10 pages of the summer from 10 to 1. 10)...
May 7 AFIKRA Salon at MIT to feature Aga Khan Collections Curator
Aga Khan Collections Curator Rami Alafandi will be presenting on the work of the Aga Khan Documentation Center and the Aga Khan Development Network in Vol. 6 of the afikra Boston salon on Sunday, May 7, at 6 pm in Room 3-133 on the MIT Campus. AFIKRA salons are in-person events held in cities worldwide that bring people together to learn about the histories and cultures of the Arab world. The salon is free and open to the public; registration is required.
Digital Interfaces Workshops on Documenting West African Heritage Held at MIT
The A3-Archnet Digital Interfaces Workshop week, hosted by the Aga Khan Documentation Center @ MIT, was held on 27 February – 3 March 2023 in the MIT Libraries. The Nigerian delegation was led by A3 founder Baba Oladeji and consisted of three winners of the A3-Archnet Writing Competition, Adefola Toye, Muhammed Madandola, Abdullah Ogunsetan. The Nigerian delegation received an orientation tour from Matt Saba, Interim Program Head and Michael Toler, Archnet Content Manager in the Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT (AKDC@MIT), on Sunday, 26th February 2023. A fourth prize winner, Enwonwu Chiagozie Mitchelle, was unable to participate in the workshops and will be recognized at a future event. The official kick-off for the workshops was in the morning...
Documenting Heritage Destruction from the Turkey-Syria Earthquake
العربية Türkçe Even as it continues to rise, the number of fatalities from the horrible earthquake that shook large parts of Turkey and Syria defies comprehension, and the number of those injured and left homeless is many times that number. Many children have lost their families and will need to be provided for. Heartbreaking seems too mild a word! Addressing this urgent humanitarian need is the first priority, and we urge you to support relief efforts however you can. There is a list of international aid agencies on this page from the Aga Khan Development Network. Humanitarian aid is and must be the priority, but the horrifying dimensions of the humanitarian disaster are multiplied when we remember that the affected...
Digital Documentation of African Cultural Heritage, Friday, March 3
As Black History Month draws to a close, the A3-Archnet collaboration to document African architecture is starting a week of workshops at MIT that will conclude on Friday with a public presentation on Friday, March 3, at 3 pm in The Nexus of Hayden Library. It will also be streamed live on Zoom. The in-person event is free and open to the public. Registration is required for the webinar. The participants in the workshops-Muhammed Madandola, recipient of a degree in architecture from the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology in Nigeria and a Master’s in Islamic art, architecture, and urbanism from Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar; Abdullah Ogunsetan, a final-year student of Architecture at the University of Lagos, Nigeria; and Adefola...
New Issue of OA Journal DISEGNARECON
Beniamino Polimeni, Senior Lecturer in Architecture at the University of Hertfordshire and Michael A. Toler, ARCHNET Content Manager in the Aga Khan Documentation Center, have edited a new issue of DISEGNARECON, an Open Access Journal on Architecture and Cultural Heritage published by the University of L’Aquila in Italy. The issue, Vol. 15, No. 28, also available on Archnet, includes 7 articles on the theme of “Cities and Migration: Visual approaches to the challenges of increasingly diverse cities,” including two contributions by Polimeni and Toler, the introductory editorial and “On the Move: Michel Écochard, Migration, and Transdisciplinary Exchange in Urban Design.” The latter focuses on two projects by French architect and urban planner Michel Ecochard, the urban planning of Casablanca, Morocco...
Fall Semester Employment Opportunity
The Aga Khan Documentation Center, MIT Libraries (AKDC@MIT), is seeking an employee to assist with processing content for Archnet, an open access, scholarly resource focused on architecture, urbanism, environmental and landscape design, visual culture, and conservation issues, with a particular focus on the Muslim world. Archnet provides ready access to unique visual and textual material to facilitate teaching, scholarship, and professional work of high quality. Duties: The successful applicant will assist in various projects under the supervision of Archnet Content Manager Michael Toler, including: Work with the Archnet Content Manager and Visual Resources Librarian Matt Saba to prepare uploads of media and metadata. This will include transferring data from spreadsheets or other forms in which it is submitted into Archnet...
Book on Abbasid Palaces by Matt Saba Published
Impermanent Monuments, Lasting Legacies: The Dār al-Khilāfa of Samarra and Palace Building in Early Abbasid Iraq, by AKDC Visual Resources Librarian Matthew Saba, has recently been released by Reichert Publishing. The book, available in electronic or print format, was developed from Saba’s dissertation research offering a new interpretation of the palaces built by the Abbasid dynasty of Iraq at the apex of its political power from 750 to 900 A.D. As a case study, it focuses on the palace known as the Dār al-Khilāfa (Abode of the Caliphate), constructed in the city of Samarra, founded by the Abbasids in 836 and used as a capital until 892. Early Abbasid palaces like the Dār al-Khilāfa are known for their massive footprints,...
20 projects in 16 countries, from Indonesia to Cape Verde, Shortlisted for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture
Geneva, Switzerland, 2 June 2022 – The Aga Khan Award for Architecture (AKAA) today announced 20 shortlisted projects for the 2022 Award cycle. The projects will compete for a share of the US$ 1 million prize, one of the largest in architecture. The 20 shortlisted projects were selected by an independent Master Jury from a pool of 463 projects nominated for the 15th 3-year cycle (2020-2022) of the prestigious award. Independent experts, including architects, conservation specialists, planners and structural engineers, have conducted rigorous on-site reviews for each project . The Master Jury meets again this summer to examine the on-site reviews and determine the final recipients of the Award. The Aga Khan Award for Architecture was established by His Highness...
AKDC Program Head to edit volume on the topic of restitution of cultural artifacts
AKDC Program Head Dr. Nur Sobers-Khan is one of the curators of §RETURN, HEAL, REDISTRIBUTE, an upcoming issue of ROOTS§ROUTES a multilingual, independent quarterly magazine of visual culture published in Italy. The focus of the issue curated by Dr. Sobers-Khan, Domenico Sergi, Anna Chiara Cimoli and Giulia Grechi is Restitution, an important and timely issue in contemporary museum practice, the debate of which often serves to expose “deeply rooted colonial epistemologies.” In Europe and the US, “one of the most frequent objections to restitution is the weak scientific infrastructure of the communities where objects would be returned,” a premise that assumes that only museums are capable of preserving cultural heritage objects, and that preservation of these objects in is of...