Archnet
About Archnet
Archnet, developed by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and the Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT, is an open-access resource focused on architecture, urbanism, environmental and landscape design, visual culture, and conservation issues, with a particular focus on Muslim societies. Archnet presents visual and material culture within historic, cultural, and geographic contexts, and contains over 120,000 images, publications, video, and pedagogical tools.
Archnet news
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...
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...
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...
Online Panel: Architecture: The Search for Identity, Justice & Continuity
The Opening Public Panel of the West<>Africa Architecture Biennale Inspired by the 1998 lecture of the Nigerian architect and educator, David Aradeon, this public panel seeks to understand the concepts of Iidentity, justice and continuity through the lenses of three architects: David Aradeon (Nigeria), Aziza Chaouni (Morocco) and Mokena Makeka (South Africa). Registration is Required (Deadline 20 February 2022): bit.ly/OpeningWABiennale Format: Panel, Virtual Platform: Zoom (You will receive a link before the event on February 20 Duration: 120 mins Free and Open to the public. Thank you to our supporters: Studio 4, Aziza Chaouni Projects, Makeka Design Lab.
ARCHNET NEXT Now Here!
The Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT (AKDC@MIT) and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) are pleased to invite you to explore the new iteration of Archnet, now available at next.archnet.org. ARCHNET NEXT, aka Archnet 3.0, is the first major revisioning since of the site since 2013, and only the second major update since Archnet was originally conceived in the late 1990s. ARCHNET NEXT will be launched on October 12th. Current users of Archnet will be delighted to know that all resources will still be available on ARCHNET NEXT, and access URLs will remain the same. For example, the...
MIT Student Employment Opportunity: Digital Interfaces Assistant for A3-Archnet Collaboration
A3: Archives of African Architectures and the Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT are seeking a student worker to assist the A3-Archnet Collaborative for the Documentation of African Architecture with the development of a seamless flow of information between the a3africa.org and archnet.org platforms. The work will include the tasks listed below, but to the extent possible, tasks assigned will reflect the skills and interests of the successful applicant. Write the programming code that allows seamless information being pulled from a3africa.org onto Archnet.org and vice-versa Design a search-optimized, mobile-friendly web interface Test, identify, and resolve any technical problems arising from...
Student Employment Opportunity: Research Assistant for Mapping Cultural Networks Project-Extended
The Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT (AKDC@MIT) and Project Cornelia at the University of Leuven (Department of Art History), Belgium, have been awarded a MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI) Global Seed Fund grant to explore spatial and temporal mapping of networks of cultural influence among the creators of visual and material culture (artists, architects, and the like), as well as the subsequent ‘life’ of the works they create. How can we “map” or otherwise visually represent relationships of collaboration, influence, and patronage across time and space? How can Digital Humanities tools help us to follow the fate...
Happy International Dance Day from AKDC@MIT!
Happy International Dance Day! In 1982 the Dance Committee of the International Theatre Institute (ITI) decided to celebrate April 29, the anniversary of the pioneering French dancer and choreographer Jean-Georges Noverre (1727-1810) as a day “to celebrate dance, revel in the universality of this art form, cross all political, cultural and ethnic barriers, and bring people together with a common language – dance.” (International Dance Day – International Theatre Institute ITI. Accessed April 28, 2021. https://www.international-dance-day.org/internationaldanceday.html.) The Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT (AKDC@MIT) exists to research and document the built environment of Muslim societies, but architecture does not exist...
ARCHNET Content Manager to Participate in Bicentennial Conference of the Tangier American Legation, Morocco
Michael Toler, Archnet Content Manager, will participate in the annual April Seminar of the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies, headquartered in the old American Legation in the medina of Tangier, Morocco. Though the building has completely transformed over the past 200 years, the property was originally gifted to the young nation of the United States in 1821, making 2021 the bicentennial anniversary of the Legation. In celebration of the occasion and the long friendship between the United States and Morocco that it represents, this year’s annual April Seminar has the theme of “The Tangier American Legation’s First 200...
Archnet To Be Featured at Upcoming SHASS Digital Collaborative Session
On February 25, 2021, the AKDC will present “Archnet 3.0: Enhancing Archnet for Teaching in the Digital Humanities” as part of the SHASS Digital Teaching and Research Collaborative Sessions at MIT. SHASS Digital Teaching and Research Collaborative Sessions take place each Thursday from 4:30-5:30 during the term. What is “Archnet 3.0”? AKDC@MIT and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture are currently in the process of re-developing Archnet, a freely accessible resource focused on the built environment in societies influenced by Muslim culture. Archnet’s mission is to provide ready access to unique textual and media material to facilitate teaching, scholarship, and...
AKDC@MIT and The Met Museum Collaborate to make images available on Archnet
The Aga Khan Documentation Center has collaborated with the Department of Islamic Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met) to digitize, catalog, and make available a number of historical photographs of Islamic architecture. The photos, most of which date between the 1880s and 1950s, show some of the great monuments of the Islamic tradition, both general and detailed views, often before modern restoration projects. The first batch of nearly 300 photos is now available on Archnet. These are among the oldest of the collection, taken by pioneering photographers such as the Turkish photographer Pascal Sébah, his son Jean...
AKDC Staff participating in panel on Digital Humanities + Islamic Visual Culture in the annual conference of the College Art Association
Matt Saba, AKDC Visual Resources Librarian, a and Glaire Anderson, Senior Lecturer in Islamic Art at the University of Edinburgh, have organized and will chair a panel on Digital Humanities + Islamic Visual Culture for the 109th Annual Conference of the College Art Association to be held online February 10-13, 2021. The panel is sponsored by the Historians of Islamic Art Association (HIAA). The panel includes 4 presentations: “Soft Eyes: Software’s Visualities and Islamic Art History in the Digital Age” by Hussein Keshani, The University of British Columbia “Animating an Amulet: 3D Modeling, Materiality, and a Medieval Arabic Amulet Scroll”...
Archnet Content Manager invited to participate in “Preserving and conveying memory to foster Alterity.”
Michael Toler, Archnet Content Manager, has been invited to participate in a webinar, “Préserver et transmettre la mémoire pour ancre l’Altérité,” organized by the Ta’aruf Center of the Rabita Mohammedia Al Ulema in Morocco. The event takes place January 25-28, is part of a continuing dialogue on “how to resolve a number of tensions which have ossified the dialogue between cultures and religions. The issues around memory – how to preserve it and pass it on to the next generations – seem to be a major challenge for our societies in terms of peacebuilding and encouraging open-mindedness to the notion...
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...
What was new and who was using Archnet in October?
58,272 users visited Archnet between October 1 and October 31, viewing a total of 286,946 pages, watching 140 videos, downloading 7,820 publications, and conducting 7,556 searches. The most-watched video was Close to Home: Al-Khimyah, written and directed by Prince Aly Muhammad Aga Khan, and revealing how a pile of rubble in Cairo became Al-Azhar Park, a 30-acre green space with lakes and fountains in the heart of the historic city, and its impact of the lives of residents in the area. The most downloaded publication continues to be Charles Correa, a survey of the architect‘s early work. You can find...
Archnet sees a significant rise in visitors during September
True to form, visitors to Archnet jumped by 24% from August to September. Though Archnet is intended as and has proven to be a resource for both practitioners and scholars of architecture, the number of visitors coming from academic domains increases significantly as the summer comes to an end, and learning management systems from universities start to refer visitors for the first time since the previous July. The number of pages per session in September 2020 rose by 4% over last year, with roughly comparable increases in the number of sessions per user, session duration, and the total number of...
Urban October on Archnet
Situated on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, the city of Beirut, is one of the oldest in the world. Control of the area has been contested throughout its history, and these conflicts have taken their toll on the city’s built environment. But on August 4 the city around the port was rocked by a massive explosion unrelated to armed conflict. The explosion caused the death of hundreds and injuring thousands more. It also caused billions in property damage, leaving approximately 3000,000 homeless. Lebanese architect and scholar Ali Khodr is developing a survey on the Built Heritage of Lebanon for...
New Video: Shiraz Allibhai Discusses the History and Development of Archnet
Shiraz Allibhai, Archnet Director from the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC), has been with Archnet since the beginning. In 1998, while heading up the Education Program, he was there when His Highness the Aga Khan, on a visit to MIT, expressed his contentment with the fruits of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture (AKPIA), but wished for a way to make those efforts resonate more within Muslim societies. William J. Mitchell, then Dean of MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning, asked for some time to look into the issue, ultimately proposing the resource that became Archnet. Archnet has...
Endangered Heritage: An Online Panel of the A3-Archnet Collaborative
IMPORTANT UPDATE: REGISTRATION FOR THIS SESSION IS NOW CLOSED. The event is at capacity. If your registration was successfully processed, you will soon receive instructions on how to join. July 27, 2020 The A3-Archnet Collaborative for the Documentation of Africa’s built heritage will hold an online public panel on “Endangered Heritage,” July 31 at 16:30-18:30 WAT/11:30-13:30 EDT. The panel will include three presenters known for their work in cultural heritage preservation: Ṣọlá Akíntúndé, Founder Trustee, WASCHTrust (West Africa Shared Cultural Heritage Trust); Kuukuwa Manful, Principal Investigator for the Accra Archive: and Raj Yudhishthir Isar, Director of the Aga Khan Trust...
Archnet in June 2020-The end of an unusual academic year!
Archnet staff published a total of 343 new records to Archnet.org. Highlights included 20 briefs on projects shortlisted in the 2019 cycle of the triennial Aga Khan Award for Architecture (AKAA), and 315 images of Afghanistan, Syria, and Iran from the Aga Khan Visual Archive and Harvard University’s collection of photographs and video by the Baroness Marie-Thérèse Ullens de Schooten. Each AKAA project brief brings together documentation collected through the nomination and documentation processes, such as the on-site reports, graphic panels, images, and other information in a single document containing a wealth of information about the project, its history, design...
Archnet in May 2020: What’s new and how many are visiting?
362 new records were published on Archnet.org in May 2020, including records and images of 3 structures in the ruins of a Ghaznavid palatial complex, Lashkiri Bazar, north of Bust, Afghanistan; and photographs of an 18th c. house, Bayt Boghose Kirdikian in Aleppo, Syria. Also newly published, Volumes 30-33 of Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual Culture of the Islamic World; and video from interviews with prolific Iraqi architect Hisham Munir, “Conversations at the Shahi Qila,” and a flyover video of City Park and the Jamatkhana in Khorog, Tajikistan. Nearly 50,000 distinct visitors viewed 279,000 pages in the month of...
What’s new in Archnet for April 2020?
In 2003 Archnet went online with the goal of facilitating teaching, scholarship, and professional work of high quality by providing provide ready access to unique, high quality, visual and textual resources on the built environment, particularly that of Muslim societies and the wider developing world. 17 years later, that mission is proving more important than ever, as a global pandemic is keeping more than 90% of the world’s students away from their educational institutions. From elementary school to post-graduate education, people are teaching, studying, and researching remotely. We are gratified to know that Archnet seems to be helping some people...
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...
Resources for teaching and studying architecture during COVID-19 closures
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread, many educational institutions are moving classes online, a development that is very likely to accelerate the growth of online education and the need for open access pedagogical materials. If you are an educator who has to move your teaching about architecture, urbanism, or other aspects of the built environment online, Archnet resources may be helpful to you. You may want to start by exploring the Archnet Pedagogy Collection where you’ll find resources that can easily be integrated into an online teaching platform. Our teaching collections, donated by scholars in a variety of fields,...
Archnet in February 2020
261,519 Archnet pages were viewed during the month of February, with each visitor consulting an average of 3.61 pages, according to Google Analytics. While the prize booklet for the Tamayouz Excellence Award was the most downloaded publication in February, it was followed closely by the chapter on “Belapur Housing” from the collection of essays on the work of esteemed Indian architect Charles Correa. Other than the homepage, which is the default page for Archnet.org, Timeline proved the most popular entry page for visitors. The image to the right shows other popular resources from last month. You can see lists of...
AKDC and Department of Islamic Art of the MET sign MoU
The Department of Islamic Art of the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the AKDC@MIT have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) trough which the Department of Islamic Art will transfer digital images and date from their archives to AKDC for publication on Archnet.org. Look for them soon!
AKDC@MIT and A3 receive a grant to document Nigerian architecture
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...
Happy New Year from ARCHNET!
Happy New Year from all of us who work on Archnet.org. We wish all our users, donors and contributors a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2020! 2019 was an eventful year for us. Archnet moved to a new platform and a new provider in 2020 without causing significant disruptions to our users. In addition we made available records for over 6,500 images, 170 new sites, 90 publications, and 45 authorities. We brought you documentation of the shortlisted and recipient projects in the 14th-cycle of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. We also launched new collections of abstracts from Cities as Built...
Most accessed Archnet resources in November
The audience of Archnet.org continued to grow in November 2019, up 7% over October and 4% over November last year. Throughout that time, and indeed since his death in 2015, a book length study of the work of Charles Correa has been among the most downloaded publications, but in November the section on the Kovalam Beach Resort in India was also one of the most visited pages on Archnet. There are a few other surprises in our lists of the top ten publications, videos, pages and searches last month. Click here to see to see them.
AKDC at the 1st Annual Conference & Exhibition of Electronic Resources & Libraries – Middle East Chapter
The 1st Annual Conference & Exhibition of Electronic Resources & Libraries – Middle East Chapter (ER&L-Middle East) takes place October 9-10 at the InterContinental Hotel in Festival City, Dubai, UAE. AKDC@MIT will be represented in the vendor fair by Interim Program Head and Archnet Co-Director, Dr. Michael A. Toler. He will be demonstrating Archnet and other AKDC online presences in the ER&L – Middle East Exhibition. Stop by with your questions, comments, and suggestions about Archnet or any other AKDC services. I would be particularly interested in ideas for collaboration that might help us provide Archnet users with more comprehensive...
See what was most popular on Archnet in September
Our most accessed resources lists were shaken up a bit in September by two things: publication of recordings of Moroccan music made in 1959 by Paul Bowles in town of Ouezzane at the base of the Moroccan Rif Mountains and, even more so, by the announcement of the six projects to receive the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in the 14th triennial cycle of the prestigious award. The 2019 Award Recipients collection was made available to Archnet users the very day the announcement was made in Kazan, Tatarstan. As has been the case for more than a year now, a...
Most popular resources in August 2019
August 2019. We’ve just posted lists of the most accessed Archnet resources for the month of August. As is often the case, the Archnet Timeline was the most accessed page, aside from the home page. In the run up to the August 29th announcement of the recipients of the 2019 Aga Khan Award for Architecture, many people checked out the collection devoted to the 20 shortlisted projects. The most watched video last month was a selection of Andalusian music recorded in 1959 by Paul Bowles in Ouezzane, Morocco; the most downloaded publication was a survey of the work of Charles Correa;...
6 Recipients of the 2019 Aga Khan Award for Architecture Announced
The six recipients of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (AKAA) were announced today at a ceremony in Kazan, in the Republic of Tartarstan. The recipients are a revitalization of Muharraq, Bahrain highlighting the World Heritage site’s pearling history; an “amphibious” school in South Kanarchor, Bangladesh; the sustainably constructed Palestinian Museum in Birzeit, Palestine; the development of 328 public spaces for recreation in the Republic of Tartarstan; an extension of the campus of Alioune Diop University in Bambey, Senegal; and the restoration of an indigenous ecosystem in Sharjah, UAE. Recipients were announced by Irada Ayupova, Minister of Culture of the...
Archnet marks International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, August 9
To mark International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples on August 9, Archnet is highlighting the architecture of indigenous people. The background images on the site are photographs of the Amin Mosque, a Uyghur mosque built in the 18th century in northwest China; and a street in the Old Town of Ghadames, an oasis town on the edge of the Sahara Desert in Libya. Click the images and text on the homepage tiles to learn about more resources devoted to the theme. There is also an Archnet collection that gathers select resources focusing on manifestations of indigenous culture and vernacular...
Archnet Word of Day: “ablaq”
Yesterday Archnet social media featured the first of a new series of “Word of the Day” updates. The first word is ablaq, defined by the Dictionary of Islamic Architecture as “term used to describe alternating light and dark courses of masonry.” In the image to the left you can see five examples of the style from including a hammam in Aleppo, a palace in Damascus, a mosque that is now a cathedral in Cordoba, and mosques in Tripoli (Lebanon), and a mosque complex in Damascus. The next word in the series, “almena” is defined by the Oxford Dictionary of Architecture as...
AKDC Program Head to present in a symposium on The Architecture of Migration
Michael Toler will present on “International Tangier: Stagnation and Growth in the 20th Century” in a Symposium on “The Architecture of Migration, Clues of Transcultural Exchanges in the Mediterranean Built Environment,” July 16th-17th at the Leicester School of Architecture, De Montfort University in the UK. The symposium is organized by Beniamino Polimeni, a researcher, designer and an architectural conservator who was a 2013 postdoctoral fellow in the Aga Khan Program for Islamic architecture at MIT, and Yasser Megahed is a Lecturer at Leicester School of Architecture, UK. Full organizer biographies are available on the conference website. The symposium comes at...
AKDC Program Head to participate in kickoff of apprenticeship program of the Revolving Art Incubator in Lagos, Nigeria
LAGOS, Nigeria – From 12 – 13 July 2019, Revolving Art Incubator will host Michael Toler, Head of the Aga Khan Documentation Centre, MIT Libraries (AKDC@MIT) and Jelili Atiku, multimedia artist and Visiting Professor at Brown University, Kola Tubosun, writer, linguist and Founder of Yorubaname.com, Judith Okonkwo, Creative Director of Imisi 3D Lab and Oliver Enwonwu, Director of Omenka Gallery and Trustee of Ben Enwonwu Foundation to facilitate the commencement of our apprenticeships programme with archiving and documenting as its central theme. The apprenticeship programme at RAI represent one-leg of our 3-pronged extroversion agenda; the other two being the outposts...
Call for submissions: Pedagogical Materials for Teaching about Architecture in Muslim Societies
As the academic year draws to a close, the Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT invites you to share your best course materials in Archnet’s Pedagogy Collection. This collection contains open access materials for teaching about the built environment of Muslim societies. Materials may be geared toward any level from kindergarten to graduate school, and they may approach the topic from the perspective of any discipline. We are interested in syllabi, lesson plans, reading lists, presentations, recorded lectures, course materials, scholarly articles, etc. All material received will be evaluated by experts before inclusion. Please note, all material will be...
April by the numbers
Archnet has just published lists of the most popular publications, search terms, and videos for the period of April 1-30. During that period, more than 52,000 users accessed more than 265,000 pages in the site. Visitors came from 186 countries or territories Google recognized countries or territories, with the larges group, nearly 1 in 5, coming from India. They are attracted by the rich library of materials accessible anywhere there is an internet connection. 7,564 publications were downloaded between April 1st and 30th, the most popular of which was a 1985 article on “Contemporary Kuwaiti Houses,” originally published in the...
New Archnet collection documents monuments of Algerian architecture
“Moorish Monuments of Algeria: richness and diversity,” is a new Archnet collection documenting 27 of the most prominent historic architectural sites in Algeria. The Aga Khan Documentation Center of the MIT Libraries (AKDC@MIT) commissioned Dr. Amine Kasmi, a conservation architect and associate professor at the Department of Architecture, University of Tlemcen in Algeria, to develop and curate the collection documenting “architecture produced by the local population of the central Maghreb.” Structures in the collection span the history of the region from the 3rd century BCE through the first half of the 20th c. Like “The Islamic Heritage of Bangladesh, the...
20 Projects shortlisted for the 2019 Aga Khan Award for Architecture
A shortlist of 20 projects competing for the 2019 Aga Khan Award for Architecture (AKAA) were announced today in a ceremony held in Kazan, Russia, and are now featured on Archnet. Chosen from over 380 nominations, the projects will compete for the prize which recognized projects “deemed to new standards of excellence in architecture, planning practices, historic preservation and landscape architecture.” The Award was established “to identify and encourage building concepts that address the needs of communities in which Muslims have a significant presence.” The diverse shortlist includes educational, residential, social, cultural, commercial, and municipal structures, as well as urban...
Happy Birthday Michel Écochard
It he were alive today, architect and urban planner Michel Écochard would be celebrating his 114th birthday. Born March 11, 1905 in Paris, he went to work for the Colonial Antiquities Service of Syria and Lebanon almost immediately after graduating from the École des Beaux-Arts. By the time of his death on May 24, 1985 he had received the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (AKAA) for the restoration of the Azem Palace in Damascus, and carried out projects in Cameroon, the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, France, Guinea, Iran, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, Senegal, Syria, and Turkey. In the mid-1980s Écochard donated...
Archnet sites now available on Hoverpin
AKDC is partnering with Hoverpin to make selected Archnet content available on their AI based app. Hoverpin allows users to create personalized maps based on their interests by surfacing and aggregating location-based content from a range of topics onto a single screen. Currently the Archnet layer on Hoverpin gives you a map-based view of sites from 3 collections–Mosques of North America, Islam in Europe, and the Islamic Heritage of Bangladesh–as well as examples of significant architecture in Morocco. These sites were chosen for this pilot project, but look for more content soon. Users who allow the app to access their location will...
AKDC Collaborates on Timeline Travel Project
In fall of 2018, the Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT had the opportunity to contribute to an exciting new digital humanities project titled Timeline Travel. The aim of the project is to create an alternative teaching and learning tool for architectural history that taps into the visual learning capacities of today’s students. The Timeline Travel tool features online interactive timelines and maps for various historic cities, where visitors can explore monuments and learn more about their histories through descriptions and images. The project currently features timelines for Istanbul, Ravenna, Edirne, and Gaziantep, and will be available in Turkish, English,...
World Interfaith Harmony Week on Archnet
Since 20 October 2010 when the UN General Assembly adopted resolution A/RES/65/5, the first week in February has been designated World Interfaith Harmony Week. The week is intended to promote harmony between all people regardless of their faith. In its statement setting “Sustainable Development through Interfaith Harmony” as the 2019 theme, the UN page points out the importance of peaceful relations between faith traditions providing for the well-being of people around the world. At the core of all the faith systems and traditions is the recognition that we are all in this together and that we need to love and support...
Archive of John and Caroline Williams
In 2017 AKDC@MIT received over 18,000 slides taken by John A. and Caroline Williams, author of Islamic Monuments in Cairo: The Practical Guide. The images in the collection document sites in Egypt and across the Islamic world over multiple decades. Currently a sampling of about 700 are available online, with more are coming soon. Of course the entire collection is available the Aga Khan Documentation Center for consultation, research, or use in publications. Learn more about the collections of the Aga Khan Documentation Center on our website.
AKDC accepts Tamayouz Mohamed Makiya Prize at ceremony in Amman
On December 8 at a ceremony in Amman, Jordan, Michael A, Toler, Interim Program Head and Archnet Content Manager, accepted the Mohamed Makiya Prize of the Tamayouz Excellence Awards on behalf of the Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT.” Several hundred people attended the ceremony hosted by the Iraqi Business Council in Jordan (IBC Jordan) under the patronage of H.E. Dr Omar Al-Razzaz, the Prime Minister of Jordan, at the Grand Millennium Hotel in Amman. The Mohamed Makiya Prize is an annual prize open to both individuals and organizations who promoted, encouraged, campaigned or influenced directly or indirectly the advancement of architecture...
New developer for Archnet
A new development firm has taken over responsibility for the maintenance, hosting, and future development of Archnet. The new company, Performant Software Solutions LLC is a software company based in Boston, MA and Charlottesville VA, with a specialization in Digital Humanities software projects and technology consulting. The fact that they have a passion for, and a great deal of experience in working with cultural heritage collections, scholarly and visual archives, manuscript and textual studies, and historical and archaeological data projects makes them a particularly good fit for Archnet, a collaboration between the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and the Aga Khan...
Important Notice: Archnet offline Friday morning (UPDATED)
UPDATE 9:32 am–Due to unexpected server issues Archnet remains unresponsive. It should be available again very soon. We are working to bring you some major enhancements in Archnet speed and reliability early in the new year. In preparation for these changes, rolling out early in the new year, Archnet.org may be offline for up to 1 hour between 2-4 am EST (7-9 am UTC) for behind-the-scenes server maintenance. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Watch this page or subscribe to our RSS feed to follow updates.
AKAA Shortlisted Projects on Display in Rotch Library
Panels from the “Design for Diversity: The Aga Khan Award for Architecture” exhibition are now on display in Rotch Library. The panels are selected from a larger exhibition highlighting the 13th Cycle (2014-2016) of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture that was on display at the Boston Society of Architects from May 26 to September 23, 2018. The exhibition highlighted 19 projects shortlisted from over 300 submissions. Curated by the Aga Khan Council for the United States of America, Design for Diversity presented “architectural works that provide for people’s physical, social, and economic needs, while responding to their cultural expectations. Buildings...
Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT wins the Mohamed Makiya Prize for Architecture
The Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT (AKDC@MIT) is honored to be chosen recipient of the Mohamed Makiya Prize, part of the Tamayouz Excellence Award programme. 44 entries from 11 countries were submitted for this year’s prize. Michael Toler, Interim Program head, noted that the award is especially meaningful given the caliber of the three other projects shortlisted for the award: the Arab Center for Architecture (Beirut), Michael Rakowitz (New York) and Rana Beiruti (Amman). “It is a great honor to even be nominated alongside such prestigious organizations and individuals,” he said. Toler added that the AKDC@MIT is a collaborative endeavor. “We...
Full House for AKDC presentation at HIAA biannual symposium
AKDC@MIT is delighted to have had the opportunity to present on its collections and new research tools to a packed room at the 2018 biennial symposium of the Historians of Islamic Art Association (HIAA). The session took place at 1:00 pm on Saturday, October 27, the final day of the symposium at Yale University. Matt Saba, Visual Resources Librarian, gave a brief overview of the history of the center and its image collection, the Aga Khan Visual Archive. He then surveyed several of the center’s new collections since 2012, divided into three categories. For Scholars’ Collections he highlighted the Tabbaa...
Interim Program Head and Visual Resources Librarian to present at HIAA Symposium
The Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT (AKDC@MIT) is excited to offer an information session on its collections at the 2018 Biennial Symposium of the Historians of Islamic Art Association (HIAA), taking place at Yale University on October 25 – 27, 2018. Matt Saba, Visual Resources Librarian at AKDC@MIT, will offer an overview of the center’s collections, highlighting new acquisitions since 2012. Noteworthy examples are the archives of Iraqi architects Mohamed Makiya, Hisham Munir, and Rifat Chadirji, whose works represent a pivotal moment in the history of modern architecture, and the archive of French architect Michel Écochard, who worked on...
Urban October on Archnet
Each October UN-Habitat and organizations around the world focus on the theme of urban sustainability. Urban October begins with World Habitat Day on 1 October and ends with World Cities Day on 31 October. This year Archnet joins in the effort by bringing attention to materials relating to urban development and efforts to “make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable” throughout the history of Muslim societies. Follow us on social media and look for the hashtag #UrbanOctober.
New Exhibition: Details, Delight, and Documentation
A new Archnet exhibition highlights items from the Stuart Cary Welch Islamic and South Asian Photograph Collection of Harvard’s Fine Arts Library. Welch (1928-2008) was a celebrated curator, lecturer, and collector of Islamic and Indian art. His professional positions included Special Consultant in charge of the Department of Islamic Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, a post he held from 1979-1987, and Honorary Keeper, then Curator of Islamic Art at Harvard University’s Fogg Museum from 1956-2008. He is credited with vitalizing the study of Western and South Asian art, culture, and aesthetics in the United States during the latter half...
Archnet Sites from A to Z
Archnet is probably the most comprehensive, open access resource on Islamic architecture that can be found online. Sites in our database span the globe. Follow us on social media to see a site in located in each country represented on Archnet, starting today with Rambu House in Kabul, Afghanistan. Originally constructed in the 18th century and restored in 2006, this house is described on Archnet as one of the finest homes in the Asheqan Arefan quarter of Kabul’s old city and one of a few remaining homes that retain timber patai screens (a façade system of sliding timber windows and fixed...
Founding Program Head Leaving AKDC
This week Sharon C. Smith, PhD, founding Program Head of the Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT (AKDC@MIT), and co-director of Archnet.org, will turn over the reins to Michael A. Toler, PhD, Archnet Content Manager, who will assume the role of Interim Program Head. Smith established AKDC@MIT in 2011 when she came to MIT from the Harvard University’s Fine Arts Library. Since then the Center has not only provided outstanding support to the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at MIT and Harvard, but it has grown into a research and archival center with a significant and growing global reputation....
Now online: Sharon C. Smith: “Documenting the Built Environment: Why and How?” & Michael A. Toler: “The Documentation of Cultural Heritage a Society in Transition”
The presentations “Documenting the Built Environment: Why and How?” by Sharon C. Smith, “Documenting the Cultural Heritage of a Society in Transition” by Michael A. Toler are now available online at the web site of the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies (TALIM). The presentations were recorded on April 12, 2018 at the Legation in Tangier, Morocco, as part of TALIM’s annual April Seminar, organized annually in partnership with the Office Chérifien des Phosphates. This year’s seminar program was organized in collaboration with the Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT (AKDC@MIT). The audio and slides from the session will also...
Most Accessed Archnet Resources in July 2018
Once again the most accessed Archnet resource during the month of July was Charles Correa, a volume on the great Indian architect, planner, activist, and theoretician Charles Correa (1930-2015), who studied architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Michigan. Edited by Hasan-Uddin Khan, the volume includes essays surveying his work and the philosophy behind them, including a previously unpublished essay by Correa himself, as well as sections dealing with individual works in detail, including project descriptions, drawings, and photographs. Another popular resource, and the most shared on social media, was a new project including supplemental media to...
Audio from the AKDC/TALIM Seminar on Digital Documentation of Moroccan Cultural Heritage being made available online
In April Michael A. Toler, Archnet Content Manager, and Sharon C. Smith, Program Head of the Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT (AKDC@MIT) traveled to Morocco for a workshop and seminar organized by AKDC@MIT and the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies (TALIM). Following these events Smith and Toler traveled to other cities in Morocco to discuss possibilities for collaboration. The workshop and seminar, held at TALIM April 11-12, focused on digital preservation of cultural heritage in Northern Morocco, were attended by researchers, scholars, preservationists, and representatives of cultural heritage institutions including universities, libraries, government and non-governmental institutions with a focus on preservation. The facilities...
A Typical Morning for Archnet
According to Google Analytics, at 10:34 am EDT this morning there were 19 people using Archnet, and they came from 11 different countries. At the precise moment when we checked the statistics, 7 of those users came from India where it was well into the evening; 3 came from the US where it was morning; and 1 visitor came from each of the remaining 9 countries. 19 visitors from 9 countries on 5 continents is a fairly typical number for that time of a weekday in July.
Architecture and Plurality Now Available for Download
The complete 2016 Cyclical Monograph of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, Architecture and Plurality, is now available on Archnet. The book features the six projects that were 2016 recipients of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (AKAA), as well as the 13 other projects that were shortlisted. It was the 13th cycle (2013-2016) of the Award, presented every three years to recognize projects “that set new standards of excellence in architecture, planning practices, historic preservation and landscape architecture” (Source: Aga Khan Award for Architecture). Projects that received the 13th Cycle Award span the globe form China to Denmark. Shortlisted...
New on Archnet: José Luis Argüello, AKPIA Posters (2001-2016)
A virtual version of the exhibit José Luis Argüello, AKPIA Posters (2001-2016) is now available on Archnet. Curated by Sharon C. Smith, AKDC@MIT Program Head, and introduced by Nasser Rabbat, Aga Khan Professor and the Director of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at MIT (AKPIA@MIT), the exhibit contains examples of posters for AKPIA events and courses over a span of 15 years. In addition to posters like those in this exhibition, José Luis Argüello also designs the graphics for the AKPIA@MIT website
New Archnet Collections Page
This morning Archnet rolled out a redesigned collections page that will allow users to see more collections on a single page, and to more easily browse collections by category or in their entirety. The initial page shows thumbnails for all collections in a randomized order. Each collection thumbnail contains an image representing it contents, a title bar whose color corresponds to the category of the collection, a brief description, and the category name. Users can switch between categories either by clicking a category name at the bottom on a thumbnail, or by using the menu at the top of the...
AKDC Organizes Workshop and Seminar on Cultural Heritage in Morocco
The Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT (AKDC@MIT), in collaboration with the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies (TALIM) to organize a workshop and seminar on the topic of “Documenting Cultural Heritage in Morocco.” The workshop, to be held on April 11, considers standards and best practices for documenting and presenting cultural heritage, and includes participants from museums, heritage sites, and cultural institutions throughout Morocco. The seminar will be held the following day, and focus on documenting, preserving, and raising awareness of architectural heritage in northern Morocco. The seminar is generously sponsored by OCP Group. Sharon C. Smith, AKDC...
Women’s History Month on Archnet
Today, the 8th of March, is International Women’s Day. Since 1975 the day has been designated by the UN as a time to reflect on progress made, to call for change and to celebrate acts of courage and determination by ordinary women who have played an extraordinary role in the history of their countries and communities. (http://www.un.org/en/events/womensday/) To mark the day, Archnet highlights the role of women in Islamic architecture and in the built environment of Muslim societies more generally. Click around the sliding tiles on our homepages to see monuments of Islamic architecture that were built through the generosity...
Exhibition from the Archive of Paul Collart Includes Previously Unpublished Images of Palmyra
Archnet announces a new collection of black and white photographs taken by the Swiss archeologist Paul Collart (1902-1981) during travels in Syria, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, and Turkey. The collection is curated by Lobna Montasser, Media and Documentation Officer at the office of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture in Geneva. It provides a representative sampling of Collart’s photography in the region, and features previously unpublished photographs taken while Collart was leading an excavation of Baal Shamim in Palmyra. Montasser selected the images in the Archnet collection from thousands of photographs in the Paul Collart archive at the Institute of Archaeology...
Archnet’s Growing International Appeal
In last week’s article on the growth of Archnet in 2017, we noted the increasing globalization of Archnet’s user base, as evidenced by the fact that approximately 87% of Archnet users initiated their visit from outside of the United States. In this article we will look a bit more deeply into those figures. According to Google Analytics, Archnet received visitors from 208 countries and territories (as defined by Google) in 2017, literally an A to Z of countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. This this article compares statistics on sessions initiated in those 208 areas during the period of August 1...
2017 Growth in Archnet Resources
Approximately 12,357 records were published in Archnet between January 1 and December 31, 2017, increasing the total number of records by approximately 10%. While much of the new material expands existing collections, new collections added in 2017 include sketchbooks and other items form from the archive of architect and designer Ali Tayar, the Isfahan Urban History Project undertaken by Lisa Golombek, Renata Holod and Claus Breede between 1974 and 1976, and photographs from the scholarly archives of Marilyn Jenkins-Madina, Curator Emerita, Department of Islamic Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Yasser Tabbaa, a prominent scholar in Islamic art and...
Archnet Online Office Hours: August 22, 2017
Join us on August 22, 2017 at 9:30 am EDT for the first in what we hope will be a continuing series of Archnet Online Office Hours. This 1 hour pilot session with Archnet Co-Director Sharon C. Smith and Archnet Content Manger Michael A. Toler. The session will begin with a brief demonstration of the most recent Archnet enhancements, followed by an extended Question and Answer session. The session will be in English, and headsets are required. Registration for this pilot session is limited to 30 the first 30 registered participants. Registration closes on August 14th at 11:59 pm EDT....
New Archnet Features
This morning’s Archnet update, the first of the 2017 development cycle, includes a number of enhancements intended to improve the user experience. Users will no longer have to drag, zoom, and click the map in order to apply country filters to a search. It is now possible to find and select countries simply by opening the Geo filter, typing a country name, and hitting the return key. Also in the realm of geolocation, users will find the site maps contain considerably more detail, often including place names written in local alphabets. Frequent users of social media will be happy to...
New on Archnet: Islamic Heritage of Bangladesh
A new Archnet collection, The Islamic Heritage of Bangladesh, documents the architecture of 33 historic sites with detailed descriptions, photographs and, in some cases, drawings. The collection was developed by Dr. Mohammad Habib Reza, Assistant Professor, in the Department of Architecture at BRAC University in Bangladesh. The project was a collaboration between BRAC University, Archnet, and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture. Thousands of new records have been published on Archnet since May 1. See examples on this page.
New Exhibition: Red Monastery Church Restoration
A new Archnet exhibition highlights the interior of the Church of Saints Bishai and Bigol in the Sohag Province of Egypt. Perhaps better known as the Church of the Red Monastery because of the red brick walls used in the construction of the monastery, the church was established in the 4th c. as a center of the large monastic community in Upper Egypt. It is remarkable for the vividly colored paintings covering about eighty percent of the the interior. The photographs in this exhibition show the interior after a decade-long restoration effort of the American Research Center in Egypt. The collection also contains an introductory...
13th Cycle Nominees for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture
Information on and images of 137 projects nominated during the 13th cycle of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (AKAA) is now available on Archnet. The prestigious prize is awarded every 3 years to projects that set new standards of excellence in architecture, planning practices, historic preservation and landscape architecture. The diverse list of AKAA nominees includes a wide variety of projects in more than 40 countries around the world. There are rehabilitation and construction projects in Tunisia, Spain, Palestine and Bahrain; housing projects in Yemen, Turkey, and Indonesia; educational and cultural facilities in Kenya, Iran, Australia, and Algeria and Afghanistan; mosques in Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Jordan,...
Highlighting the cultural production of seven countries
This week, Archnet highlights the built environment of the countries included in President Trump’s executive order of 27 January 2017 barring citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the United States. More than 18,000 Archnet records are tagged with one of the seven countries, including authority records, sites, cities, publications, images, and videos. While “Voices from Seven Countries“, displayed in the various locations of the MIT Libraries, highlights materials that can be checked out by anyone with borrowing privileges, the Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT (AKDC@MIT) holdings contain rare and specific materials related to all the currently...
100,000 images on Archnet
75 images were published on Archnet yesterday, March 22, 2017, bringing the total number of published images published to over 100,000. The newly added images include photographs by Daniel Waugh, Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington, Seattle, and editor of The Silk Road, depicting of an 8th century monumental mosques in the historic city of Isfahan, Iran; and photographs by James Llewellyn, a student at Wake Forest University, showing the facades, interiors, and courtyards of four mosques constructed during the 20th century in the modern metropolis of Casablanca, Morocco.
Heritage of the Mughal World now open access on Archnet
Heritage of the Mughal World (Jodidio, Philip, editor. Munich: Prestel, 2015) is available for free download on Archnet, courtesy of Prestel Publishing and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture. This beautifully illustrated book explores the historic cities, buildings, and gardens that flourished during the Mughals’ three-century rule, highlighting valuable conservation and restoration projects in Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan. The book also contains contribution from Sharon C. Smith Ph.D., AKDC@MIT Program Head and Christian A. Hedrick, Ph.D. (MIT AKPIA 2014 and former AKDC researcher). You can read their works in the section entitled “Sites of Mughal Heritage.”
Archnet Exhibition: Miss Kitty Lord and Her Egyptian Tours, 1908-1912
Now available on Archnet, an exhibition of postcards depicting Egypt in the early 20th century. The exhibition features correspondence between the performer Miss Kitty Lord and admirers. Kitty Lord “graced international stages with her singing burlesque acts from 1894 to 1915,” according to exhibition curator Gwendolyn Collaço, Visual Resources Librarian for Islamic Art and Architecture at Harvard University. The postcards “date from her tours to Cairo, Egypt, where she performed at the Théâtre des Nouveautés du Caire (later called the Folies-Murger, 1911 onwards). Most are addressed either to her stage address or her personal residence in the rapidly developing theater district...
New material on Algiers, Isfahan, Riyadh, and Tlemcen
Some of the material recently made available on Archnet: Images of architecturally significant sites in Algiers and Tlemcen by Anas Soufan, AKPIA@MIT Fellow in 2015. Sites in Isfahan ranging a Fire Temple originally constructed ca. 1400 BCE to houses built in the 19th c. The new material is from the archive of the Isfahan Urban History Project, recently donated to AKDC@MIT. Documentation of the restoration of a farm house in the vicinity of Riyadh An introduction to Tlemcen, a city known for is Medieval Islamic architecture, by Amine Kasmi from the Department of Architecture at the University of Tlemcen. Follow this site for future updates.
Archnet Highlights World Interfaith Harmony Week
World Interfaith Harmony week has been marked during the first week of February since 2011. The week provides a platform—one week in a year—when all interfaith groups and other groups of goodwill can show the world what a powerful movement they are. – worldinterfaithharmonyweek.com This week’s Archnet highlights religious diversity throughout the world. It also highlights examples of architecture designed or adapted to accommodate multiple faith traditions. Are you aware of other examples? Let us know.
Pedagogy Project Expanded with Teaching Collections
Archnet’s Pedagogy Project now includes items from scholars’ archives donated to AKDC@MIT since its opening in 2011. Recognizing the significance of this collection to those teaching and learning about the material and visual culture of Muslim societies, they are being added to a new Teaching Collections section of the project. Each scholar’s collection is unique and may contain slides, prints, field notes, and other materials as outlined in the finding aids for each archive. The materials housed in this collection are free to use for teaching and research purposes. Further, they provide a unique opportunity for students and scholars to examine...
Recently Added Publications
Among the recently added publications on Archnet are: Volume 10, No. 3 of the International Journal of Architectural Research (IJAR). The year end issue of 2016 includes articles on methodology in teaching architectural design, Andalusian palaces, infrastructure of pedestrians in Tehran, and campus design in Nigeria. Two of Muqarnas: an Annual on the Visual Cultures of the Islamic World. Volume XXIX contains four articles on “interconnections between the Islamic and Christian worlds, in particular the Italian Peninsula and adjacent lands once belonging to the Eastern Roman Empire,” and volume XXX marks the 30th anniversary of publication. Mir’āt al-quds (Mirror of...
2016 on Archnet: Highlights
Happy New Year! We wish to take this opportunity to thank our contributors and supporters for making 2016 such a good year for Archnet. Development continues to make the site more responsive and user-friendly. As a result, Archnet user statistics have increased by more than 20% over the same period last year, running up more than 2,700,000 page views. Earlier this month, the Global Grid named Archnet one of 2016’s Top 20 Architecture Sites of 2016. More than 8,000 new sites, publications, videos, images and other records have been published in 2016, including: Descriptions, video, images, reports, and presentation boards for...
Middle East Librarians Association and Ismailimail congratulate AKDC Archnet for its Global Grid recognition
AKDC@MIT thanks MELA and Ismailimail for their kinds words. Archnet is a global project and could not happen without the support of individuals, institutions, and organizations such as yours and your members; we are grateful for your input and the promotion of our site.
Archnet Named One of Top 20 Architecture Sites for 2016
The Global Grid, a service focused on delivering daily news on “localized and unique architecture, engineering, landscape architecture, urban planning,” has named Archnet one of the Top 20 Architecture Websites for 2016. Archnet is #17 on a list that includes the sites Architectural Record magazine, the American Institute of Architects, the Royal Institute of British Architects, and the online architecture forum Skyscrapercity. Follow the Twitter feeds of all the selected sites, including Archnet, using this list from Global Grid.
Virtual Exhibition: Tangier Then and Now
The exhibition Tangier Then and Now is now available on Archnet. The collection, an expanded version of the exhibit International Tangier on display in Rotch Library through December 27th, contains selected, edited photographs from the collection of glass negatives of the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies, paired with photographs from 1976-1977, and labels with contemporary images.
International Tangier: Exhibit in Rotch Library
Images from the early 20th and 21st century on display For centuries European powers battled one another and Moroccan forces for control of the city of Tangier, strategically positioned on the Straits of Gibraltar where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean. In 1924 an agreement made the city a demilitarized “International Zone,” administered by European representatives, yet still nominally under Moroccan sovereignty. With the exception of a period of five year occupation by the Spanish during World War II, some variation of this arrangement remained in place until the city was returned to Moroccan sovereignty in 1956. An exhibition...
Hisham Munir Archive: Selections on Archnet
Selections from the archive of Iraqi architect Hisham Munir, are now available on Archnet. Munir was a founder of Department of Architecture at the University of Baghdad. In 1957 his firm partnered with The Architects Collaborative (TAC) to build parts of the massive campus of University City in Baghdad, the first of many collaborations between Munir and Associates and TAC. His best known work includes the University of Mosul (1956), the Agricultural Complex (1975), the Iraqi Reinsurance Company in Baghdad (1976), Sheraton Hotels in Baghdad and Basra (1981), the Al-Sabah Complex in Kuwait (1976), and the Unknown Soldier Monument (1982).
Aga Khan Award for Architecture winners announced
The winners of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (AKAA) for cycle 13 were announced on October 3 in a ceremony in Abu Dhabi. The winning projects were added to Archnet’s documentation of the AKAA on the same day. The winners are:
City records and other Archnet enhancements
Archnet has recently implemented city authorities to help users find resources related to specific cities, even if they search using variant spellings, alternate or vernacular names, abbreviations, or even names that are no longer used. For example, users will be able to find records associated with Cairo even if they search on an Arabic transliteration of the name; records associated with Mumbai even if they search on the former name of Bombay; and records relating to Fez even if they search using the Francophone spelling of Fès. Names in Arabic or other non-Latinate scripts are also included and will display to the user, though it is not yet possible to search using...
AKDC collaboration brings 1959 recordings of Moroccan music to Archnet
Between 1959 and 1962 the American author and composer, Paul Bowles, traveled Morocco to collect samples of the Moroccan soundscape. Half a century later, the Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT is working with the Library of Congress and the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies (TALIM) to make all of those recordings and the accompanying notes publicly available on Archnet. At the time he was recording, Bowles felt it was most urgent to capture the music of Morocco’s Amazigh (Berber) communities, which he saw as in danger of disappearing, but he also recorded classical and popular Arabic songs...