Category Archives: All AKDC News

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 […]

Archnet Content Manager at the World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies

The World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies what held July 16-20 in Seville, Spain. Michael Toler, Archnet Content Manager, represented the Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT with a presentation on “Plural Heritage at Moments of Transition: Presenting the Cultural Heritage of Morocco.” Toler’s paper focused on AKDC’s collaborations to bring two significant collections documenting cultural heritage of Morocco to public attention via Archnet. The first collection was brought online through a collaboration with the Program for Middle Eastern Studies of Wellesley College and the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies (TALIM) to digitized the glass negatives in TALIM’s […]

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.

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

CfP: Mamluk Aesthetics and Renaissance Italians, Out from the Ottoman Shadow

“Mamluk Aesthetics and Renaissance Italians, Out from the Ottoman Shadow” Session Sponsored by the Italian Art Society (IAS) Renaissance Society of America (RSA) 2019 Conference (Toronto, 17–19 March) Dealing with Islamic-Italian relations in the Mediterranean, early modern scholars have focused almost exclusively on the attitudes of the Venetians towards the Ottoman Turks. And yet, in contrast to the “barbaric” Turks, the Mamluks did not become the object of Christian Crusader rhetoric. If anything, the religion of the Mamluks seems to have mattered less than their economic stability and potential as allies against the Turks in the political-existential imaginations of Christians. […]

Gazing Through A Lens: Ali Khan Documents Nineteenth Century Iran a film by Azadeh Tajpour

The Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT presents Gazing Through A Lens: Ali Khan Documents Nineteenth Century Iran a film by Azadeh Tajpour Followed by a discussion with the filmmaker Friday, 18 May 2018 |12:00 — 1:30 pm |MIT, room 3-133 The event is free and open to the public. Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT Libraries | 77 Massachusetts Avenue | Bldg. 7-238 Cambridge, MA 02139 | akdc@mit.edu

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 […]