Category Archives: All AKDC News

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. […]

Aga Khan Documentation Center at BRISMES 2017

For the second year in a row, AKDC@MIT was well represented at the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRIMSES) annual meeting. This year’s conference, Movement and Migration in the Middle East: People and Ideas in Flux, was held at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, July 5-7, 2017. Under the larger conference theme, AKDC Program Head Sharon C. Smith and Archnet Content Manager Michael Toler co-organized “Chronicles and Curation: Documenting Cultural Transitions in the Wider Middle East (in 2 parts)” spanning two sessions; both panels chaired by Smith. Panel 1A contained papers examining challenges in archiving personal collections in Yemen, an oral history project […]

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.”

AKDC debuts new data visualization tool: LayerCake

The Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT has released its prototype of LayerCake, a 3-axis mapping tool that enables users to build maps layering narrative, time, and space simultaneously. Envisioned by AKDC Program Head, Sharon C. Smith, Ph.D., the tool has become a reality thanks to the design and programming expertise of James Yamada (Master in Design Studies, Harvard GSD). Ali Asgar Alibhai (Ph.D. candidate, Harvard NELC) provided the content for the pilot project by analyzing textual sources of Ibn Jubayr’s 12th century pilgrimage from Spain to Mecca. The resulting map documents Ibn Jubayr’s travels temporally, geographically, and with accompanying descriptions […]