Category Archives: Events

Lecture: Cities of Islamic Art by artist Laurelie Rae on October 26 at MIT

The Aga Khan Documentation Center, MIT Libraries is proud to present “Cities of Islamic Art: From Historical Visual Systems to the Formation of Contemporary Islamic Art in North America” a public lecture by Laurelie Rae, an artist, author, and educator based in Istanbul, to be held Monday, October 26, 2026 6:00 pm in Building 3, room 3-133 on the MIT Campus. This lecture uses Cities of Islamic Art, Vol. 2 as both an object and a methodology to examine Islamic art as a mobile system of visual knowledge rather than a fixed historical style. Beginning with historical surfaces from Isfahan, […]

Symposium: Grassroots Initiatives in Cultural Heritage Preservation

Saturday October 18 9am-5pm MIT Building 2-190 and online The Aga Khan Documentation Center and the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at MIT present an international symposium on Grassroots Initiatives in Cultural Heritage Preservation at MIT on October 18. The event, organized by Rami Alafandi, AKDC Collections Curator, will also be streamed live. Communities around the world have demonstrated extraordinary resilience in safeguarding their cultural heritage amid armed conflict and natural disasters. This symposium seeks to examine the vital contributions of individuals and non-governmental organizations in preserving cultural heritage under such conditions. Through the exploration of cross-regional case studies […]

Exhibit: Ink, Stone, and Silver Light

A Century of Cultural Heritage Preservation in Aleppo October 1, 2025 – December 11, 2025 Maihaugen Gallery, MIT Ink, Stone, and Silver Light, an exhibition curated by Rami Alafandi, is now on open to the public in the Maihaugen Gallery of the MIT Libraries. Drawing on archival materials from the Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT (AKDC) to explore a century of cultural heritage preservation in Aleppo, Syria. It takes as its point of departure the work of Kamil al-Ghazzi (1853–1933), the pioneering Aleppine historian whose influential three-volume chronicle, Nahr al-Dhahab fi Tarikh Halab (The River of Gold in the History of […]

Exhibition: Refracted Histories through Stained Glass

The exhibition “Refracted Histories through Stained Glass: 19th c. Islamic Windows as a Prism into MIT’s Past, Present, and Future,” curated by Rami Alafandi and Gwendolyn Collaço, is now on display in the Distinctive Collections’ Maihaugen Gallery. The exhibit features a set of striking gypsum and stained glass windows dating to the late 18th- to 19th century Ottoman Empire, which the curators discovered among numerous architectural artifacts from the earliest days of the Institute’s architecture program in the Rotch Art Collection, Department of Distinctive Collections. This discovery led to extensive research on the craft and the commissioning of contemporary works […]

Books and Bites on Wednesday, November 20

Join us in the Department of Distinctive Collections Reading Room (14N-118) to engage with recent acquisitions and highlights from Distinctive Collections and Rotch Library, including artist books, rare books, and materials from the Aga Khan Documentation Center. Enjoy refreshments while you explore!

Registration Closing Soon for “Re:Fest: A Research Festival for The Curious” in Lagos, Nigeria

NAIROBI, 10 June 2024 – CoDesign Collective [till recently operating as Ministry of Architecture] is launching a new initiative, Co-School with its first event titled Re:Fest: A Research Festival for The Curious. In the words of Anthony Baba-Oladeji, Founder of CoDesign Collective, “Africa’s present educational system is unable to grapple with the pace of advancements in her built environment and cities, and as such, ReFest will be a yearly event intervention to complement Africa’s presently underfunded educational operation by filling knowledge gaps such as metadata on cities, research into local materials and new representation techniques & technologies such as film, […]

Kanan Makiya to Lend his Expertise to the CAC Human Library Series Documenting the Lives of Arab Americans

We are delighted to extend an invitation to you for a special event organized by the Center for Arabic Culture (CAC) and hosted by the Aga Khan Documentation Center, MIT Libraries (AKDC@MIT): the Human Library with Professor Kanan Makiya. Sat. Feb. 10, 2024, 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm MIT Room 3-133, Entrance at 77 Mass Ave. Cambridge, MA. At the Human Library, we aim to bring together community members to share their life stories and experiences. We refer to this series as the Human Library that allows for people to learn from the experiences of people in much the same way […]

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 […]

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 […]