From left to right, top to bottom: Ardestan, Iran; Khartoum, Sudan; Khaylah, Yemen; Mogadishu, Somalia; Isfahan, Iran; Aleppo, Syria; Baghdad, Iraq
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 excluded countries and the larger Middle East; through Archnet, AKDC@MIT, along with its partners and related institutions, is able to sample and share remarkable materials to a world wide audience without fees or registration. AKDC@MIT’s holdings are also available for scholars, students, and researchers visiting the Center.
Many of the recently published records are from selected architects’ and scholars’ working in/on the Middle East, all of which have been donated to AKDC@MIT since its reformation in 2011. Examples include: the Isfahan Urban History Project; the archives of prominent Iraqi architects Mohamed Makiya and Hisham Munir; and the teaching collection of noted scholar Yasser Tabbaa. See the AKDC Collections page for information on these and other collections, as well as information on how to access them.
