Category Archives: Archnet News

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 […]