Category Archives: All AKDC News

Archnet in May 2020: What’s new and how many are visiting?

362 new records were published on Archnet.org in May 2020, including records and images of 3 structures in the ruins of a Ghaznavid palatial complex, Lashkiri Bazar, north of Bust, Afghanistan; and photographs of an 18th c. house, Bayt Boghose Kirdikian in Aleppo, Syria. Also newly published, Volumes 30-33 of Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual Culture of the Islamic World; and video from interviews with prolific Iraqi architect Hisham Munir, “Conversations at the Shahi Qila,” and a flyover video of City Park and the Jamatkhana in Khorog, Tajikistan. Nearly 50,000 distinct visitors viewed 279,000 pages in the month of […]

MIT Libraries Now Accepting Applications for AKDC Program Head

The following announcement has just been posted by the MIT Libraries: The role of Program Head for AKDC is a critical leadership position responsible for stewarding and developing collections, services, and programs to support the information needs of the faculty, students and researchers of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture (AKPIA) in MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning. It also provides oversight of Archnet in partnership with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) and engages in other innovative collection development within the Department of Distinctive Collections in the MIT Libraries. Primary responsibilities: Leads and develops long-range planning for […]

What’s new in Archnet for April 2020?

In 2003 Archnet went online with the goal of facilitating teaching, scholarship, and professional work of high quality by providing provide ready access to unique, high quality, visual and textual resources on the built environment, particularly that of Muslim societies and the wider developing world. 17 years later, that mission is proving more important than ever, as a global pandemic is keeping more than 90% of the world’s students away from their educational institutions. From elementary school to post-graduate education, people are teaching, studying, and researching remotely. We are gratified to know that Archnet seems to be helping some people […]

Winners of the A3-Archnet Prize for Writing on African Architecture Announced

Following the jury’s decision to split the competition into undergraduate and graduate categories, Muhammed Gbolahan Madandola’s essay on the Great Mosque of Niono, Mali has been chosen as the winning essay in the first A3-Archnet Prize for Writing on African Architecture. Enwonwu Chiagozie, 21 is the undergraduate winner for her essay on Egedege N’Okaro, Benin Kingdom. Entrants into the contest were asked to discuss their favorite building in Africa. The competition attracted entries from throughout Nigerian, as well as some Nigerians resident abroad. In response to the number and quality of entries the jury decided to consider undergraduate and graduate […]

Rifat Chadirji, one of the “most influential shapers of modern Baghdad,” dead at 93

The staff of the Aga Khan Documentation Center, MIT Libraries (AKDC@MIT), is saddened to learn of the death of the great Iraqi architect Rifat Chadirji (December 6, 1926-April 10, 2020). Chadirji was “a thinker, author, critic, & rationalist architect with a refined aesthetic sensitivity, he devised a particular approach to architecture that he called international regionalism,” according to Nasser Rabbat, Aga Khan Professor and the Director of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at MIT Rabbat went on to characterize the deceased architect as “one of the most influential shapers of modern Baghdad and an original theorist of architecture […]

Archnet in March 2020

54,086 visitors from 187 countries and territories consulted Archnet in March, for a total of 272,731 page views. By far the most downloaded publication continues to be Charles Correa, a volume edited by Hasan-Uddin Khan, surveying the work of the great Indian architect who received his master’s degree from MIT in 1955. Other popular publications included the article “Design Guidelines for Ablution Spaces in Mosques and Islamic Praying Facilities,” a Floor plan and elevation of Bali Pasa Mosque in Istanbul, and Urban Form in the Arab World – Past and Present by Stefano Bianca. The most watched videos were this […]

Resources for teaching and studying architecture during COVID-19 closures

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread, many educational institutions are moving classes online, a development that is very likely to accelerate the growth of online education and the need for open access pedagogical materials. If you are an educator who has to move your teaching about architecture, urbanism, or other aspects of the built environment online, Archnet resources may be helpful to you. You may want to start by exploring the Archnet Pedagogy Collection where you’ll find resources that can easily be integrated into an online teaching platform. Our teaching collections, donated by scholars in a variety of fields, […]

Happy Birthday Michel Écochard

Architect, archeologist, and urban planner Michel Écochard (d. 24 May 1985) would have been 115 on March 11, 2020! Écochard’s career began in 1932 when he was assigned to the Antiquities Service in Syria where he participated in the restoration of numerous historic monuments. Simultaneously, he served as a consulting architect to the Syrian government. It was during this period that he designed the Antioch Museum in what is now Antakya, Turkey. and in 1940 became Director of Urban Planning. He documented this period in albums he compiled on historic sites in Damascus, Aleppo, and across Syria. In 1946 he […]

MIT Libraries now accepting applications for AKDC Program Head