Aga Khan Awards 2004

Architectural Review, The, Jan, 2005

The triennial Aga Khan Awards for Architecture have become important ingredients of international architectural discussion. Offered for work in Islamic countries, or for Muslims in other parts of the world, the awards celebrate a wide spectrum of architecture, from work for the very poor to houses for the prosperous, from desert buildings to ones in the jungle, from small restorations to big commercial buildings. The awards are unique as they are given following expert on-site assessments of buildings that have been in use for at least a year. A distinguished independent international jury* reviews all work submitted and decides which projects should be assessed. In this, the Ninth cycle, 378 projects from 44 countries were nominated, out of which seven were judged worthy of an award.

The Steering Committee of the awards, chaired by the Aga, suggested some 'threshold criteria' for projects to be included in the final choice. These were 'contributing to established ways of doing things or extending boundaries in the field, making intelligent use of available resources and material and responding sensitively to the environment, and showing social and ethical responsibility with respect to individual and community self-determination'. Important factors to be considered were 'the symbolization of power and authority; the articulation of public and private spaces; issues of cultural identity and cultural representation; sensitivity to plurality; and constructive aspirations for individuals and societies'.

The jury was also asked to look out for projects that address the growing housing crises in most Muslim countries. Two award-winning projects in this year's cycle clearly respond to the request: the sandbag emergency shelters (p72) and the revitalization programme for the old city of Jerusalem (p76). The emergency shelters for the dispossessed are taken very much on trust: the proposal is ingenious and environmentally apt, but there is evidence that the houses have not found favour with users. More experiments are needed. The Jerusalem revitalization work has already shown its worth. Its award celebrates imagination, ingenuity, social commitment and political nous with a programme that helps knit past and future, public and private in ways that can continue to be developed.

The suggestion that symbolization of power should be explored accounts for the presence of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (opposite) and the Petronas Towers (p74) in the list of award winners. But whereas the outstanding library (a symbol of knowledge) would undoubtedly have been an award winner judged by any criteria, the presence of Petronas Towers is more puzzling. Doubtless it celebrates the power of money (and perhaps that of nationhood) but, though well made and for a while the tallest building in the world, it is scarcely remarkable, and its Islamic credentials seem a bit thin in practice (though its lavatories do face away from Mecca).

In complete contrast is the restoration of the Al-Abbas Mosque at Asnaf (p70). An ancient jewel on a dusty Yemeni hillside has been lovingly repolished and returned to its place in the centre of the community clearly 'contributing to established ways of doing things'. The other small building, the B2 house, Turkey (p69), is more difficult to place. It is well built with local materials and it exploits its splendid site to the full. But it is formally ungainly, and does not seem to be better than several holiday houses in the same country (some of which have already received Aga awards).

In its way, the school at Gando in Burkina Faso (p66) is perhaps as outstanding as the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. Both are built to serve academic communities; both have great understanding of available material resources and their tectonic potential; both sensitively respond to local climate, and both generate fine and appropriate spaces for study, ones in which relationships of individual to society are subtly nuanced. Both were made by architects of great passion and determination.

If the Awards are a bit patchy, all premiated schemes in their different ways respond imaginatively to the need to improve our relationships to the planet and each other. Almost all have much to teach. As a group, they show the great variety of the Muslim world and the plurality that Islamic culture at its best can engender. Other societies could begin to learn. P.D.

NOBLE VOLUME

The heroic Great Library of Alexandria clearly merited an Aga Khan Award.

When a decent history of the architecture of the second half of the twentieth century comes to be written, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina will surely be recognized as one of the greatest buildings of the period. Its inception was remarkable. The University of Alexandria wanted a new library and decided to make a bid to create a memorial to the Great Library of antiquity. President Mubarak was inspired; he took the project up at national, and later global level. An international competition was held in 1989 and won by the virtually unknown Oslo-based practice Snohetta. Few expected that much would come of it. The vast size of the project, unknown and inexperienced architects, titanic cash problems, the difficulties of Egyptian bureaucracy, all suggested that the scheme would simply fade away, or at best be monstrously transformed in the hands of a commercially successful firm of professional philistines.