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ARCHITECTURE - Khan awards bridge cultural gap-2001-11-29

Date: 
Thursday, 2001, November 29
Location: 

Boston Globe

Source: 
www.boston.com/dailyglobe2
Author: 
Robert Campbell

Can architecture be a way of bridging the gap between Western and Islamic cultures? For most of us, the need to build that bridge is something we've only recently become aware of. But someone who has long been trying is the Aga Khan.

The Aga Khan, a descendant of Mohammed, is the hereditary spiritual leader of hundreds of millions of Ismaili Muslims scattered among 25 nations around the world, including many in Afghanistan. He's also a graduate of Harvard (Class of '58), a resident of Paris, and the father of three children who went to Harvard, Brown, and Williams. And he happens to be the sponsor of the only prize for architecture that tries to honor buildings for something deeper than mere good looks.

The prizes are announced every three years. The ceremony always takes place in a picturesque setting, and the latest one was in the historic city of Aleppo, Syria, on Nov. 6. That was just a few weeks after the World Trade Center disaster, at a time when the US government had identified Syria as a nation that harbored terrorists. The Aga Khan nevertheless went ahead with the award ceremony, which ordinarily draws many participants from all over the world. One purpose of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, after all, is to mediate between the West and the World of Islam.

Why architecture as a cultural bridge? The point of the awards is to encourage ways of building in the Islamic world - not just among the Aga Khan's Ismaili sect, but in all of Islam - which don't copy inappropriate Western culture (such as, say, glass towers in the desert), but which also don't try to re-create a sentimental Islamic past (such as paste-on Disneyland domes and arches).

The prizes do not always go to buildings. A few years ago, a winner was a tree-planting program in Turkey. The awards are handled in a way that is uniquely thorough and responsible. A worldwide network of nominators suggests candidates that are then thoroughly researched. An international jury meets to pick the winners, who are usually people who have figured out ways to make a better environment in depressed circumstances.

There were nine prizes this time around - just nine projects chosen from the entire Muslim world over a three-year period, sharing the $500,000 total award. They were as diverse as they've always been. One award went to Barefoot Architects, a rural self-help group in India made up primarily of people with no formal training who learned the arts of design and construction by building their own ''Barefoot College.'' They've also built many houses, in the form of Buckminster Fuller geodesic domes made out of scrap.

At the other end of the scale of monumentality are more conventional works of architecture, such as the Nubian Museum in Egypt, which houses artifacts of the culture of Nubia, the ancient area that was partly submerged by the Aswan High Dam in 1971. ''New Life for Old Structures'' is a program to restore buildings in Iran. The Kahere Eila Poultry Farming School in Guinea was designed by Finnish architects who adapted local crafts. A ''children's village'' in Jordan, a social center in Turkey, a park in Iran, a five-star hotel in Malaysia, the restoration and improvement of a village in Morocco - the range is remarkable.

Not many Americans showed up in Syria for the awards ceremony. Most canceled. One who did go was Bostonian Richard Gutman, who for many years has created media presentations for the program. ''We were in Syria for eight days,'' says Gutman. ''We just felt completely 100 percent at ease. Everyone we met ... expressed outrage over Sept. 11.''

Another American who went to Aleppo was cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Ma arrived with his 10-piece Silk Road Ensemble and played a concert at the ceremonial dinner, which was held in the throne hall of the city's ancient Citadel, a fortress built originally in 977. The Silk Road Ensemble included performers from New Delhi, Berlin, Jordan, and Iran, plus a couple of Americans. It is one element in the Yo-Yo Ma Silk Road Project, an effort to spread the culture and music of central Asia that is principally funded by the Aga Khan.

Gutman says he heard Ma describe it as the most magical concert of his career, and notes that the event was an example of Western and Muslim cooperation at a particulary difficult moment in history.

Speaking at the awards dinner, the Aga Khan addressed current events indirectly. ''If we find pride in our past, but are troubled by how it relates to the present and the future, what are our ways forward?'' he asked. He suggested that the way to link the ''historical traditions of Islam'' and the ''challenges of modernity'' would be to hold discussions in a ''bustan'' - a metaphorical orchard - ''in which there would be no possibility of suffocation from the dying weeds of dogma, whether professional or ideological; where the flowers of articulation and challenging ideas could grow without constraint; where the new plants of creativity and risk-taking could blossom in the full light of day.''


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