The Georgia accent is a shock. Earlier on, Jimmy Carter had asked
a guest where he was from. There were people here from Indonesia,
Iraq, Canada, Malaysia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Pakistan, India, Turkey,
Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Belgium, Bangladesh,Kazakhstan and
Iran. "Ghana," came the reply. "Ghana," beamed Carter, "Raaarght".
We were from nearly everywhere. One hundred and fifty of us had been
flown in, business class, with or without spouses, to Madrid or Malaga,
and then on to Granada. Some had travelled for over 24 hours to sit
in the evening cool of the Alhambra andwatch the presentation of awards
to projects whose names and designs we already knew.
There were several reasons why. It was the culmination of a three
year cycle. It was the 20th year of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture.
And it was the first time this prize-giving for Islamic architecture
had been held in Western Europe.
Four hundred and twenty five projects had been nominated. Each nominator
had had to fill in a form and send in three slides. The jury had watched
1200 slides twice each. The jury was a cross section. There was a
religious intellectual, an avante gardearchitect, an American cultural
theorist and so on. They asked 89 of the nominees to fill in a 12-
page form, send in drawings and 20 slides. The jury selected 29 of
these and sent out technical reviewers to examine every aspect of
the project, includinginterviewing the people who actually used it.
This produced seven winners. Between them, they share the US$500,
000. The prestige was worth more.
Tonight the Carters were joining two Majesties, two Highnesses, two
Princes, 11 Excellencies and enough professors to launch a major new
centre of learning. Which, in a way, is what they were doing. The
steering committee included Professor CharlesJencks, the architectural
critic, who first defined post-modernism in The Language of Post-Modern
Architecture. The master jury included Professor Mohammed Arkoum,
an emeritus professor at the Sorbonne and author of Rethinking Islam.
The prize-winnersincluded Professor Charles Correa, author of The
New Landscape, who built the state assembly, Vidhan Bhavan, at Bhopal,
where a democratic sense of participation is encouraged by a series
of interlocking courtyards and pathways.
That weekend, those veteran democrats, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter,
and their son Steven and his wife, just happened to be tourists in
Granada, visiting the palace fortress of the Nasrid Sultans, the climax
of Moorish art and architecture in medievalSpain. They were the last
people to be invited.
The Carters arrived early. The parents sat in the front row. The son
and daughter-in-law sat in the back row. On one side of the open-air
amphitheatre the Aga Khan's staff were handing out translations of
the speeches. On the other side a presenter forCNN was taking off
her coat to show her evening dress while she did her introductory
piece to camera. "The awards enhance and..." she dried up, " Enhance
and what?" The producer had written the script, so he knew it: "Enhance
and elevate the world ofIslamic architecture."
Prize-winners, jury members and the steering committee sat in rows
waiting on the stage. Behind them was a bank of tall trees. Four throne-
like chairs were placed on a dais on the other side, for the King
and Queen of Spain, the Aga Khan and the BegumAga Khan. In the orchestra
pit The Quodlibet Ensemble were playing Manuel de Falla. We could
have been waiting for A Midsummer Night's Dream. The master of ceremonies
was Dr Suha Ozkan, secretary general of the award. According to the
press release, hewas working to a strict timetable: "20:00 Welcoming
remarks by Dr. Suha Ozkan, 20:01 Address by His Highness The Aga Khan"
.
As we waited, we watched giant projections of some of the previous
76 winners. The state-of-the-art screen was a bank of TV monitors
at the back of the stage. It was going to be six by six but ended
up as seven by seven. It was a nice touch having atotal of 49 monitors.
There are an estimated 12 to 15 million Shia Imani Ismaeli Muslims.
Their spiritual leader, the Harvard-educated Aga Khan, is a direct
descendant of the Prophet Muhammed through his cousin and son-in-law
Ali, the first Iman, andhis wife Fatima, the Prophet's daughter. The
Aga Khan - or "HH", as he is known by his staff - is the 49th hereditary
Iman.
Their Majesties and their Highnesses arrived. There was the one minute
of welcoming remarks. And then the Aga Khan stepped forward. We already
knew what the front page of the next Sunday's New York Times Arts
& Leisure section had said about this man. Acopy was circulating.
Its architectural correspondent shares his prose style with Jackie
Collins: "Aga Khan: the name shimmers with glamour. Fabulous wealth.
Palatial houses. Racehorses. Yachts. Jewels." He was, it said, "the
most important figure inthe world of architecture today".
My first sighting of this shimmering figure had been the evening before
in the 14th century Arab House of Zafra. It was a rare event: the
first press reception I'd attended at which the only drink available
to journalists had been fruit juice. It wasn'thard to spot the Aga
Khan. People in front of him always seem to be walking backwards.
Up on stage, the Aga Khan thanked the King. This award, he said, stemmed
from a sense that Islamic societies had lost some of their extraordinary
inheritance. Architecture was once a hallmark of Islamic civilisations
and central to the identity of itspeoples. There were grounds for
serious concerns: expanding populations; growth of an underclass;
migration to cities; the monopolistic intents of the modern global
electronic media and - in response to that - the new vigour of more
traditionalorthodoxies. "Neither," said the Aga Khan, "nurtures or
even respects pluralism." In his diplomatic way, the Aga Khan is taking
on both Murdoch and the mullahs.
The King thanked the Aga Khan. There was a short film of each winning
entry. The format was similar to that used by stewardesses doing the
safety instructions on Iberian Airways. We all knew what was going
to be said. First it was said in English, thenSpanish. We applauded
the values as much as the designs. Winners have an exemplary role
to play.
Three years ago, one winner was a reforestation programme of 30 million
trees around Ankara. Another was a mosque without a dome. This year
one was the rehabilitation of Hebron Old Town, where 127 dwellings
and 25 shops have been restored, and anotherwas the Lepers' Hospital
in Chopda Taluka, India, which creates a courtyard with trees and
flowers outside a village. Social values were again at the centre
of architectural practice.
There then followed another five-course meal. Attending the Aga Khan
awards is like going to three expensive wedding receptions in a day
and a half. You have no idea whom you will sit next to. Or whether
you will find a common language. Across the tablethat evening, at
the Carmen de los Martires, sat the leading Indonesian architect Mr
Adhi Moersid, a member of the steering committee, whose own buildings
place traditional Indonesian elements in a modern context. To my left
sat the civil engineerProfessor Himanshu Parikh, another of this year'
s prize-winners, who took 183 slums in the Indian city of Indore and
provided sewerage, storm drainage and fresh water infrastructure.
Installing toilets in homes had dramatically reduced the incidence
ofrape and assault. Three of the winning entries were from India.
So quite a few guests passed on the fourth course: beef tenderloin
with truffles, mushrooms and honey-roasted onions.
On my right sat another prize-winner, Mr Ibrahim bin Adam, the elderly
master carpenter from Kelantan, in Malaysia, who for six years had
built the Salinger Residence, a modern private house of two equilateral
triangles, designed by the Malaysianarchitect Jimmy Lim. He spoke
no English. I spoke no Malaysian. He had no trouble, though, conveying
his satirical amusement at the iced melon balls in the Andalusian
salad. Bin Abrim only has one arm. So Mrs Ananda Moersid kindly cut
up his meat forhim. It only underlined his achievement.
At the five-hour seminar the next day, at the Royal Hospital, there
were familiar references to clients, tight budgets and deadlines.
But there was more. If you're a newcomer to intercultural dialogue,
you need to remember that Muslim does not meanArab. There are (as
I was told by a volunteer in the press room) a billion Muslims and
only 130 million Arabs. Islamic architecture, in this context, means
places where Muslims have a significant presence. France, China and
India qualify as much asSaudi Arabia. Don't talk about buildings,
talk about "built environments". And landscape is architecture.
During a break we stood in the sunlight of the courtyard of the Royal
Hospital. On the tables, the caterers had laid out coffee, yoghurt,
fruit, biscuits and a selection of sandwiches. Three days in, and
I was getting the hang of these awards. The sizeof the press kit alone
had justified bringing a second suitcase. It was all about vocabulary.
Words to use in warm encouraging tones were "sustainable", "inter-
creativity", "contextualism", "diversity", "humility" and "architect"
with a small "a". Wordsto use with chilly distaste were "hegemony"
, "McWorld", "replica", "clash of cultures", "monopoly", "arrogance"
and "Architect" with a capital "A".
There had been mutterings about the jury. They hadn't got on. There
were too few awards. There was no landscape award. And what about
the restoration of the synagogue in Cairo? But the three days had
been a formidable mix of hospitality and efficiency.As several of
us sipped coffee, one of the Aga Khan's ever-alert staff rushed across
and interrupted our conversation. The news looked bad. He held up
two slices of white bread. In the centre was a sliver of meat. "Tell
me it isn't ham."