Five Projects Receive 2010 Aga Khan Award for Architecture; Oleg Grabar Receives Chairman’s Award

Doha, November 24, 2010 - The five projects selected for the 2010 Aga Khan Award for Architecture were announced at a ceremony held at the Museum of Islamic Art today. His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani the Emir of Qatar and Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser joined His Highness the Aga Khan in presiding over the ceremony.

The five projects selected by the 2010 Master Jury are:

Wadi Hanifa Wetlands, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Revitalisation of the Hypercentre of Tunis, Tunisia

Madinat Al-Zahra Museum, Cordoba, Spain

Ipekyol Textile Factory, Edirne, Turkey

Bridge School, Xiashi, Fujian, China

For more information and a full on-line press kit, including high-resolution images and video, please see the on-line press kit.

At the Award ceremony, His Highness the Aga Khan presented the Chairman’s Award to Professor Oleg Grabar in recognition of his lifetime contribution to the field of Islamic art and architecture. The Chairman’s Award was established to honour achievements that fall outside the scope of the Master Jury’s mandate and is made in recognition of the lifetime achievements of distinguished architects and academics. It has been presented on only three previous occasions. The winning projects were selected by an independent Master Jury from a shortlist of 19 projects announced in May 2010. A total of 401 projects were presented for consideration for the 2010 Award.

In their statement, the Master Jury noted that a central concern in making their selection had been the issues of identity and plurality and their intersection in an increasingly globalised world. They emphasised the generous and pluralistic visions reflected through the winning projects, and the transformative roles they have played in the improvement of the quality of the built environment both in places with a majority of Muslims and in societies where Muslims are in a minority.

The 2010 Award Master Jury

The Awards are selected by an independent Master Jury appointed by the Steering Committee for each three-year Award cycle. The nine members of the 2010 Master Jury are:

Souleymane Bachir Diagne (Professor, Department of Philosophy, Columbia University, USA)

Omar Abdulaziz Hallaj (Architect; Chief Executive Officer, Syria Trust for Development, Syria)

Salah M. Hassan (Art historian and curator; director of Africana Studies and Research Center,

Cornell University, USA)

Faryar Javaherian (Architect and curator; co-founder of Gamma Consultants, Iran)

Anish Kapoor (Artist, UK)

Kongjian Yu (Landscape architect and urbanist; founder and dean of Graduate School of

Landscape Architecture, Peking University, China)

Jean Nouvel (Architect; founding partner, Ateliers Jean Nouvel, France

Alice Rawsthorn (Design critic, International Herald Tribune, UK)

Basem Al Shihabi (Architect; Managing Partner, Omrania & Associates, Saudi Arabia)
About the Aga Khan Award for Architecture

The Aga Khan Award for Architecture was established by His Highness the Aga Khan in 1977 to identify and encourage excellence in architecture and other forms of intervention in the built environment of societies where Muslims have a significant presence. The Award is given every three years and recognises all types of building projects that affect today’s built environment, from modest, small-scale projects to sizable complexes. All form of planning practices on the urban and regional scales are encouraged, such as infrastructure and transportation undertakings; development in rural landscapes; housing initiatives; industrial facilities and workplaces; educational and health campuses; new towns, urban conservation and the re-use of brown field sites.

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