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Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) |
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Aga Khan University and this Commission might
very well have been led to see architecture in the future of
the University even if the subject were not already among the
Aga Khan's interests. No concern with Islamic culture and civilisations
could conceivably neglect the extraordinary achievements stretching
from the Dome of the Rock, Cordoba and Isfahan through the styles
and centuries to Samarkand, Istanbul and Fatehpur Sikri. Given
the fact that the present Imam has promoted a whole series of
activities aiming to improve knowledge of the history of Islamic
art and architecture, to encourage preservation of historic
sites, and to raise architectural and planning standards in
the contemporary Muslim world, the Commission' s concern with
architecture has been inescapable. |
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The Aga Khan Trust for Culture was put together
only recently, in 1988, but its component programmes have a
longer history. The Aga Khan Award for Architecture (AKAA) was
started in 1977, and support for architectural education dates
from 1979 with the $ 12 million endowment of the Aga Khan Program
for Islamic Architecture at Harvard and MIT. More recently initiatives
in historic preservation in Granada, Zanzibar, Karimabad in
the Northern Areas of Pakistan, Cairo, Aleppo and Mostar have
been brought together in a continuing, organised programme under
the Trust. The Trust is not endowed and depends on recurrent
funding from the Imamat, amounting currently to about $ 8 million
per annum, or $ 24 million for the three-year programme cycles
that have been followed. It has a small professional staff which
plans and administers the programme, and maintains an archive
related to the awards programme at its Geneva headquarters.
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It was evident that the Commission needed to acquire
some understanding of these activities and their implications
for planning AKU's future. The meeting held at MIT's Endicott
House in May, 1993, was largely devoted to this purpose, and
Mr. John de Monchaux, General Manager of AKTC participated in
the September 1993 London meeting devoted to Islamic humanities
and civilisations. Also, Mr. Sutton visited the Trust's headquarters
in Geneva on two occasions and served as a member of an External
Review of the Harvard-MIT programme in 1993. |
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The formulation of ideas about the future of architecture
in AKU which we present later in Section VII of our Report would
not have been possible in the time available to us without drawing
on the professional knowledge of those who have been associated
with AKTC's programmes. It is also evident that the opportunity
for future creative work by AKU in this field must depend on
the accomplishments and reputation built by AKTC and the programmes
it has supported. There are also needs for building complementary
rather than competitive relationships with the Trust. The substance
and timing of what AKU plans to do involving architecture need
thus to be related to AKTC's plans. |
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The Trust has recently drawn up a strategic plan
for its activities over the next years which may be summarised
as follows : |
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-its four established fields of activity will
be maintained : (1) the Architectural Awards programme; (2)
the support of architectural education related to the Muslim
world; (3) the Historic Cities Support Programme; and (4) dissemination
(though this last will have a more ad hoc and reduced
character); |
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- its field will continue to be architecture,
not culture generally, as its title might suggest; |
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- the Harvard-MIT programme, which has been given
regular term funding in addition to its endowment income, will
be subject to sharply tapering reduction in favour of efforts
to affect the quality of architectural education in the Muslim
world more directly. This new effort will be carried out through
a professional journal, conferences, exchanges and other activities.
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The implications of these policies for what AKU may conceivably
do in the long and short run have been the subject of several
discussions that have shaped our conclusions presented in
Section VII below.
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