The members of the Master Jury were just announced for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, which is given every three years to projects that set new standards of excellence in architecture, planning practices, historic preservation and landscape architecture. The Jury, which includes Mr. David Adjaye, Dr. Howayda al-Harithy, Mr. Michel Desvigne, Professor Mahmood Mamdani, Mr. Kamil Merican, Professor Toshiko Mori, Ms. Shahzia Sikander, Mr. Murat Tabanlioglu, and Mr. Wang Shu, independently selects the recipients of the US$ 1 million Award, will convene in January 2013 to select a shortlist from hundreds of nominated projects. The shortlisted projects will then be subject to rigorous on-site reviews by independent experts. The Jury will meet for a second time in June 2013 to examine the on-site reviews and then select the final recipients of the Award. More information on the Master Jury after the break.
Mr. David Adjaye, Principal, Adjaye Associates, London, United Kingdom
David Adjaye was born in Tanzania in 1966. After gaining a Bachelor of Architecture from London South Bank University, he graduated with a master’s degree in Architecture from the Royal College of Art in 1993, where he won the RIBA Bronze Medal. He is founder and principal architect of Adjaye Associates, established in June 2000, with offices in London, New York, Accra and Berlin. Completed works include: two community libraries in Washington DC (2012); the Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO (2010); The Nobel Peace Centre in Oslo (2005); the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver (2007); and the Idea Stores (libraries) in London’s Tower Hamlets. The practice is currently engaged in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C.
David Adjaye’s belief in working together with partners has led to a number of notable collaborations on both building projects and exhibitions. His photographic survey of 52 cities across the continent of Africa, Urban Africa, exhibited at the Design Museum London (2010), has shifted the understanding of Africa’s metropolitan centres.
Adjaye currently holds a Visiting Professor post at Princeton University School of Architecture. He is a RIBA Chartered Member, an AIA Honorary Fellow, a Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council and a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He was awarded an OBE for services to architecture in 2007 and received the Design Miami/ Year of the Artist title in 2011.
Dr. Howayda al-Harithy, Professor, Department of Architecture and Design, American University of Beirut, Lebanon
Dr. Howayda Al-Harithy is a Professor of Architecture at the American University of Beirut, where she has been teaching since 1994. Dr. Al-Harithy was Chair of the Department of Architecture and Design from 2003 to 2006 and from 2009 to 2012. She was a visiting professor at Harvard University in 1994, at MIT in 1993 and in 2000, and at Georgetown University in 2006. Dr. Al-Harithy received her bachelor’s degree in architecture from the Oregon School of Design in 1985, a master’s in architecture from MIT in 1987, and a PhD in art history from Harvard University in 1992.
Her research in Islamic art and architecture focuses on the Mamluk period. The research engages theoretical models of interpretation, particularly post-structuralist models, as analytic tools of the production of architectural and urban space. In 2001, she published a monograph in the Bibliotheca Islamica series entitled The Waqf Document of Sultan Hasan ibn Muhammad ibn Qalawun. She has also published in international journals such as Oxford’s Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Muqarnas, Mamluk Studies Review and the Harvard Middle Eastern and Islamic Review. Her more recent research focuses on urban heritage with a special emphasis on the theoretical debate on heritage construction and consumption related to identity-building and post-war reconstruction. In 2010, she edited and contributed to the book entitled Lessons in Post-War Reconstruction: Case Studies from Lebanon in the Aftermath of the 2006 War. Dr. Al-Harithy lectures at universities and conferences throughout the world.
Mr. Michel Desvigne, Landscape Architect and Founder, Agence Michel Desvigne, Paris, France
Michel Desvigne is a landscape architect internationally renowned for his rigorous and contemporary designs and for the originality and relevance of his research work. His projects have been developed in more than 12 different countries. He works with leading architects, including Herzog and de Meuron, Foster + Partners, Jean Nouvel, Rem Koolhaas, Christian de Portzamparc, I.M. Pei, Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers.
Amongst Desvigne’s most well-known urban public spaces are the Greenwich Peninsula Millennium Park (London, UK) and several modern art museum gardens, including the Parc Draï Eechelen (Luxembourg), the DCPA in Dallas (USA), the Saint Louis Art Museum (USA) and the New Qatar National Museum. Other recent projects include Burgos Boulevard, Lyon Confluence 2 and the Ile Seguin prefiguration garden. Recently, Desvigne was awarded the leading role in the planning and implementation of the Paris-Saclay cluster (7700 hectares), the landscape and urban plan for the development of Euralens (1200 hectares) as well as the redevelopment of the old port of Marseille.
Professor Mahmood Mamdani, Professor and Executive Director, Makerere Institute for Social Research (MISR), Wandegeya, Uganda
Mahmood Mamdani is an academic, author and political commentator from Uganda. He received his doctorate from Harvard University. He is the director of the Makerere Institute of Social Research, Makerere University, Kampala, and Herbert Lehman Professor of Government at Columbia University, New York. Mamdani has taught at University of Dar es Salaam (1973-79), Makerere University (1980-1993), and the University of Cape Town (1996-1999).
His work explores the intersection between politics and culture, colonialism and post-colonialism, civil war and genocide, the Cold War and the War on Terror, and modern forms of power and human rights. From 1999 to 2002 he served as President of CODESRIA (Council for the Development of Social Research in Africa). He is currently Chair of the Scientific Committee of CODESRIA.
Mr. Kamil Merican, Principal Designer and CEO, Group Design Partnership, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Kamil Merican, is the founding partner of GDP Architects Malaysia, which has gained a reputation as one of Malaysia’s leading design and architecture firms. Mr. Merican graduated in architecture from the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia and the Architectural Association in London. After graduating, he worked with Sir Terry Farrell and Sir Nick Grimshaw in London. In 1976, on his return to Malaysia, he taught in the faculty of architecture at the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
As GDP’s principal design partner, Mr. Merican has been involved in all the firm’s major projects. The projects have won a number of awards, including 12 from PAM (the Malaysian Institute of Architects), a RIBA award (jointly with Foster + Partners) and the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2007 (for the Universiti Teknologi Petronas, also with Foster + Partners).
Professor Toshiko Mori, Principal, Toshiko Mori Architect, New York City, USA
Toshiko Mori, who earned a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the Cooper Union, is the Robert P. Hubbard Professor in the Practice of Architecture at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, where she was the chair of the Department of Architecture from 2002 to 2008. She is also the principal and founder of Toshiko Mori Architect, which was established in 1981 in New York City.
Ms. Mori taught at the Cooper Union School of Architecture from 1983 until joining the Harvard GSD faculty in 1995. She has served on the board of trustees of the Van Alen Institute and the Storefront for Art and Architecture. She is currently an advisor to A+U Magazine. She is also the former chair and current member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Design. Her profile, “Postscripts: Building on Sacred Ground”, appeared in The New York Times in May 2005. She has edited a volume on material and fabrication research, Immaterial/Ultramaterial. A monograph of her work, Toshiko Mori Architect, was published by Monacelli Press.
Ms. Shahzia Sikander, Artist, New York City, USA
Shahzia Sikander is an artist, originally from Lahore, who lives and works in New York. She trained in miniature painting at the National College of Arts in Lahore, where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1992, and received a Masters of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1995. She was a fellow of the Glassel School of Arts Core Program in Houston from 1995 to 1997 and artist in residence at the Otis College of Art in Los Angeles in 2005.
Ms. Sikander’s work merges the traditional South Asian art of miniature painting with contemporary forms and styles, and explores themes such as politics, sexuality and religion, especially in the context of South Asia. She has shown her work at solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, Australia and Hong Kong. She has had solo exhibitions at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (1999/2000) and at the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago (1998). Her work has been shown in group exhibitions at the Whitney Museum (1999 and 1999/2000), at the Third Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane, Australia (1999), and at the Ludwig Museum, Cologne, Germany (1999).
She has received a number of awards, including a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship “genius grant”. She has also received the Tamgha-e-imtiaz, the National Medal of Honour, from the Government of Pakistan.
Mr. Murat Tabanlioglu, Architect and Founder, Tabanlioglu Architects, Istanbul, Turkey
Murat Tabanlıoğlu studied architecture at Vienna Technical University, graduating in 1992. He founded Tabanlıoğlu Architects with Dr. Hayati Tabanlıoğlu in Istanbul in 1990. He lectures at universities and international events.
Mr. Tabanlıoğlu’s recent works comprise of a wide range of building types, including Levent Loft & Loft Gardens and Kanyon (with Arup and Jerde); Sapphire, the tallest residential building in Europe; the Zorlu Center (with EAA); Istanbul’s Galataport; the Istanbul Modern museum; the Media Center for CNN Turk and Channel D; office buildings such as ESAS HQ and Selçuk Ecza HQ; the Palace of Peace (with Foster+Partners) and the Astana Arena in Kazakhstan; public projects such as the Sipopo Congress Center in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea; hotels and summer resorts on the Croatian and Turkish coasts; the E5, Marmara Forum and M1Meydan shopping mall projects; industrial buildings like the Tunacelik and Nova factories; and renovation projects such as the sixteenth century Beyazıt Library, the Tarabya Hotel and Hayati Tabanlıoğlu’s Ataturk Cultural Center.
Mr. Tabanlıoğlu and his partner Melkan Gürsel Tabanlıoğlu received the MEA-Middle East Architect Award, Architect of the Year 2010. Mr. Tabanlıoğlu’s recent awards include International Property Awards, International Architecture Award Winner, Public Sector awards for the Tripoli Congress Center (2010) and the Astana Arena (2011); a RIBA International Award in 2011 for Loft Gardens; a WAF 2012 Transport Category Winner for Bodrum International Airport; and a Cityscape Global 2012 Community and Culture Category Winner for Astana Media Center.
Mr. Wang Shu, Architect and Founder, Amateur Architecture Studio, Hangzhou, China
Wang Shu was born in 1963 in Urumqi, China, and trained at the Nanjing Institute of Technology. He founded Amateur Architecture Studio in Hangzhou in 1997, in partnership with his wife, Lu Wenyu. Wang Shu is also Professor and Head of the Architecture School at the China Academy of Art, Hangzhou. In 2011, he became the first Chinese Kenzo Tange Visiting Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
He has participated in several major international exhibitions including: the 2010 Venice Architecture Biennale, the BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels; the 2007 Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture; the 2002 Shanghai Biennale at the Shanghai Art Museum; the 2001 “TU MU-Young Architecture of China” exhibit at AEDES Gallery, Berlin; and the 1999 Chinese Young Architects’ Experimental Works Exhibition, UIA Congress, Beijing.
His awards include the Pritzker Prize (2012), and the Grande Médaille d’or from the Académie d’architecture de France (2011) and, with Lu Wenyu, the Schelling Architecture Prize (2010). The Vertical Courtyard Apartment, in Hangzhou, was nominated for the German-based International Highrise Award in 2008. In 2005, the project “Five Scattered Houses” in Ningbo received an acknowledgement from the Asia Pacific Holcim Awards for sustainable construction. In 2003, the Wenzheng Library received the Architecture Art Award of China.
For more information, please visit here.
