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The Aga Khan Award for Architecture was established in 1977 by HH Karim Aga Khan (b 1936), the spiritual head of the Nizari Isma‛ili Muslim community since 1957, to identify and encourage building concepts that address the needs and aspirations of societies in which Muslims have a significant presence. The Award, organized on a three-year cycle, is governed by a Steering Committee chaired by the Aga Khan, which selects an independent Master Jury, which in turn selects the projects for awards. Since its inception, the Award has completed nine cycles and documented over 7500 buildings worldwide. Master Juries have selected 92 projects to receive awards, with prizes totaling up to US $500,000. A Chairman’s Award, established to honour accomplishments outside the scope of the Master Jury’s mandate, has recognized the lifetime achievements of the Egptian architect Hassan Fathy, the Iraqi architect Rifat Chadirji, and the Sri Lankan architect ...

Russian, 20th century, male.

Active in France.

Born 18 February 1912, in Baku.

Painter, watercolourist, draughtsman, engraver, decorative designer. Religious subjects, figures, nudes, scenes with figures, landscapes, seascapes, architectural views, still-lifes, animals. Designs for tapestries, designs for mosaics, murals, church decoration.

A self-taught artist of Armenian origin, George Akopian went to France in ...

(b Tehran, March 9, 1939).

Iranian architect, urban planner and writer. He studied architecture at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh (BA, 1961) and at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (March, 1962). He worked in several firms in the USA, including Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, before returning to Iran to work for the National Iranian Oil Company (1964–6). In 1966 he became Design Partner for Iran’s largest archictectural firm, Abdul Aziz Farman Farmaian & Associates, in Tehran, and in 1972 he set up his own practice in Tehran, the Mandala Collaborative. Ardalan, whose work ranges from private residences to master plans for new towns, is one of the most important architects to emerge from Iran in the recent past. His work reflects his particular concern for cultural and ecological aspects of architecture; in Iran it is strongly rooted in an understanding of the traditions and forms of Iranian Islam, although his buildings are in a totally contemporary idiom. Perhaps his best-known work is the Iran Centre for Management Studies (...

Italian, 20th century, male.

Born 1941, in Aricò.

Sculptor, painter, glassmaker. Religious subjects, figures, animals.

Gianni Aricò received a diploma in architecture from Venice University in 1971. In 1974 he set up his sculpture studio in the de-consecrated church of S Andrea della Zirada in Venice....

(Rynning)

(b Fredrikstad, July 6, 1882; d Biri, June 9, 1961).

Norwegian architect. He was trained as a draughtsman at the Royal School of Design in Christiania (now Oslo) from 1899 to 1902, and as an architect at the Royal Polytechnic in Stockholm from 1904 to 1906. He worked as an assistant to Erik Lallerstedt in Stockholm (1906–7) and in partnership with Ole Sverre (1865–1932), in Christiania (1907–8), where he afterwards started his own practice. Some of his larger projects were carried out in collaboration with Magnus Poulsson, including his best-known works, the Telegraph building (1916–24) and the Town Hall (1916–51; see Oslo, fig.), both in Oslo. Like Poulsson, Arneberg was a major exponent of the National Romanticism that developed after Norway gained complete independence in 1905. His project for the Royal Hunting Lodge at Voksenkollen (second prize with Sverre, 1905) represented the first clear break with the then-dominant ‘Dragon style’ (...

(Thalian)

(b Christiania [now Oslo], Jan 5, 1892; d Oslo, June 7, 1930).

Norwegian architect . He was educated at the Royal School of Design in Christiania and at the Royal Polytechnic in Stockholm (1913–15), and was a postgraduate student at the Architectural Association School in London (1919–20). After extensive travels in Italy, France and England, he started his own practice in Christiania in 1921. In his short career Backer produced some of the finest neo-classical and Modernist buildings in Norway. The Villa Larsen in Oslo (1925) is a large house of plastered brick. It is remarkably faithful to Italian prototypes, especially the garden façade with its portico of giant columns in antis; the modernity of the building is detectable in the subtlety with which Backer altered the proportions of his models.

Backer revealed his historical insight with an impressive competition project (1925–6) for the new University at Blindern in Oslo, which had an air of hidden classicism. At the Restaurant Skansen (...

(b Jerusalem, 1945).

Jordanian architect . He graduated from Darmstadt University in 1970. Badran’s career is marked by three distinct phases of development, all of which express his capacity for lucid visualization. In his early formalist phase his work reflected modernist inclinations. Committed to a utopian social vision, in each of his designs Badran proposed a redefinition of form, social function and associated modes of behaviour. This phase is exemplified by a low-cost housing project in Bonn (1972) and Handal’s Residence (1975) in Amman. In his second phase his works reflected historicist tendencies by drawing on traditional images for collective communication, for example Queen Alia neighbourhood (1982) in Amman and the Justice Palace Complex (1984) in Riyadh. Badran’s work further evolved into a third stage, a dialectic between modernism and traditionalism, expressed through metaphors operating at two levels. Sensory metaphors present tectonic and iconographic analogies with natural forms and historical artefacts, adapting the designed space-form to its immediate regional setting. Cognitive metaphors endeavour to establish conceptual analogies with the ordering principles and relationships that underlie tradition, through the overall configuration of the design. The third phase of Badran’s career is characterized by a winning entry for the international competition of the State Mosque (...

(b Berlin, March 3, 1877; d Jerusalem, Oct 25, 1930).

German architect, teacher and writer, active in Palestine . He studied architecture (1895–1901) at the Technische Hochschule, Charlottenburg, Berlin, spending one summer term at the Technische Hochschule, Munich. His student works revealed exceptional skill as a draughtsman and he won the Schinkel Medal (1906) for his design (unexecuted) of an architectural museum. In the following year he became Königlicher Regierungsbaumeister for the Prussian state, where his early work included various houses and shops and the restoration of a residential block (1908), Kaiserin–Augusta Street, all in Berlin. He also assisted the architect Ernst Ihne in the construction of the neo-Baroque Preussische Staatsbibliothek (1908–13), Berlin. In 1909 he was sent to Haifa, Palestine (now Israel), by the Jüdisches Institut für Technische Erziehung to take over the architectural design and building of the Technion, which was carried out in stages (1912–24). Sited on the slopes of Mount Carmel, near Haifa, the main building is symmetrical with an emphasis on the central entrance. Middle Eastern elements, such as the dome, the flat roof with pointed crenellations and the arcaded passages, together with symbolic Jewish forms such as the Star of David, in the sparse decoration, testify to Baerwald’s intention to create an architecture that was a synthesis of Middle-Eastern culture and Western technique. The whole complex was built in locally quarried sandstone and limestone, reflecting the architect’s preference for stone....

Chilean, 20th century, male.

Born 1927, in Paris.

Painter.

Barreda Fabres studied architecture at the Catholic university in Santiago and taught history of art in the architecture faculty from 1950 to 1955. He used a realist technique to paint constructions that belong to the world of the uncanny and the surreal. He took part in exhibitions in North America, Latin America and Europe and received many awards....

Italian, 19th – 20th century, male.

Born 1836, in Siena; died 1922.

Sculptor (wood), designer of ornamental architectural features. Religious furnishings.

Bartalozzi worked principally with the wood sculptor Nicodemo Ferri, chiefly on choir stalls for Siena Cathedral and a credenza for Marquis Ferdinando Pieri Nerli of Siena. He was also involved in carving the pianoforte presented by the City of Naples as a wedding gift to the King of Italy....

Italian, 19th – 20th century, male.

Born 8 November 1836, in Bologna; died 1927.

Painter, watercolourist. Religious subjects, genre scenes, landscapes, architectural views.

Luigi Bazzani studied at the Accademia in Bologna and, following visits to France and Germany, was appointed professor at the Accademia in Rome. He exhibited from ...

(b New York, Feb 7, 1875; d Monaco, Jan 19, 1968).

British mining consultant and collector of American birth. He was educated at the Columbia School of Mines and at Princeton University; by the age of 28 he was the consulting engineer and assistant general manager of the Guggenheim Exploration Company. In 1913, two years after the death of his first wife, he settled in London and became established as a mining consultant. He married Edith Dunn and bought Baroda House in Kensington Palace Gardens. With one of his associates, Herbert Hoover, later President of the USA (1929–33), he reorganized the Kyshtin mine in the Urals. The Selection Trust Ltd, which he established in 1914 to develop and finance profitable mines throughout the world, made great headway after World War I, and he remained its chairman until 1960. He was naturalized as a British citizen in 1933. In his youth he began collecting a range of items, including Western manuscripts and Chinese snuff bottles, but his main passion was collecting Islamic manuscripts and paintings, early Bibles and rare books, Impressionist paintings, French and Russian gold snuffboxes, 18th-century watches, clocks, and stamps. His interest in the Islamic arts of the book, particularly manuscripts of the Koran, was stimulated by frequent visits to Cairo, where he wintered between the wars. Although he had no knowledge of Arabic, Persian, or Turkish, he was keen to give scholars access to his collection and loaned manuscripts to many exhibitions. In ...

(Margaret Lowthian)

(b Washington, Co. Durham, July 14, 1868; d Baghdad, 11/July 12, 1926).

English archaeologist and architectural historian. The first woman to achieve a first-class honours in modern history at Oxford University, she travelled widely in Europe, Japan and especially the Middle East in the 1890s, achieving fluency in a number of European languages as well as in Persian, Turkish and Arabic. She developed an interest in archaeology and architecture that was reflected in an authoritative set of articles on the Early Byzantine churches of Syria and southern Turkey, based on her travels in 1905. Her first major travel book, The Desert and the Sown, contains a mixture of travellers’ tales and archaeological information, as does her Amurath to Amurath. Between 1905 and 1914 she made archaeological studies of the Early Byzantine and Early Islamic monuments of Turkey, Syria and Mesopotamia (now Iraq). In 1905 and 1907 she surveyed Binbirkilise with Sir William Ramsay; their book, The Thousand and One Churches, remains the authoritative account of this important site. The architectural recording by survey and photography at Binbirkilise was carried out by Bell and is a lasting monument in its own right. Bell’s interest in Anatolia was inspired by Josef Strzygowski and his book ...

(b Paris, June 7, 1876; d Quebec, July 5, 1944).

French architect and monk. He was the son of an architect and studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris. He was a brilliant student and obtained his diploma in 1901. After a trip to Spain and Italy, where he produced some beautiful watercolours that earned him a special mention at the Salon in Paris (1901), he decided to become a monk and entered the Benedictine monastery at Solesmes, Sarthe. At this time, religious communities exiled from France needed many new buildings, and Bellot was sent to the Netherlands in 1906 to extend a monastery there. He learnt how to build in brick, a material he used for the rest of his life, and he also became acquainted with H. P. Berlage and Modernist Dutch architecture. Bellot worked in the Netherlands and on the Isle of Wight, England, until 1920, producing many fine yet low-cost buildings in brick. His inventiveness, allied to an admiration for medieval architecture and the rationalist theories of Viollet-le-Duc, led him to develop a style that had neo-Gothic aspects, clearly expressing structure and giving an impression of lightness and balance as much as mass and weightiness, and he used brick to create both structure and decoration....

(b Mogilev, Russia [now Belarus’], Oct 6, 1877; d Tel Aviv, July 18, 1952).

Israeli architect of Russian birth. He graduated at the Art Academy, St Petersburg, in 1911, and practised in St Petersburg until 1921, when he settled in Palestine. After two years as chief architect of the Public Works Office of the Histadruth (the General Federation of Jewish Labour in Eretz-Israel), he set up in private practice in Tel Aviv. In his early buildings Berlin developed a highly personal vocabulary of simplified classicist ornament adapted to the simple materials and craftsmanship then available in the city. A notable example is the power station (1925), Jaffa. His most original contribution, however, was his unique use of silicate bricks, the chief building material in Tel Aviv at the period and an early product of its burgeoning industry. Leaving the brick unplastered, he created playful abstract patterns, faintly reminiscent of Expressionism and Art Deco. Examples include Berlin’s own house (1929), 59 Balfour Street, and the Moghrabi Theatre (...

Romanian, 20th century, male.

Born 14 September 1938, in Bucharest; died 4 December 2000, in Paris.

Painter, draughtsman, sculptor. Church interiors, landscapes, architectural views, still-lifes.

Conceptual Art.

Horia Bernea studied mathematics and physics at the University of Bucharest from 1955 to 1958, then followed courses at the city's school of architecture ...

Italian, 20th century, male.

Born 1896, in Gemona del Friuli; died 1987.

Painter, sculptor, designer of ornamental architectural features. Religious subjects, figures.

Bin exhibited busts at the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1928.

French, 20th century, male.

Born 28 December 1891, in Tunis; died 16 February 1965, in Los Angeles.

Painter, pastellist, draughtsman. Religious subjects, genre scenes, street scenes, figures, portraits, architectural interiors, landscapes.

Orientalism.

Bismouth studied under Jules Adler (1865-1952), Auguste Pinchart (1842-1924) and Léon Bellemont in Paris. As a member of the Société des Artistes Français, he exhibited with this group ...

Norwegian architectural and furniture design partnership formed in 1922 by Gudolf Blakstad (b Gjerpen, 19 May 1893; d Oslo, 1986) and Herman Munthe-Kaas (b Christiania [now Oslo], 25 May 1890; d Oslo, 5 March 1970). Blakstad was awarded his diploma as an architect at the Norwegian Institute of Technology in Trondheim in 1916. He collaborated with Jens Dunker on the New Theatre, Oslo, from 1919 to 1929. After a preliminary training in Christiania, Munthe-Kaas finished his education at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm in 1919.

From the beginning of their careers Blakstad and Munthe-Kaas played a leading role in Norwegian architecture. After studying in Italy in the early 1920s, they advocated Neo-classicism in architectural projects, furniture designs and writings. In 1922 they won the competition for the new Town Hall in Haugesund (1924–31), a major work of 20th-century Norwegian Neo-classicism. Above a powerfully rusticated basement, the long office wing with its regular fenestration contrasts with the higher City Council Hall, accentuated by pairs of monumental, free-standing columns. In general the effect is of robust strength and an exciting interplay of horizontals and verticals....

Austrian, 20th century, male.

Born 3 June 1894, in Klagenfurt; died 1966, in Vienna.

Painter, draughtsman. Figure compositions, religious subjects, figures, landscapes, still-lifes.

Herbert Boeckl studied architecture under Adolf Loos at the higher institute of technology in Vienna and taught himself to paint. He was conscripted during World War I. He exhibited mostly in Vienna, but also in Berlin where he lived in ...