Archnet

“….architecture has a capacity to transform the quality of human existence. More than that, we believed that our Quranic heritage gave us the responsibility, as good stewards of the Divine creation, to shape and reshape our earthly environment in the service of humankind.” -HH Aga Khan IV, 6 September 2013

"My attention to cultural legacies was triggered, over three decades ago, when I realized that the proud architectural heritage of the Islamic world was endangered. The art forms through which great Islamic cultures had expressed their identity and their ideals were deteriorating. The result, for huge segments of the world’s population, was a fading of cultural memory." -HH Aga Khan IV, 15 May 2013

Leverages the transformative power of culture to improve the socio-economic conditions and quality of life of people around the world.

96,000 employees in over 30 countries dedicated to improving the quality of life of those in need, mainly in Asia and Africa, irrespective of their origin, faith, or gender.

"The 1,428 years of the Ummah embrace many civilisations and are therefore characterised by an astonishing pluralism. In particular, this geographic, ethnic, linguistic and religious pluralism has manifested itself at the most defining moments in the history of the Ummah. The Aga Khan Museum Collection will highlight objects drawn from every region and every period, and created from every kind of material in the Muslim world." -HH Aga Khan IV, 17 October 2007

the garden as a symbol of Islamic ideals flourished most magnificently some 500 to 600 years ago – and that happened, of course, in the warmer climates of Southern Asia. And yet, there we were in Edmonton a decade ago, proposing to extend that lovely eastern and southern tradition, at the start of the 21st Century, to the unique natural environment of northern and western Canada. This proposed new garden, to be precise, would be the northern-most Islamic garden ever created." -HH Aga Khan IV, 16 October 2018

Based at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture (AKPIA) is dedicated to the study of Islamic art and architecture, urbanism, landscape design, conservation and the application of that knowledge to contemporary design projects.

Built to be the embodiment of "the value of education as a force for cooperation and healing in our world and the value of architecture as a source of inspiration and illumination." -HH The Aga Khan, 26 June 2018

Endowed by HH Aga Khan IV both to support the research and teaching needs of AKPIA faculty and students and to make resources available to a global audience, thus building bridges of understanding across cultures and assisting those in areas where access to educational resources is difficult.

A film documenting the first Aga Khan Award for Architecture ceremony held in Shalimar Gardens, Lahore, in 1980 and the 15 recipients who merged “Islam's rich cultural heritage with modern technology to help solve the problems of individual survival in the contemporary world."

Archnet was created to help fulfill HH Aga Khan IV's wish to share knowledge being generated in the programmes He had endowed at Harvard and MIT with scholars and practitioners worldwide.

A massive project to create green space in the center of the historic city, an undertaking that led to archeological discoveries and additional projects to conserve historic architecture.