Lisa Golombek Archive

Lisa Golombek is a prolific scholar of Islamic art and architecture and Curator Emerita at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, where she served as curator for 37 years from 1967 until her retirement in 2005. She is also Professor Emerita at the University of Toronto. Dr. Golombek has published five books and dozens of academic articles on a variety of topics in the field, from textiles to ceramics to monumental architecture. She is perhaps best known for her work on the art and architecture of the greater Iranian world: her book The Timurid Architecture of Iran and Turan (Princeton, 1988), co-authored with Donald Wilber, is considered the standard reference work for that architectural tradition.

In 2017, Dr. Golombek donated the slide collection for teaching and research to the Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT. The collection comprises hundreds of slides of monuments and artworks spanning the breadth of the Islamic world. Please note that this collection is under development, and digitization of Dr. Golombek's slides is an ongoing process. If you need specific images from this collection, please contact AKDC directly.