During the process of the development of basic guidelines for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, the Steering Committee came to realise that special cases may present themselves which fall outside the bounds of the general criteria. Thus, the Chairman’s Award was established to honour achievements that fall outside the scope of the Master Jury’s mandate and is made in recognition of the lifetime achievements of distinguished architects and academics and to honour their contribution to improving and understanding the built environment. 

In the over four decades since the Aga Khan Award for Architecture has been established, there have only been 4 recipients of the Chairman's Award: Hassan Fathy (1980), Rifat Chadirji (1986), Geoffrey Bawa (2001), and Oleg Grabar (2010). This collection celebrates these remarkable individuals.