Architecture of the Essential

This publication features the winners and shortlisted projects for the 13h cycle of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture.

This book brings together a diverse range of exemplary architectural projects from across the globe. Carefully selected and examined by a team of experts, these projects demonstrate innovative approaches that respond to the challenges and potentials of contemporary conditions and contexts.

One guiding principle of this 13th Cycle of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture is the importance of plurality. Since its inception the Award has aimed to be inclusive and to embrace the engagement of a diverse group of users. But equally, it has sought projects that explore a plurality of methods and architecture in achieving that goal.

Here, the authors of the essays use that productive tension between architecture and plurality not only to provide a framework for the examination of the projects but also to explore the intellectual and projective means by which architecture are plurality can find other common grounds in the future.

Correa Mehrotra, Nondita. Architecture of the Essential in Architecture and Plurality. Edited by Mohsen Mostafavi. Zurich: Lars Muller Publishers, 2016.