This year's Aga Khan architectural awards show how traditional building methods can be combined with the latest technology to improve the lives of entire communities. Michael Jansenreports from Kuala Lumpur
Women in glowing saris and long silk dresses and men in dark suits float along the walk at the edge of the green expanse of park, the Twin Petronas Towers standing silver sentinel above the convention centre, hotels and mall that make up the complex that symbolises Malaysia's spectacular development over its half-century of independence.
We stride through the shopping arcades to the philharmonic hall and ascend the curving staircase, its railings wound with strings of white flowers, to the auditorium, where nine projects in eight Asian, African, and European countries are to receive the coveted Aga Khan Award for Architecture.
The audience stands when Karim al- Hussaini, the Aga Khan, descendant of the prophet Muhammad and the 49th imam of the Shia Ismaili sect, and prime minister Abdullah Badawi enter the hall. Star lights twinkle in the domed ceiling above tiers of wooden balconies. Photographers aim their long, blunt-snouted lenses for clear shots. The Silk Road Ensemble, a group formed by the Aga Khan to revive the traditional music of central Asia, opens the ceremonies with a lilting, then lolloping, composition for strings and drum.
On the stage sit the architects, engineers, sociologists, archaeologists, patrons, clients and sole mudbrick master honoured with the award. All the projects have in common either traditional techniques or materials, the Aga Khan, who is celebrating the golden jubilee of his imamat, tells me. His foundation now focuses on "area development", he says, rather than single buildings, and aims to improve the lives of entire communities.
Over the past 30 years, there have been 8,000 nominees for the triennial award, and 100 recipients. For this, the 10th cycle, 343 candidate projects were submitted, 27 were shortlisted, and nine were chosen for attaining "the highest standards of architectural excellence while reflecting the values of their specific environments".
THE NINE PROJECTS chosen to receive the 2007 prize embody the past, present and future. The past is represented by the 16th-century Amiriya Palace at Rada in Yemen and the medieval Yemeni city of Shibam, both rescued from oblivion by magnificent reconstruction efforts.
I travelled to Kuala Lumpur to attend the presentation of the award because Iraqi archaeologist Selma al-Radi, a dear friend, and her Yemeni colleague, Yahya al-Nasiri, were honoured for restoring the Amiriya, a 16th-century residential palace containing a magnificent painted mosque, the equivalent of a private chapel in a European great house.
The rescue of the three-storey building, constructed between 1504 and 1512 by the last Tahirid ruler of the region, Sultan Amir Abdel Wahhab, was undertaken by the Yemeni government with funding from Holland and expertise in fresco restoration from Italy. Selma al-Radi, who has excavated in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Cyprus, was the driving force behind the project, which has consumed 25 years of her life. When she first saw the Amiriya in an advanced state of decay, she remarked: "We've got to save this." She raised funds, assembled a team of craftsmen and builders, and began by shoring up sagging walls and collapsing ceilings. To maintain the integrity of the building, the team reinvented qudad, an ancient lime plaster used to clad stone walls, domes and ornamental features. More than 500 architects, craftsmen and artisans were trained at the Amiriya. Many have found employment at other monuments Yemen is conserving.
Former Yemeni premier Abdul Karim al-Eryani, the godfather of the project, observes that the people of Rada were initially hostile: "They are the toughest people in Yemen, but Selma is tougher." Today, Radawis are proud of the white wedding cake palace restored to its full glory in their dull dun-coloured, mud-brick town dominated by a hill fortress.
Shibam, a Unesco world heritage site, is a medieval wonder, a mud-brick high-rise city known as the "Manhattan of the desert". Surrounded by a fortified wall, Shibam has existed for more than 2,000 years, but its 500 extraordinary 16th-century five- to nine- storey buildings are unique. The restoration of the city was a joint Yemeni-German endeavour initiated not only to preserve the physical fabric of the city but also to provide its 7,000 inhabitants with essential services, infrastructure and incentives to stay put.
Local organisations are also training craftsmen, providing literacy classes for women, and reviving farming by restoring a canal and the irrigation system.
THE PRESENT IS embodied by Samir Kassir Square in the heart of Beirut, the Central Market in Koudougou, Burkina Faso, and the school in Rudrapur, Bangladesh. The juxtaposition, at Samir Kassir Square, of a simple stone bench, a wooden platform and a pool reflecting two spreading banyan trees provides a place for contemplation and spiritual renewal for residents of the conflicted Lebanese capital.
The redesign of Koudougou's Central Market, using local techniques and blocks of compressed earth and vaulted spaces, has provided a handsome new commercial centre and civic meeting space for this mid-sized African town. It was the third market to be built jointly by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and Burkina Faso's Programme de Développement des Villes Moyennes.
The simple, charming school in Rudrapur, built by hand in four months out of straw-laced mud and bamboo by local people and volunteer architects from Germany and Austria, has created a new global model for village development. The school belongs to the Bangladesh Modern Education and Training Institute, which seeks to help children develop their potential and live creatively.
Three architectural projects combining 21st-century and traditional technologies represent the future. The University of Technology Petronas, erected in renewed rainforest 300 kilometres from Kuala Lumpur, is designed to blend into a wooded landscape and to protect students from sun and rain. The main buildings shelter beneath a canopy while covered walkways provide protection from the elements. The campus resonates with the surrounding gardens and the canopy of trees. Malaysian designer Kamil Merican says the university, which teaches in English, draws students from Vietnam and South Korea as well as Malaysia.
The Moulmein Rise Residential Tower in Singapore is a singular structure in a stand of 21st-century skyscrapers. The building boasts an irregular facade and relies on the monsoon window, adapted from a feature used by the Dayak tribesmen of Borneo, to provide ventilation while keeping out the rain from daily downpours. Owners of the flats have the feeling they are residing in bungalows in the clouds.
The Royal Netherlands Embassy complex in Addis Ababa, is a massive structure of concrete, dyed red to match Ethiopia's soil and modelled on its ancient churches.
Finally, the rehabilitation of the Walled City of Nicosia in Cyprus bridges past, present and future. After decades of decline, neglect and conflicting claims, the old city was renovated and born again under a 1979 master plan which brought Greek and Turkish Cypriots together in a shared endeavour.
Ottoman buildings were rejuvenated and life was reinvigorated along the Green Line that divides the Greek and Turkish Cypriot sectors of the old city enclosed within 16th-century Venetian walls. Renewal of the central commercial space has helped Greek and Turkish Cypriots to get to know one another and plan for a common future. Former mayor Lellos Demetriades - who, along with former Turkish Cypriot mayor Mustafa Akinci - was a prime mover of the project, said one of the most amazing aspects of the politically sensitive endeavour was that "there were no minutes of our meetings, no paperwork". The project progressed on verbal arrangements made by administrators rather than negotiations between politicians.
EARLIER AWARDS WERE similarly distinctive and covered a wide range of projects, including hotels, museums, mosques, private homes, cities, a school for poultry farmers, the SOS children's village in Aqaba, Jordan, the Biblioteca Alexandria, emergency shelters constructed with sandbags, a system of building with black basalt in Syria, and a reforestation programme in Turkey. A Palestinian project for the renovation of the Old City of Jerusalem and Malaysia's Petronas Towers were honoured in 2004.
In addition to the three-year cycle of project awards, the Aga Khan also honours outstanding practitioners who have made major contributions to architecture in the Muslim world. Egypt's Hassan Fathy (1900-89), the grandfather of modern Arab architecture, was the first recipient. He reinstated mudbrick by using it in modern buildings as early as 1930, incorporating ancient structural features, such as thick walls and courtyards, to make buildings habitable in sultry summers and chill winters. The 1986 recipient, Rifat Chadirji, now 81, is the greatest living Iraqi architect. He seeks to reconcile the historical building traditions of Iraq with modern requirements using high-tech innovations. The 2001 recipient, Geoffrey Bawa (1919-2003), was Sri Lanka's most influential architect who, blending Sir Lankan, south Indian and modern forms, sought to design buildings suitable for the challenging climate of south and south-east Asia.
Speaking at the close of the seminar which followed the award ceremonies on September 4th, the Aga Khan, warned that the worldwide Muslim community, the Umma - the focus of his efforts to effect change - must question traditions and past verities in spite of resistance from entrenched interests. He stated, quietly but firmly, that "the moment we stop asking questions, we will start to fall asleep", dropping behind in this rapidly changing world.