Steering Committee

Selma Al-Radi is an Iraqi archaeologist, and a research associate at New York University. She has worked in Yemen since 1977. In 1983, she undertook the restoration of the 16th century Madrasa al-Amiryah in the town of Rada', and is currently overseeing the final phase of the project and the restoration of the internal wall paintings. Also in Yemen, she is now completing the rehabilitation of the complex of Imamate palaces as the National Museum in Sanaa, and preparing the catalogue of the museum collections for publication. Dr. al-Radi has excavated in Iraq, Egypt, Kuwait, Cyprus, Syria, and Yemen, and has published in Arabic and English. She was a member of the 1986 and 1995 Award Technical Reviews, and of the 1989, 1992, and 1998 Steering Committees.

Professor Kenneth Frampton, British architect and architectural historian, is Ware Professor of Architecture at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, and currently a visiting professor at the Academia di Architettura in Menrision, Switzerland. He was trained as an architect at the Architectural Association in London, and has worked as both an architect and architectural historian. Professor Frampton was a fellow of the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, New York, from 1972 - 1982, and a Senior Tutor at the Royal College of Arts, London, from 1974 - 1977. He is the author of numerous influential publications, including Modern Architecture: A Critical History (1980, 1985), Modern Architecture and the Critical Present (1983), Modern Architecture: 1851 to 1945 (1981), and Studies in Tectonic Culture (1996).

Zaha Hadid is a London-based architectural designer whose work encompasses all fields of design, ranging from the urban scale through to products, interiors, and furniture. Zaha Hadid studied architecture at the Architectural Association (AA), London, from 1972, and was awarded the Diploma Prize in 1977. She then became a member of the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), and began teaching at the Architectural Association with OMA collaborators Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghleis; she later led her own studio at the AA until 1987. Her work was awarded wide international recognition in 1983, with a winning entry for The Peak, Hong Kong. This success was followed by first place awards for competitions in Kurfürstendamm, Berlin (1986); for an Art and Media Centre in Düsseldorf (1989); and for the Cardiff Bay Opera House (1994). In 1993, Ms. Hadid's fire station for the Vitra furniture company opened to much public acclaim, and the IBA housing scheme in Berlin was completed in the same year. Zaha Hadid's paintings and drawings have always been an important testing field, and this work is widely published and shown internationally; major exhibitions have included the "Deconstructivist Architecture" show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (1988), the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University (1995), and the Grand Central Station in New York (1995). In 1996, Ms. Hadid was short-listed as a finalist for the Victoria and Albert Museum's new Boilerhouse Gallery in London, and for a Philharmonique in Luxembourg; Hadid's office is also joint winner of the Thames Water Habitable Bridge competition. Ongoing projects include a housing scheme in Vienna, and projects in London. In 1999, the "LF One", a pavilion for the Landesgartenschau 1999 opened in Weil am Rhein. Ms. Hadid won the international competitions for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cincinnati during 1998, and for the Centre of Contemporary Art in Rome during 1999, and both these projects have now been commissioned. Ms. Hadid's work was featured in the Master's Section of the 1996 Venice Biennale. Zaha Hadid has been awarded the Sullivan Chair for 1997 at the University of Chicago School of Architecture, and a guest professorship at the Hochschule for Bildende Kunste in Hamburg. Ms Hadid was a member of the 1998 Award Master Jury.

Azim Nanji is Special Advisor to the Provost at the Aga Khan University, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Global Centre for Pluralism in Ottawa, a joint partnership between His Highness the Aga Khan and the Government of Canada. He was born in Nairobi, Kenya and attended schools in Kenya and Tanzania before graduating from Makerere University in Uganda. He received his master’s and doctoral degrees in Islamic Studies from McGill University in Canada.

Professor Nanji has held several academic and administrative appointments, most recently as Senior Associate Director of the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies at Stanford University, where he was also lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies. From 1998 to 2008,

Professor Nanji served as Director of the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London. In 1988, he was Margaret Gest Visiting Professor at Haverford College, and from 1989 to 1998 he was Professor and Chair of the Department of Religion at the University of Florida. From 1974 to 1976 he was a Killam Fellow at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.

Professor Nanji has published numerous books and articles on religious studies, ethics, Islam and Ismailism. His publications include a monograph on the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, Building for Tomorrow (1994).

Within the Aga Khan Development Network, Professor Nanji serves as a member of the Academic and Student Affairs Committee of the AKU Board of Trustees and the Academic Advisory Committee for the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations (AKU-ISMC), and as member of the Madrasa-based Early Childhood Education Programme in East Africa. He was recently appointed to the first Steering Committee of the Aga Khan Music Awards. He served as a member of the Steering Committee of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1998, 2001 and 2016, and was a member of the Master Jury for the Award in 1992.