Independent Master Jury Will Select Recipients of US$ 1 Million Prize

Geneva, Switzerland, 6 January 2016 – The members of the Master Jury of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture were announced today. The Jury, which independently selects the recipients of the US$ 1 million Award, will convene in January 2016 to select a shortlist from hundreds of nominated projects. The shortlisted projects will then be subject to rigorous on-site reviews by independent experts. The Jury will meet for a second time in June 2016 to examine the on-site reviews and then select the final recipients of the Award.

The nine members of the Master Jury for the 2014-2016 Award cycle are:    

• Suad Amiry, Founder, Riwaq Centre for Architectural Conservation, Ramallah
• Emre Arolat, Founder, EAA-Emre Arolat Architecture, Istanbul
• Akeel Bilgrami, Sydney Morgenbesser Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University, New York
• Luis Fernàndez-Galiano, Editor, Architectura Viva, Madrid
• Hameed Haroon, Chief Executive Officer, Herald Publications, Karachi
• Lesley Lokko, Head, Graduate School of Architecture, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg
• Mohsen Mostafavi, Dean, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, Cambridge
• Dominique Perrault, Founder, Dominique Perrault Architecture, Paris
• Hossein Rezai, Director, Web Structures, Singapore

The Aga Khan Award for Architecture, established in 1977, is given every three years to projects that set new standards of excellence in architecture, urban and regional design, conservation and landscape architecture. Through its efforts, the Award seeks to identify and encourage building concepts that successfully address the needs and aspirations of societies in which Muslims have a significant presence. The selection process emphasizes architecture that not only provides for people's physical, social and economic needs, but that also stimulates and responds to their cultural and spiritual expectations. Particular attention is given to building schemes that use local resources and appropriate technology in innovative ways, and to projects likely to inspire similar efforts elsewhere. The Award is currently in its 13th triennial cycle.

The Award is governed by a Steering Committee whose current members are: His Highness the Aga Khan, Chairman; David Adjaye, founder and principal architect of Adjaye Associates, which has offices in London, New York and Accra; Mohammad al-Asad, the founding director of the Center for the Study of the Built Environment in Amman, Jordan; Francesco Bandarin, Assistant Director-General for Culture at UNESCO and professor at the Università Iuav di Venezia, Venice, Italy; Hanif Kara, a practicing structural engineer and Professor in Practice of Architectural Technology at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University; Kamil Merican, founding partner of GDP Architects Malaysia; Azim Nanji, currently 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; Professor Gülru Necipoglu, Aga Khan Professor of Islamic Art at Harvard University; Brigitte Shim, a principal in the Toronto-based design firm Shim-Sutcliffe Architects and Professor at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design at the University of Toronto; Yu Kongjian, founder and dean of the College of Architecture and Landscape and the Changjiang Chair Professor of Design, at Peking University. Farrokh Derakhshani is Director of the Award. For more information, please contact: Sam Pickens Aga Khan Award for Architecture 1-3 avenue de la Paix, 1202 Geneva, Switzerland Telephone: +41 (22) 909.72.00 Facsimile: +41 (22) 909.72.91 E-mail: info@akdn.org Website: www.akdn.org/architecture Follow the Award on Facebook NOTES The Aga Khan Award for Architecture is part of the Geneva-based Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC), which has a wide range of activities aimed at the preservation and promotion of the material and spiritual heritage of Muslim societies. Its programmes include the Aga Khan Historic Cities Programme (HCP), which works to revitalise historic cities in the Muslim world, both culturally and socioeconomically. Over the last decade, it has been engaged in the rehabilitation of historic areas in Cairo, Kabul, Herat, Aleppo, Delhi, Zanzibar, Mostar, northern Pakistan, Timbuktu and Mopti. The Trust also supports the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture (AKPIA) at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as well as www.ArchNet.org, a major online resource on Islamic architecture. The Aga Khan Trust for Culture, in turn, is part of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN). The AKDN is a group of non-denominational development agencies, created by His Highness the Aga Khan, with complementary mandates ranging from health and education to architecture, culture, microfinance, rural development, disaster reduction, the promotion of private-sector enterprise and the revitalisation of historic cities. The AKDN agencies work to improve living conditions and opportunities for the poor, without regard to their faith, origin or gender. Working in the fields of economic, cultural and social development, AKDN aims to provide choices and opportunities to communities so that they can realise and determine their own development. More information on the Award, the Trust and the AKDN can be found on our website: www.akdn.org.