Manama: Mahmood Rafique, Editor: Her Excellency Shaikha Mai bint Mohammed Al Khalifa, President of the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities, has been awarded The Aga Khan Award for Architecture.
This was announced during The Aga Khan Award members meeting at its fifteenth session, 2020-2022.
The Aga Khan Award for Architecture announced the selection of this selection coincides with the nomination of Her Excellency Shaikha Mai to the position of Secretary-General of the World Tourism Organization, and is a culmination of Her Excellency’s many important achievements in the fields of culture and sustainable tourism.
In 2019, the “Revitalization of Muharraq” project won the Aga Khan Award, an initiative implemented in cooperation of the public and private sectors, represented by the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities and the Shaikh Ebrahim bin Mohammad Al Khalifa Center for Culture and Research. The project sheds light on the history of the pearling economy and the importance of the Pearling Path, the third Bahraini site on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The project also aims to restore balance between the demographic compositions and encourage indigenous people to return to the Old City through improvements in the environment and the provision of societal and cultural infrastructure.
The Aga Khan Award for Architecture, established by the Aga Khan IV in 1977 in Geneva, Switzerland, seeks to encourage and reward architectural concepts that meet the needs and aspirations of Muslim societies in the fields of contemporary design, social housing, community development and improvement, restoration, reuse and area conservation, as well as landscape design and improvement of the environment.
