| Downtown KL looks like a concentrated corner of Manhattan. The soaring twin Petronas Towers, sheathed in glass and stainless steel, are the city's crowning glory and glitter at night like pieces of jewellery. In a forest 300 km north of the city, Britain's award-winning architect Norman Forster has finished designing a technology university with Malaysian partners, linking its buildings under a vast canopy that is described as "high-tech, emblematic architecture ... in a rapidly developing nation". |
| Appropriately, KL was the chosen destination earlier this week for the Aga Khan awards for architecture. Every three years an independent international jury sifts through hundreds of nominations, big and small, from far-flung corners of the world, to whittle down a short-list of about two dozen for the $500,000 prize. Third-country specialists, many of them professors of architecture, are then dispatched to the sites to see if the projects meet the award's exacting standards and present a technical review. Among the criteria are architecture that is sustainable, can enhance the quality of life, serve the needs of a community and be emulated elsewhere. Another consideration is that they must be in a part of the world with a significant Muslim population but this could mean Bradford, Toronto or Michigan. The prize can be divided among any number of winners "" this year there were nine "" and the jury is flexible about who can win: an architect, restorer, master artisan, government agency, NGO or a visionary mayor. |
| One of the most stirring winning examples declared in KL was representatives of the Greek and Turkish communities of Nicosia, Cyprus (the only politically divided city in the world), who have overcome years of bitterness to mutually regenerate their historic walled city and protect its heritage. Interestingly, the Nicosia Master Plan was co-ordinated by the UN agencies and sponsored by USAID and the European Union. |
| From the large-scale, ambitious or cutting edge to the ancient, modest, remote or rural, the jury considers a fascinating range of projects, ideas for preserving the past, and solutions for the future. An inexpensive primary school in northern Bangladesh, emulating the bamboo and thatch of indigenous village skills, was hand-built in four months by a young woman architect from Austria, together with a German colleague and with the active participation of parents, pupils and local craftsmen. A desolate square in downtown Beirut, empty except for two old trees, has been heart-warmingly transformed into a serene public space with reflecting pool, cascade and stone benches in a ugly built-up business district. A magnificent old mud-brick city in a state of desperate decay in Yemen has painstakingly been brought back to life, giving out-of-work artisans a new career; and an ingeniously simple brick market with stalls for pavement vendors has assured a regular livelihood to hundreds. |
| Nor do the Aga Khan awards overlook the spirit of commercial enterprise and technological innovation. Two young architects won for a 28-storey residential highrise in a smart part of Singapore. Their design solutions of monsoon windows, cross-ventilation, overhangs and perforated screens were deemed low-energy strategies that help save power and reduce dependence on mechanical climate control systems. |
| Thirty years after they were started, the Aga Khan architecture awards, now in their tenth cycle, have been institutionalised as among the most prestigious in their field. They are usually held at a heritage site "" Delhi's Humanyun's Tomb was chosen in 2004 "" and Isfahan and Kabul were in the running this year. As the award's Sam Pickens says: "Nowadays cities solicit us to hold the ceremony. The choice is ours." |
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