 As many of you know, I'm Nate Fash, assistant professor and chairing the public events committee here at the school. And tonight I'm really thrilled to kick off the series with a fantastic guest who Dean White will introduce more fully. But while I'm up here, I'll just want to say I'll call your attention to the exhibition gallery if you haven't been to it, which is currently hosting an excellent show of the 2016 Archon Award for Architecture, which I'm sure our speaker will, I'm looking forward to, bring to life much more for us tonight. And with that, I'd like to just invite Dean White. Great. Thank you all. And it may look a little scary with a piece of paper here, but this is really important stuff I need to share with you tonight. And it'll be briefer than it may look. Thank you all for coming tonight. It's a great privilege to have Farouk Derek Shani here, who is the director of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, and who will speak on architecture and plurality. This accompanies the exhibition of the 2016 Aga Khan Awards in architecture, which is in the gallery through October. Mr. Derek Shani has been associated with the Aga Khan Award since 1982 and has lectured widely on contemporary architecture in Muslim societies and organized and participated in seminars, exhibits, workshops, and international competitions extensively through the Aga Khan Award program, and also collaborated on many publications. He was trained as an architect and planner at the National University of Iran and in architecture in Paris. I hope it may turn out that attending tonight will have a great influence on you all. The work and the message behind the Aga Khan's extraordinary commitment to our knowledge of one another around the world and to architecture is really, truly extraordinary and has been a great consequence to our school, actually, and this is the part I wanted to share. There's some little tidbits that are hopefully good to talk about in the history of the place, and also affects some of the people here in large and small ways. In a personal way, when I was a student, like you guys, my coming across a magazine called MIMAR, Architecture and Development in the Architecture Library in St. Louis, where I was a student in the late 1970s and early 80s, I'd say completely changed my perspective on architecture and the world and my sense of what was possible to see in architecture and what I could be a part of. MIMAR was suggested to me by a professor named Udo Kulterman, who was a colleague of Hassan Khan's, and likely for Oaks, and I kept that in mind when I went to work in India for several years, really inspired to see more than what I had understood of the United States or my theoretically European roots or whatever, and there I met a person named Tom Kessinger, who was the representative for the Ford Foundation in India and who actually supported a project I was working on, and who later became a leader of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture in Geneva, and Tom said, oh, as Udo Kulterman said, you have to meet this guy Hassan Khan, my colleague, you know, and who and where was Hassan Khan, I had heard about him in St. Louis and New Delhi, and I didn't know where he was. So Hassan joined our school in 1999 after I found him from a conference, actually that Edgar Adams and Yilke Chopra, who some of you may know, but was a long time professor here, organized here at the school, and we talked, we all talked Hassan into joining Roger Williams and leaving our sister school, MIT, behind Hassan brought an appreciation for crossing boundaries for people and architecture and preservation in many places in the world, and was the second convener of the Aga Khan Award for architecture, and with Hassan's coming and with Yilke being here, others came along, Gary Graham, who's here, had worked with Hassan in conjunction with Aga Khan Projects, and also Mete Turan had worked in Turkey with Suha Oskar, and you'll hear about a little bit more in a minute, and with Okan Ustenko, who was an associate dean here. Finally, and perhaps smaller or maybe larger impact in a way of the Aga Khan's presence here, is that for several years in the mid-2000s, we actually had a piano in the school lounge, which was donated to the school by Suha Oskar, who was a colleague of Farouk and Hassan's and the etc., etc., etc., and who himself was the director of the Aga Khan Award. We made a small plaque engraved on the piano so that when you sit down and you start to play, you could see that it's donated by the Aga Khan, and so imagine how nice it might be to hear when it was well played music coming out of the lounge, and we had great and sometimes exploratory efforts at music from this piano until actually we wore the piano out and we didn't replace it, not because we didn't want one, but we just whatever, I think we need to get that back maybe. So anyway, from all of this, I bet we all may imagine that we learn from difference, from things like music and architecture that are not always describable in words and which the Aga Khan has supported and shared with people like us from around the world. Please welcome Farouk Derek Shani. Thanks very much. That's me, Joe. Thanks, Dean. Why? It was very interesting because I was telling Hassan that you've known him for now as you heard for 35, 36 years, and well, then I was just to remember, although I was working for the Aga Khan World for Architecture, but I was in my short pants working and playing. I was a little kid because I'm not that old. But you're absolutely right in 1970 when I went to the School of Architecture and I was in Iran, I remember one day in the late 70s, we saw this ad on the paper on our board that there's a call for, there's a new award for architecture has been created and it was one Iranian which we knew on another island, but always the word was Hassan Fati is there. So the Aga Khan was not the name, Aga Khan was known to some and not to all in Iran because well, the Aga Khan's family come from Iran so we know him, what he was and what was his role, initially but the whole connection with architecture was something which was new. But then again, you were in a period that's, you know, in school what's happening, we don't know what's happening, just heard about it. And that was the reason, the reason was that those days in Iran, we had, we went through a very interesting period of the 1970s when I was a student there because that was the period of knowing about architecture outside what was only in the books and what was happening there. We had two big congresses in Iran in 1972 and 1974 with people like Bakim Fuller, Al Baral Alto, all the people you can imagine that were coming for these conferences around. We had the other, sometime later I was just, it was reminded in 1976 we had the first Congress of Women Architects in Iran in Ramsar and that was very interesting because you have the people like Alente, then Scott Brown, Monica Pigeon, everybody was there. So we as students were very familiar with something is happening around. So then later when I came to Paris I was there for just a small break and then the Iran-Iraq war started and I was stuck, I couldn't go back and then I stayed and one day through a common friend, unfortunately she's not with us, Hassan knew her very well, I came to see one of Hassan's colleagues in Mimar, Brian Taylor and then I was looking for a job because I was there for a month and the war was going on and say what I'll do, I was going to work in one country and then Suha Oskar happens to be the same day coming for maybe a new job at Alqan Awards. So we met together and I said Suha, you're a Turk, there's a lot of construction companies there, Turkish companies, they're working, they don't have jobs for me or something, said well you know the Libyans and these people are not paying the Turks anymore. So but you know I'm going to Geneva and there's some organization, do you want to know them what they're doing? So I went there and for again six months to work and that has been a journey of 35 years and I've been very very lucky in this journey because it is very important for people to be happy with what they're doing and one of the things is that you are in a constant learning process. You're meeting new people, you're learning every day but what is very important is that this was an award which was created which is not an award and that's what I'm going to explain to you that the award is somehow misleading and this what I'm going to just hopefully to explain a little bit is a thinking process and today I had with Hassan we're trying to do kind of an oral history of the award, we're just discussing and interviewing Hassan and a lot of questions was coming to my mind, I see that so much has been done which is very interesting. So I'm going to go through today what I'm going to do is to explain to you what the award is, what the award mechanism is and then at the second part of my talk I'm going to talk about this award and these six projects and try to put them a little bit into context that what these projects, what they mean because the projects are not only just an architecture projects but there's always how each of these projects on its own they have got an impact on the quality of life of the people that it's been to be using it. So now just a very brief introduction as you were saying the Arkon Award for architecture is a it's here in green, can I show it? It's a part of what is called the Arkon Development Network. So this institution I just want to go very briefly through it because that will make us understand later is that it's an institution created by the Arkon and the overall mission is to how you can improve the quality of life of people through different activities and when I say it's exceptional because in this part we are doing three different major sections as you can see it is what is the economic development it means that they try how by investment and making jobs you can have an impact on people's life. The second is what we call the social development is by no philanthropic work, rule development, making universities, agencies you do and the third is culture is all the thing in the Arkon Award for architecture is the first institution which was created in that group and other program came out of it. Now what is important is that you cannot have impact on people's lives if you only work on the economy or you work only on social issues or the health education or on culture whatever we call culture as such it should always be all combined together and that is a very unique approach that the Arkon has created in its organizations that we're working. There's something around 80,000 people are working in this network it is a lot of people but the Arkon Award for architecture office is only me and two colleagues so just to know. Now these are just I was trying to put together just one of the brief that what the award is about and because what it is is this whole thing that there have been in many cases some misunderstanding of what the award is because of the image everybody is talking about representations and especially in the early days when you had because of Hassan Fati was very important they were everybody was thinking this is about architecture of very the tradition architecture and that is what we're trying to do which was never this that's case from the very beginning but that was what we were stuck with because of the impact of Hassan Fati and the others but what is well important is that we try to put it that how you can protect the past and inspire the future that is very important and that relationship is that that that dynamism is what is very more important that such and of and the other thing is to how to can have an in to improve the quality of life and what we're trying to see up to understand what are the dynamics and what are the how we can make an influence on the dynamics of the change as you can see there's this young man I'm sorry I'm sorry with this you can see this young man here which you all know so what happens is that his highness the outcome who has as you could you heard he had this way of that he wanted to have an impact because he himself as a client he was building a lot he was building hospitals he was building schools he was doing his own private projects which was a lot involved architects and he had this whole thing that how you can have a dialogue with the architects to be able to to create to go more than the programmatic problem of the program issues of the project because that is very important how you can have an architecture of quality so he calls a number of people having this idea around him which is quite important it is he calls he had Sir Hugh Cassin who was a famous British architects I just to give you for the age when I was in 1970 I went to London the first thing I went I went to the zoo to see the elephants cage that he had made because for all of us going to school in 1970s he was the one who created this all concrete thing so he was an architect a British architect you had Gar Campbell your Charles Korea that you've heard the name he was an Indian architect very famous Oleg Robar who was a professor of Islamic architecture who was at Harvard William Porter who was a Dean of MIT we had Dawn Kuban who was from Turkey a professor Hassan Fatih the famous Hassan Fatih who was the old man of tradition which was quite known there and Renata Hollad who she was the first convener of the world so these are the member people who are the first people the first steering committee which created a system which I I as someone who's now working after so many years I do appreciate their efforts because what happened is they made an institution an institution with a mandate and a program that it has been relevant to its time all during these 40 years that is where we have to help that through going through the projects you will agree with me and this is something very important that how you can make an institution and deal with a certain number of issues but you do not become how should I put it do not become repetitive and that is there no fatigue in it and this not having a fatigue in institutions very important so this what they had is they created a system what the system is that they said okay we're going to give an award to architecture but these are the eligibility criteria the project should be completed because usually there we talk about ideas architects especially they have got always wonderful ideas but there's someone called the client and the users and the builders that they will never let them to realize what the great ideas they've had so what it is that how you can test and see the project which has been completed and so it should be news and you know about it the second thing it says to be have to have a service to the Muslim that was to make it a little bit more focused that was idea of his highness and the third is like like many other projects that anything which is really has got any relations with the jury or the steering committee but it's also the Aga Khan are not eligible so that was very important that he never wanted to say that he is giving an award to himself although as one can see from our websites some of the projects like the hospital project which in Karachi there are exceptional architectural projects like the parks that we have later built etc so all these projects are out so we are it's as an institution that was very important we are not giving anything any awards to ourselves which is great now during the past it's a so what happened is a third a three-year cycle not it started from 1980 and during these years we have had this numbers that you see I love them the four thousand two hundred seventy one project have been nominated you have got the number of winning projects and as you can see these winning projects are in 99 they're coming from 99 different countries the world so these are the countries because although we're talking about that there's an architecture which is done for Muslim societies Muslim society is not people who are coming to few countries which order Islamic conference which is 20 50 countries etc they are spread all over the world and that is where we can see that how that is the sea impact in the history of the world from the beginning today we were discussing what has and that how it was first conceived the first they were idea was that there will be five awards in five different disciplines and that is where the important institution liaising of this award was created the steering committee or the people who run the award they say we want to give five awards that they appointed during the jury said no we don't agree with you we give 15 awards so this is the whole thing that how you can have this dialogue between different people participate in so everybody's participating so the beginning we had 15 awards then later we have got different these are the hundred sixteen that you can see that in the in the last 40 years they have won the award and they are all around the countries that you can see that these are where the winning projects they exist now the award structure how it works as I said there's a steering committee with his chair by his highness but it's rotating so the people are changing all the time they the project are submitted by a network of nominators which is around a thousand people around the world that they are there are confidentially they tell us which projects are to be nominated then we are the projects are selected by an independent jury the steering committee has got nothing with the jury so one of the things I keep telling people is that it's not the Al Khan who's choosing the words it is a totally independent system group of people who are doing that and we have got one thing which is very important that was for the first time ever in any awards architectural even other ones that we had the steering committee the first thing committee introduced a notion of review shortlisting and going and inspecting project that is very essential that was a way that it changed also the mind of the people in the architectural discourse whole thing how you see project the project is has when seen because these the finalist projects which are usually 30 projects 20 projects we sent someone to go and see the project to talk to the architect to talk to the client to talk to the users and inspect not only technically there's the it's leaking or something but it actually works because just the opposite that most people think an architectural project is not a product of one moment that someone creates it and that's it and nobody ever has touched it because that's usually architects love the architecture to be seen like that because this is I always accused the modernist of our time they came with this idea that architecture is something sacred don't touch it before we had up to the modernism we always had that you know buildings were something constantly any each cathedral and every building was just being added and altered and moved and whatever it was the end product but the architects were who are the modernists they say no no no it's very sacred you don't touch anything because you from the now onwards you're not gonna touch my projects anymore at all as well so but what is important is that how the project works if it's really functioning or not and then at the end is that we've got this office which we are administrating though this is the system which was created 40 years ago and still working being the relevance is that the steering committee and the massagerie are always rotating the always new people coming through the system we as we are the people were just running the award if we've been this working this I mean for such a long time but we're just doing the work they are the ones who are bringing new ideas and each cycle the jury and the steering committee and the people they bring new ideas and that's how they rejuvenate the system these are the people who just give you an idea of that being on this this cycles the steering committee the only person who's never changes his highness the outcome the rest they're rotating and then we have got the juries this is the jury members of the cycle this third cycle and it's always composed both the juries and the steering committee of various disciplines it's architects they have to come from different parts of the I mean covering different parts of the world practicing architects academicians and always we have got at least two three non-architects and artists journalists science social scientists because as you can imagine when you're an architectural a member of an architecture jury architects amongst themselves they say oh this is relevant this is good the proportions are good so amongst themselves they've got this understanding that everybody agrees they don't go into the details so when a social scientist see what do you mean it's relevant what do you mean he's got the identity what do you see the proportions they're talking about so when the architects and I've seen that myself and many juries when they want to come and explain why something architecture is interesting to someone who's a non-architect then they start thinking twice and sometimes they change their minds and sometimes I've seen the non-architects they've convinced architects that that project is good or not good at all I've got a slide which is I call it the name dropping slide so these are something like 200 people who have been members of our juries and steering committees now why I'm showing this slide is when you go through them you can see that all the most influential people in the past 50 60 years of architectural discourse they have been involved both in the West and in the developing countries or the rest of the world so there is an anecdote that because I can see the names in the like Peter Eisenman is here or Frank Gary or etc once Peter Eisenman was saying that they asked him how come you've got nothing to do with the Arkham this whole thing of the Arkham Award for architecture that kind of that kind of architecture why you've been on this steering jury and steering committee he was in the jury and then he later he was on the steering committee very active and he said well what happened is I received a call from Frank Gary he told me come there's something interesting you learn a lot so I came because he told me to come and Frank Gary was called by Charles Moore and Charles Moore told him you come he picked up phone say this is jury is very good for you you come and listen to that and again Charles Moore himself came because of the bit Porter and others that you know but what is interesting is that when it when each time that we have got we are inviting jury members to become jury we are asking a lot of their time in one year we are asking around something around 12 days of the minimum 12 days for an architect who has got a big office it's a lot of time so but for example if I want to get Jean Nouvelle to come when I call him I say you I will promise that after attending these 10 days 12 days being with us you will learn something you are not going to a jury like any other jury that you can participate and you just go and you are the one who are giving it's very important for us to have a creative system that the jury members the people who got involved with us for that for them at the end of the day is a learning process as well so these are then the other thing that we have from the very beginning they have a student committee has put that it is not only an award so we've got a series of seminars and ceremonies the seminars are the activities that we go to different parts of the world and it was started in 1977 the first ones and it is to go and talk about an issue an issue of concern for the architectural of that time being housing conservation architectural education journalism criticism I mean there it varies during the different times and always since the beginning they come out at the end with the publication so some of these publications at the time when they came out they were the first ones in there that field because no similar resources were not there then we have got these very wonderful ceremonies why we have having these ceremonies because architecture is one of the issues that the society does not work we talk about they're all concerned they all have it is all impacted but they don't have a chance to talk about it but when in a country you bring the head of the state of that country to an event for one or two days the journalist newspapers everybody talks about an artist so what is very important has been very important from the very beginning for the archival architecture that how you can communicate architecture with the masses it's not only with the very few people in schools or in architects practicing architects because if you can have make create that awareness that one can ask for something better if the more people the more users the more people they will ask a better architecture a better space from the people that they're designing that for them that will be an impact on the built environment in the most cases we can see especially in the developing world the problem of what is what we call it about architect is not only the architect's fault it is the client because by not knowing and just by insisting on certain things the project doesn't come well I think the same thing here in America as well that you've got sometimes not that great clients come to do with you so these are the different ceremonies usually the ceremonies we are doing them in venues which are very important being historic and non-historic to the to the the history of architecture like it was called it so we've had it in Aleppo and Syria or in Alhambra or in Homine's tomb etc now one thing which is very important the ceremony is just not a ceremony to have a big party the next day always we have we create a seminar and in this seminar there will be an occasion for the architects to talk about their projects and also to question the jury members that why did they give an award to this project and also besides be having the big international organization we try to be present as much as we can in the field both in the in the countries in from Asia and Africa but at same time in this main areas the schools of architecture in institutions in the West as well and then also we have got exhibitions because the same exhibition that's it's here we have each cycle the exhibitions in many many different countries and institution because we have come up with a system which is quite easy so it's easy for institutions to read that our exhibition to the cause and it's only for three years it works the the other thing is the publications we do publish every year every three years the award that award cycle now we were talking with professor Holland who she's an artist in the other day that when you look at it the books that are in publish since 1980 the series of the awarded projects when you put them together for now is 13 is 40 years each of them they represent it they represent a period of architecture so all together it becomes the history of contemporary architecture of one part of the world without notice is a byproduct of what has happened now just to give a little ring that what has happened what the Archon Award for architecture has been about the first thing is as become from architecture it's gone to society it's just saying that what is what is the concern is not the architect itself is the society and how we can have that reaction the second thing the Archon Award for architecture is the first international award created before 1970 you had you had AIA gold medal you had RIBA medal you have got wrong but each of them were for that this their own country and usually what happens when you have an AIA medal is this year is my turn next year is your turn so you give it to my son and that's how it goes in each country so the Archon Award for architecture was the first international before Pritzker before any other award now every single website has gotten awards so the number of awards I think are more than the practicing architects that's on the internet so what we did is that made we made something which was national into international the second thing is that it was not a matter of celebration we are not just celebrating some people that what a great job they've done but we have been able to create knowledge this creation of knowledge is through the seminars through the publications and at the same time we have created a reservoir of information that all these four thousand five thousand projects we're talking one of the biggest it is the biggest collection on contemporary architecture in the world now it's easy you go and Google you can find everything but 15 years ago ten years ago that those images those documentation didn't exist but now everything whatever we've done this documenting very regularly are all available as well and then the other thing the last thing was that we went to just addressing the experts to addressing the general public and that was very important as we make it a difference so all this when you put it together that's what we say it's a thinking process it's just not an award-giving we are just using the name award but in fact we are very different to any other award in the world now the whole thing is is just saying that what has makes us a little bit different to the others this is one thing which I'm just going to one is that since its creation I was explained earlier the system has been relevant to his time so that is something which is quite important the second thing is that it has brought on the spectrum of projects now in a 1970s and I'll go back to history for you is very evident in architectural journals and I'm an architect discourse you would not talk much about upgrading if John Turner would write one article somewhere in AD that was a big event but nobody would notice it it was not considered engineering was not a part of architecture infrastructure was not these areas and we were talking architecture was very limited so the award had an impact on the architecture discourse international discourse by bringing these to the attention of people when the almost magazine who's a very design oriented they had the on the front page they had on the cover they put the Mason from Nubia Mason in Egypt when architecture record they gave 20 30 pages I know how many pages 15 pages and they put the slump upgrading in in Jakarta as architecture a lot of people including here in America and other places were just you know there was a kind of an eye-opener because they were not considering these as architecture today's very normal we just talk about it but it was not the norm those days so we have had an impact and making the spectrum of our buildings which is the other thing is that architects and non-architects recognize we have a system that it we're not only just that this is not only architects architects not the only people were built most of the people in a lot of places in the world are built by non-architects and each project is not only the work of an architect it is a collaboration of the architect client the builders all of them together and then the other thing that we have trying to do is to celebrate the with the other words that we celebrate the people in the own country it is very important because you might be recognized somewhere else but you cannot have an impact with the people that you're working daily you have to be recognized in your own country you have to be your mother-in-law should we know that you've been a good player person or your your neighbor etc so that is something we're trying to do and we go and celebrate with the people in their own countries and then one of the other thing is that we brought architecture to a great number of people and I will explain to you how that works the films that we have been producing in the past for example we had in one cycle there were documentaries all kind of world of architecture they went on BBC world they gave us to BBC to say that potentially 900 million have seen these series architecture series for architecture films for each of them half an hour that's a lot for people to know then the same thing goes on aeroplanes etc so in a way that was what we're saying that we've tried we have been able to bring architecture to the attention of non-architects and that's we think it's was being a big force now what is the whole process about I'm going to quickly tell you so first we have got a nomination process we get nominations from people then these projects are documented in the office that we have the first jury meeting that the steering committee and the our account they explain to the jury members what they see as main issues of that period this cycle then the jury goes through a number of projects in the last cycle they went through 300 and I don't know some anything projects and then they choose a number of project we send an expert to go and see it on site have a come back with a full report on it each of these technical reports which are all of them available on one of the sites we called arch net it's very interesting because it's a very thorough documentation of a project and it's available to everyone and then this jury comes back this people who have seen the project they come back and report this is very important because usually experts although you ask them to be objective they can come and be biased in a way or not about the project but when they are presenting the project in person to the jury the jury ask questions first of all they can cross examine them second thing the jury sometimes some of the jury members they've got very specific ways of seeing this project is good or bad the way it is so because someone has seen the first hand and explained to them and has studied them they can change their mind they can be influenced to see that what the things that they never knew about it and that is this period which is two days you can imagine that the people like we had Frank Gary or I'm just going to old guys I mean these people sitting for two days listening to 20 presentations half an hour by someone that is the what I've said that they will learn something when they go out they see that architectures could be seen very differently what they do and at the end we have got the award ceremony so this is the cycle that each cycle the activity that we do and it takes three years now the short list of projects that what you're going to see the exhibition that you have here they are of the for the 19 this cycle there are 19 projects out of these 19 projects six projects which were awarded I will go very quickly through these six projects to just explain to you try to each of them bring about why the why did this project awarded so that why is the most important thing the first thing the first project is a mosque and Dhaka this is a brick mosque the story is very interesting because it is has got the client and the architect are the same so a grandmother in the name of her she had a piece of land asks her granddaughter as an architect to build a project now Bangladesh in they've got a tradition that women do not go to mosque so this is a woman creating a mosque so the mosque has got a series of things that you know usually have domes and minarets etc so first she started convincing people that a space for a contemplation is not doesn't necessarily needs all those elements and as you can see the way that she's worked in the site here maintenance is very important there's only four window panes in this whole building everything is open there's no windows because windows is expensive it's very difficult to keep them so she has created also an entrance how to protect it so when you go as you can see you go around and all of a sudden you come to this so you come through these doors these are all by the way the bearing walls these walls are just the structure it's not so you come here you come through and all of a sudden you come to this space this space is where you see that the difference between the outside and inside you are already in the space of that you can contemplate and it is open and what is interesting because you see it there was a dome that it's a certain that close square you have in the middle on the corners there's no roof to water can rain can come and the air can circulate so these are the kids every morning they come there they have got their classes they go this was the first mosque and it was very interesting that this is a neighborhood mosque which now is becoming a point of reference for people the way that it seemed by people it's not it's a community place it's not only a place of prayer and that has given a very it's it's on the outskirts of Dhaka and it's becoming a very symbolic thing especially that it has been a woman architect doing it what just to give you a little additional information besides giving the people the award which is one million dollars which is we give it to the winners some of that award is a grant the grant is how you disseminate this project so Marina Tabasim who is the architect of this project this semester she's teaching at GSD she's got a course so they are working with the experience of this on a two thousand dollars house with the students that the Harvard students are going to GSD students are going to Bangladesh next week and then we'll come at the end they will be able to build two of these houses so these are the thing that we and now we're going to the from the award side we are helping that process I mean that's giving it to her she's her grant that to using that how she can share her experiences with other people this is again in Bangladesh and it is a called the friendship center it's in rural area and what the architect has done he's has not sunk in the building he's brought a building a little bit with these I'll just show you the build up because of floods usually the floods coming so how you can keep the floods out so these are like sunken so he was inspired that's what we're saying how you inspired by the past and going for the future these are these series of ruins these are some temples very nearby and he's been happy it's kind of a negative architecture so when you go inside these are the spaces that you have is a training center that is used by a lot of people and it is really a spectacular place that I must say and that's where they have that he's got an impact on the social on the society people are using that regularly the third project is in the project with you probably most of you know it's a project by Jean K it's a who tongue in Beijing now this is Beijing as you can see which you know this is the forbidden city Tiananmen Square and this is the mosque it is just there now this is a neighborhood of Beijing which is called the Muslims neighborhood the people have been living here for the past hundreds of years and there's a number of mosques in the neighborhood including this mosque which is next to this who tongue now the who tongue just probably love probably have heard about the story that the price of these who tongues which were this in this courtyard houses in that part of Beijing is something like two three million dollars each of them at least because if you can buy it be able to buy them there but what happened that's during the communist period they gave it to different families so in this house which was a single house many people live there now this who tongue they bought it they have created a two elements inside the building by Jean K that these are the new houses the new elements this one and this one he's built in the middle and the rest they have created a public space these are classes it's his classes classrooms and a library the night and libraries on 9 meter square meters it's very small and it's been now used by people of the neighborhood just one small story I was just one when I was there was asking why you have built here and what is this thing here now this little thing is two meters one half meters by two meters right and they couldn't demolish it because it belongs to a guy who's living in the in the room here because the price of land there is $30,000 square meter and the guy does not let them to do it touches but this complex doesn't have doesn't have a toilet because the who tongues in Beijing they don't have toilets you have to go in the street to the public toilet so in a way it's very interesting to see how come the guy who his room which is 12 meters plus the two meters that he has over there is almost few hundred thousand dollars he lives somewhere he doesn't have a toilet but most of these people they do not want to leave the space because they are they've been living there forever for them a house apartment is 100 kilometers from Beijing that they can buy with this amount of money is not what they want so this is how you can have an impact on the quality of life this is the houses the thing of probably the Jean Ke's project all of you know I think he's very well known he just received another award the other day in Venice Biennale he had built the one-to-one scale model of the same structure now this is another project that it's known to all of you it is in Copenhagen it is done by Bjarke Ingles and not only by him but by him and a group of a landscape architects and artists now what they have done this part of this part of Copenhagen was a part which was very dilapidated there are 60 different communities from different countries they live around here most of them refugees and a big number of them are Muslim communities now what happened that it was a very dangerous area even sometimes the police couldn't go and he has tried he's made into three parts the red part the the red parts they call it the black and the green so what has happened in the past three years since it's been completed four years it is one of the places if you buy if you want to go to Copenhagen it is one of the ten places to in every tourist book says you have to go and see and this is very interesting what they've done they brought here the first thing they did they brought in all the different people on in the community to work with them so it was not a work of Bjarke at this set so they've created these spaces they went and bought with each community they talked to each of the communities and with the artists what they did each of the communities they brought one element of their culture into here so if you can see the more sorry the for example the Moroccans they've brought this this one some of these benches are from another country back that one is from a bus stop of the Kazakhstan they brought it the Palestinians they brought earth the Japanese they've given this this element here the Japanese so each of the different nationalities they've brought an element so it all of a sudden a space which was not owned by the people now it's owned by the people around it and that is how the reason it worked is that Bjarke has worked very closely with the artists with the clients and with all different people working there so this is a way that how you can have an impact on the quality of life of people and it is a project which is done together with the municipality of with the municipality people and the agencies so these are the scenes that you've Bjarke was saying that he's got none none of his project has made him so famous because what happened when they wanted to have the new iPhone the iPhone 7 I don't know iPhone 6 whichever it was the the what they did they had the photograph and the photograph of these lines realized and it was all over from in New York wherever and go in Singapore huge banners of I for Apple with this now the one before the last is a bridge in Tehran this is a bridge which is on three levels is a pedestrian bridge and it connects two parks on two sides it goes over a highway and it what it has done that's one of the places that you can see the vistas of Tehran that you can see the mountains on the other side in three levels you just go from this park to the other park here the bridge is not connecting to two places only the bridge has become a destination it has become a part of the people of the city they all believe it because this park has been in the planning for a long time they can you can come immediately from the south of Tehran with a metro line just go up and come and use this space this is a big part of these two parks it has become accessible but because of this bridge which is a destination on its own there are something like in every I don't know how millions of people have visited this place and every this photograph that I'm showing you on every Thursday Friday which is a weekend in Iran it is as populated there are a lot of restaurants inside because in the three three levels you've got inside and it was a competition which was done and in the competition there were eight enduring companies engineering and one architecture firm that had similar things that they competed and the architecture firm they won this competition so that is how it looks like during the day and the last one is a project by Zaha Hadid the Zaha Hadid project is in Beirut in Beirut there was this campus this is the American University of Beirut a number of these universities were built upon the model of the university campuses in America or coming from Europe so here they had three buildings here one two three and then they wanted to have sorry and they wanted to have the fourth one so the square becomes full at the same time this building was looking toward the sea they didn't want to Zaha Hadid wanted to have the least footprint to make sure that it goes through the people so and also there were all these trees so they created this building it's got a very small footprint it goes up and it's cantilever and it has become a very popular center in the place although the Dean of the university is not very happy with the results because says the building doesn't function as the way that they wanted now these are the where the how the projects are and as I was saying that there is a big ceremony that happens during the ceremony it becomes a national event we were in Dubai last time and what was happy that everybody was happy because the shake of Dubai came to the ceremony and from the where he was sitting he tweeted and everybody saying that you know he's got a in two and a half million people to follow him so that was immediately says I'm here this wonderful architecture event there's so many that's how we get to people thank you very much what is it what I would just tell you because with this what if the things that we've done every single project that we have they have got the two and a half minutes videos I will suggest you to look at these two videos one of the best ways to communicate architecture are these short videos because you can see you can feel the space you understand the people you can listen to the people and here my colleague Max who's here has produced most of these films it is the best way to to say it so I do ask you to go and look at them once you've seen the exhibition thank you very much I've talked more than I should but if you've got any questions please let me know yes yes it is now the difference is that time in at the beginning this nomination was a very elaborate system because you know it was confidential you have to ask the people you have to go and record to meet the people to know to believe in them we have been continuing the same system but that now what we've added to that is that we have a kind of a way that every single person can send their project to us but it doesn't mean that necessarily these projects will be submitted to the jury because projects coming from different people different nations they've got different behaviors some are pushy some are not pushy some they show they are for example I just give two examples an Indonesian would never submit his project just because culturally it doesn't work if he's done the best project he would never he would never submit some other person's project either because this way he's pushing someone else the Chinese they put that would put their project five times they send it to you if you say so you see there's a difference the small difference so in order for us to make sure that we've done justice to everyone and we get there so we have got nominations we ask people to nominate they can nominate even their own projects if they want but those people who are nominators the rest of the projects is that other people can send us projects but we send these projects to the nominators in that country on that field and they will say which one of these projects are good usually we get something around 500 nominations out of these 500 nominations something like 400 are eligible and they can be they will be documented and amongst these and you know one shouldn't forget we really have got oranges and apples we've got I mean landscape projects we've got restoration we've got the small villa and when you look at the hundred sixteen there are all these different kinds of projects so it's really is important the second thing is that we have come about giving an award to ideas which were very new old project but new ideas like when the project in 1995 came the reforestation of Middle East technical University in Ankara so it's a reforestation project and we as an office we were not sure that this should be eligible or not is this architecture it's not architecture so after service because of the person who was nominated he was a professor of Mehto that we really had believed that he's things but we presented it we presented it went through and it's just you know it's really little architecture if you want but the technical review they went and saw it they did not give the landscaping of the campus itself which was done by a very prominent Turkish architect they give it to the landscaping and it was Charles Jenks then I remember he was on the jury and they created that by just not aligning the encroachment but just creating this lung you have created an urban space which that urban space is shaping that society in that place so all of a sudden you know something which was had nothing to do nobody ever meant from the public we never had a criticism that reforestation is not architecture so this is what's interesting to the role of nominators because they can tell you because they can see sometimes something very very important the other thing is that the jury is also they can choose what they want to give an award to one example in Jakarta we had the Jakarta airport Jakarta airport was built by the a robot the party which is one of the most sophisticated airport builders and it was given when we send the technical reviewer the ticket reviewers they went and came back but the jury some of the jury members were not very happy with the quality of the architecture I mean this is because it was you know they didn't like so what they looked like about it so what they gave they gave an award to the landscaping into integration of landscaping in airport design it was the first airport that you had landscaping on the airside because usually in airports all the landscaping is on the land side it's not on the airside so this was the first one because when you enter in those triangles first you enter in a small garden although they had some problem with these gardens would bring some birds and then we had to do by the way a part of this work that we do in to see the projects we had to go and see that it's really true that the birds will have any impact on that or not because you know the rumors you hear those rumors that this doesn't work because it's bringing all the room all the birds so the airplanes will have problems which is not correct good thank you