The Aga Khan Museum is set to open to the public this Thursday and already international press is taking note.
"Almost 20 years in the making, the Toronto site is the work of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture which, like a mini Unesco, runs an impressive programme of historic conservation of Islamic architecture around the world and a respected triennial architecture award. The 10,000-square-metre building is the new home for the Aga Khan’s spectacular hoard of Islamic art, more than 1,000 artefacts spanning three continents over 10 centuries, and is the first museum in North America dedicated to the subject," writes
the Guardian.
The Guardian offers a review and history of the Aga Khan Museum and the neighbouring Ismaili Centre. Both were unveiled last week. Prime Minister Stephen Harper and 77-year-old spiritual leader Aga Khan attended.
The account is quite descriptive.
"The museum is a monolithic shed, its canted walls giving it the look of a gigantic packing box that has been flipped open, with sharply chiselled skylights sliced into its crisp limestone skin. Across a vast pond-studded courtyard, the Ismaili Centre is a cluster of low-slung sandstone buildings, from which emerges a translucent pyramidal roof, ramping up at an angle as if pointing towards the stars. Together, they form an enigmatic complex that has the look of a cosmic observatory, or some mysterious lunar fortress."
Read the full story
here.
Original Source: The Guardian