During the 1994-95 academic year, the central office continued its communications and outreach work for the program. Internal communication between and among students, faculty, staff, and the Harvard and MIT communities functioned through the AKPIA monthly calendar, which alerted the community of program activities, staff travel, program meetings, and special events. A lecture series at MIT was organized each semester by Aga Khan Professor Attilio Petruccioli. The fall series consisted of five speakers: Jan Pieper ,Technische Hochschule, Aachen, Germany; Mahvash Alemi, University of Rome; Ivor Samuels, Joint Centre for Urban Design at Oxford Brooke University; Abdullah Hanna, Damascus and Aleppo Universities; and Heinz Gaube, Orientalisches Seminar der Universität Tübingen, Germany. The spring semester lecture series was titled "Casbah and Medina: Islamic Towns of the Mediterranean," and the speakers were: Amir Pasic, Research Centre for Islamic History, Art and Culture, Istanbul; Susan Miller, Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University; Serge Santelli, School of Architecture at Paris-Belleville; André Raymond, University of Provence, Aix-en-Provence; and Maurice Cerasi, University of Genoa. Other lectures were given by AKP Visiting Scholar Shakeel Hossain, Moroccan architect Mohamed Fawzi Zniber, Algerian architect Latifa Chouider, and Enrico Genovesi of the University of Rome.
Two international conferences were organized by Aga Khan Professor Attilio Petruccioli, sponsored by the AKPIA, and held at MIT. The fall conference, "From Place to Type: Theory and Design of Gardens During the Time of Great Muslim Empires," brought together experts in the field such as Jim Wescoat, University of Colorado; Mirka Benes, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University; Robert D. McChesney, New York University; Maria Eva Subtelny, University of Toronto; John Dixon Hunt, University of Pennsylvania; Mahvash Alemi; Ebba Koch, University of Vienna; D. Fairchild Ruggles and Claudia Lazzaro, Cornell University; and Aga Khan Professor Gülru Necipoglu, Harvard University. The spring conference, "Typological Process and Design Theory," presented Serge Santelli; Giuseppe Strappa, the University of Bari, Italy; Karl Kropf, University of Birmingham; Anne Vernez Moudon, University of Washington; Maurice Cerasi; Francesco Giovanetti, Municipality of Rome; and Giancarlo Cataldi, University of Florence. Professor Petruccioli presented at both conferences.
The central office was pivotal in planning, preparing, and fundraising for the "Mostar 2004" workshop that was held in Istanbul from 25 July to 25 August. The workshop was conceived by Dr. Amir Pasic, 1994 AKP Visiting Scholar. The purpose of the workshop was to prepare an urban restoration plan and methodology of approach for the first stage of restoration of Mostar's Old Town through the participation and assistance of an international, multicultural group of students and professionals working together. Professors Bozdogan and Petruccioli participated in the international seminar that took place at IRCICA and Yildiz University.
In September, Barbro Ek, AKPIA director for over six years, left to become Associate Director of the Program in Islamic Legal Studies at the Harvard Law School. Aga Khan Professor Attilio Petruccioli, who had joined the MIT architecture faculty in February of 1994, was named acting director of the Program. Due to a reduction in Program funding, Denise Heintze, administrative officer for five years, and support staff Deborah Kreuze left the Program. Renée Caso, administrative assistant, and Robert Marlatt, part-time senior office assistant, remained to assist the new acting director with Program administration and professorial support.
Margaret Sevcenko, AKPIA publications coordinator and staff member of the Program since its inception in 1979, retired in June. Ms. Sevcenko was largely responsible for the high quality of all the AKPIA publications, including the eleven published volumes of Muqarnas.
Assistant Professor Sibel Bozdogan was on leave spending part of the year in Turkey doing research and part of the year in Massachusetts writing a new book. She also co-edited the manuscript that was a product of the AKPIA-sponsored 1994 conference "Rethinking the Project of Modernity in Turkey."
In May, Professor Petruccioli traveled to Japan to receive the prestigious Iichiko Prize for cultural study established by Editions Iichiko to foster advanced and interdisciplinary research in the field of cultural and social science. His book Fathpur Sikri was chosen as the 1995 prize winner.
Student reflection and debate focused on both practical and theoretical issues concerning the architecture characteristic of non-western societies. Students were encouraged to compare traditional Islamic architectural forms and structures with those developed after the spread and application of Western ideas in modern times. They considered appropriate responses to climate, building materials, and building technology as well as the socio-cultural attitudes and values that directly relate inhabitants to their environment.
Students participated in a level III architectural design studio on Islamic societies led by Professor Petruccioli as well as a course on architecture in urban contexts entitled "Traditions, Conflict, and Change." Professors Petruccioli and Goethert Reinhard offered a studio, "Mapping Cities through Typologies: Essaouira, Morocco." The studio included two weeks of field research in Essaouira and concluded with a two-day roundtable discussion co-sponsored by the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University and an exhibition from which a student publication was produced. Professor Petruccioli also taught "Special Problems in Non-Western Architecture: Learning from the Urban Fabric," a course that introduced students to the method and theory of typological processes.
Assistant Professor in the History of Islamic Architecture Nasser Rabbat offered "Religious Architecture and Islamic Cultures" and "The Making of the Discourse on Islamic Architecture" in the fall. The first was offered as a HASS course and the second as an Architecture and Culture methods class. In the spring, he offered "The Architecture of Cairo," also a HASS course, and "Issues in Islamic Urbanism." During the year, Professor Rabbat put the final touches on his book, "The Citadel of Cairo: A New Interpretation of Royal Mamluk Architecture," which is to be published by E. J. Brill in Leiden, Netherlands in the fall of 1995.
The AKP librarians at Harvard and MIT worked together to formulate a resource packet, complete with guidelines, for setting up an academic collection on Islamic architecture. Originally formulated to assist building the collections at the parallel centers in Jordan and Karachi, the packet should be of use to all architectural libraries in the Muslim world.
The Program's major publication is an annual volume of essays on art and architectural history entitled Muqarnas, published by E. J. Brill in Leiden. This year, Publications Coordinator Margaret Sevcenko saw to completion Muqarnas 11 and completed editing the manuscripts of Muqarnas 12 and 13.
Renée A. Caso
MIT Reports to the President 1994-95