“Do not accept everything in your environment. Ask critical questions. Criticism should not, as has unfortunately become commonplace in many Islamic nations today, be misunderstood as disloyalty. It is critical for our society’s survival,” the Aga Khan tells a group of invited Malaysian architecture students at a special seminar the next day.
By Erich Follath in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
In 1977 Karim Aga Khan IV, the leader of the Nizari Ismailis, established what is now the world’s mostly heavily endowed prize for architecture. At a recent awards ceremony in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur, the prize was awarded to a number of very different, socially relevant buildings: a showcase university, a market and a school made of bamboo and mud.
The prize-winners on stage here at the elegant concert hall at the Petronas twin towers in the Malaysian capital look like a cross-section of the world’s population. These men and women represent every region of the world, every social class and every age group. Despite the obvious pride in their faces and the perspiration from excitement, some look as though they feel uncomfortable in the flurry of the photographers’ flashes.
Complete at SPIEGEL
Ismailimail 