Aga Khan museum: A global symbol of light, pluralism and culture

Light unites the world, and now clever architecture has delivered a building in Canada based on it is a metaphor for global accord.

Created as a pillar for global pluralism, the building that houses the newly established Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, holds knowledge from far places and far times in a package of beauty and innovation.

The museum, which opened to the public on September 18, is North America’s first devoted to Islamic art and culture. It has a permanent collection of more than 1,000 objects that include portraits, miniatures, manuscripts, textiles, ceramics, books, tiles, medical texts and musical instruments, all showcasing Islamic art, culture and history.

These objects are storied evidence of cultural interactions spreading from Spain to China and spanning 1,400 years. There are items from Spain, Sicily, Africa, the Balkans, Central Asia, China, India, and Southeast Asia, some of which travelled great distances via land on the Silk Road or on water as part of the spice trade.

Part of a three-unit composite, the $300 million museum sits next-door to the also newly built Ismaili Community Centre — two structures in eternal dialogue.

Well-reputed landscape art author Dede Fairchild Ruggles, who is also a professor of landscape history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, had an interesting description of the museum and the centre:

“These singular buildings gaze at each other across large formal gardens that capture elements of each building and extend them into the outdoors….The striking beauty of the design is in the formal gardens at the heart of the park. They are composed of a series of axial views directed across a tightly controlled series of horizontal ground planes, a visual experience that is enhanced by the sensory experience of scent and sound.”

A global dialogue is apparent. The park and gardens uniting the two buildings, are the work of award-winning Lebanese landscape architect Vladimir Djurovic. The museum was designed by renowned Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki, and the Ismaili Community Centre was done by celebrated Indian architect Charles Correa.

The complex not only relied on the wide world for its architects, it did too for its materials. It is surrounded by 13-metre-tall double-glass walls etched with mashrabiya patterns.

The museum’s floor features an intricate tri-colour mosaic comprised of construction-grade lapis from Namibia, limestone from France, and the same white Brazilian granite found on the museum’s exterior cladding.

The museum’s interiors are made of concrete, steel, aluminium panelling, Italian sandstone, patterned glass, stone mosaic floors, polished black granite, Indonesian teak, polished plaster and cast zinc.

Its design was driven by the concept of light. Maki, the architect, achieved this by inviting direct and diffuse light into the building in various ingenious ways.

The building is positioned 45 degrees to solar north to ensure that all exterior surfaces receive natural light. At the same time, angular walls of white Brazilian granite, a material chosen for its resilience and luminosity, enhance the play of light across the building’s surfaces.

Put together over eight years, it is dedicated to presenting a synopsis of the artistic, intellectual and scientific inputs by Muslim civilisations into the heritage of humanity.

Inspired by the Aga Khan, who is the 49th hereditary Imam (spiritual leader) of the Shia Ismaili Muslims, the museum is situated in Canada to urge dialogue and exposition of knowledge among the world’s peoples. Hence, its architecture uses the figurative power of natural light given its equalising effect on all cultures and religions.

“From the outside, this building glows by day and by night, lit by the sun and the moon. The Divine Light of the Creator is reflected in the glow of individual human inspiration,” said the Ismaili leader.

As a global leader, the Aga Khan has been urging different communities of the world to seek knowledge of each other’s cultures and traditions. He has called this pluralism. The museum is seen as yet another beacon to this end.

The Ismaili leader said the museum’s focus on the arts of Islam makes it “something of a unique institution in North America, which will contribute, we hope, to a better understanding of Muslim civilisations — and especially of both the plurality within Islam itself and Islam’s relationship to other traditions.”

He sees it as a place for sharing stories through art and artefacts of highly diverse achievements going back more than 1,400 years, while honouring the central place within Muslim civilisations of the search for knowledge and beauty.

“It illuminates both the inspiration that Muslim artists have drawn from their faith, as from the wide and varied array of epics, of stories that recount or reflect the human condition with the universal themes of love and loss, of joy and despair, common to all civilisations at all times,” said the Aga Khan.

Knowledge gap

The museum is yet another effort to fill the gaps of knowledge between the West and the East, as the Ismaili leader believes the world will be a better place, and have space for all, if only people understood each other’s cultures better.

“One of the lessons we have learnt in recent years is that the world of Islam and the Western world need to work together much more effectively at building mutual understanding — especially as these cultures interact and intermingle more actively,” said the Aga Khan.

“We hope that this museum will contribute to a better understanding of the peoples of Islam in all of their religious, ethnic, linguistic, and social diversity.”

The Aga Khan Museum’s director, Henry Kim, described it as having an international outlook and was home to “astonishingly beautiful” works of art: “It will showcase the artistic creativity and achievements of Muslim civilisations from Spain to China.”

Speaking when he and the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper jointly officiated at the launch of the museum on September 12, the Aga Khan said the museum will help foster global friendship across cultures in a world full of hostilities.

“These spaces will be filled with sounds of enrichment, dialogue and warm human rapport, as Ismailis and non-Ismailis, Muslims and non-Muslims, share their lives in a healthy, gregarious spirit,” he said.

Mr Harper said that as the first museum in North America devoted to Islamic art, the Aga Khan Museum will help promote an understanding of a religion that is based on tolerance and pluralism.

The PM praised the Ismaili spiritual leader’s role in “demystifying Islam... by stressing its social traditions of peace, of tolerance and of pluralism.”

The museum was established and developed by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC), which is an agency of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN).

In the same network is the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development (AKFED), which also owns shares in the Nation Media Group.