THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS GRAND VALLEY CHAPTER EXPLORES THE RICH AND VARIED ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY OF MODERN CAIRO

CHAPTER HOSTS MIT PROFESSOR OF ISLAMIC ARCHITECTURE, DR. NASSER RABBAT, APRIL 15 IN GRAND RAPIDS

 As part of its sponsorship of the Treasures of Ancient Egypt exhibit at the Public Museum of Grand Rapids, The Grand Valley Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA Grand Valley) will present Competing Architectural Identities of Modern Cairo on Saturday, April 15, 2006 from 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. in the Meijer Theater at the Van Andel Museum Center in Grand Rapids.  Special guest speaker for the event will be MIT Professor of Islamic Architecture, Dr. Nasser Rabbat. The public is invited.  Attendees will have the option of combining the program with lunch and access to the Treasures of Ancient Egypt exhibit.

The Architecture of Cairo went through a series of ontological phases from the middle of the nineteenth century to the present. Its designers developed hybrid styles that borrowed freely from the varied repertoires of the past and blended them with various European forms. Examples range from romantic mélanges of historical forms, to postmodern projects which freely re-interpret historical motifs. Today, Cairo is unquestionably a metropolis with one of the richest and most varied modern architectural heritage.  In spite of this, architectural gems remain largely unknown to the world’s architectural community due to a host of reasons including disciplinary haughtiness exacerbated by ignorance and the late-twentieth-century population explosion in the city and its concomitant urban degradation.

Nasser Rabbat is the Aga Khan Professor of Islamic Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he has taught since 1991. His scholarly interests comprise the history and historiography of Islamic art, architecture, and urbanism, and post-colonial criticism. Professor Rabbat has authored numerous books, publishes articles in specialized scholarly journals, and regularly contributes to a number of Arabic newspapers and journals on art, architectural, critical and cultural issues. He serves on the boards of various organizations concerned with Islamic cultures, lectures extensively in the US and abroad, and maintains several websites focused on Islamic Architecture.

The program is sponsored by AIA Grand Valley, Lincoln Brick, and The Public Museum of Grand Rapids.