Article date 4/1985
CHRISTOPHER LONG visits the Aga Khan’s religious and cultural centre for his 8,000 Ismaili followers in Britain.
Perhaps all along there had been some divine architectural destiny for the Thurloe Place site. When the Aga Khan first saw it as a potential location for a religious and cultural centre for his 8,000 Ismaili followers in Britain, it did not escape his attention that the triangular plot conveniently faces south-east not so much towards Knightsbridge as towards Mecca. But at the same time he was acutely aware that establishing the very first Ismaili centre in the Western world on such an important site as this was fraught with potential hazards.
How would Londoners react to a small, little-known and little-understood religious community taking over such a prestigious position at the centre of the institutional and cultural heart of Britain? Furthermore, what sort of building could possibly answer the needs of both the Ismailis and the English?
Ismailimail 