2012 Governor General’s Medals in Architecture: Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat: Architecture of Peace and Plurality

Maki and Associates | Moriyama & Teshima Architects, (Toronto, ON)

Lead design architects: Ted Teshima, FRAIC, Diarmuid Nash, FRAIC, Fumihiko Maki, Gary Kamemoto

On a prominent site in Ottawa, this secular facility conceived by the Aga Khan as a sanctuary for peace, diplomacy and global pluralism, powerfully expresses its mission through an architectural “bridging of dichotomies”: modernity + tradition, light + dark, indoor + outdoor, west + east. Clad in luminous crystallized glass panels, the Delegation Building focuses upon two symbolic meeting spaces—the glass-ceilinged Atrium, inspired by natural stone crystals and Islamic geometries, and the open-air Courtyard, inspired by Chahar-Bagh, the traditional Persian-Islamic walled garden.

http://raic.org/honours_and_awards/awards_gg_medals/2012recipients/ismailiimamat_e.htm
http://raic.org/honours_and_awards/awards_gg_medals/2012recipients/index_e.htm
Related: http://www.theismaili.org/cms/1362/