Seventeenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

The Aga Khan Museum brings together the designs of architects from Japan, India, and Lebanon and the Toronto firm of Moriyama & Teshima. The Museum is the first of its kind in North America that focuses on arts of Islam and its relationship to other traditions and cultures around the world. For the purpose of this unit, we focus on the Aga Khan Museum. The architect of the Aga Khan Museum, Fumihiko Maki, worked in collaboration with His Highness the Aga Khan and came up with the theme of “light.” The light that flows through Maki’s building, or that radiates from so many of the objects exhibited, is a metaphor of the understanding and tolerance the Museum aims to encourage (Monreal, 2014,10). For this study, I introduce participants to traditional and contemporary Islamic Design through exploring the Aga Khan. We explore how students create their own architectural structures online and through 3D models inspired by the theme of light used in the Aga Khan Museum.